What is the inner city?

We all use the term “inner city” but I doubt we’re all talking about the same geographical area.

For some people, the inner city means the area where cafe society thrives – probably a 10 km circle around the CBD in cities like Sydney and Melbourne. Or it might mean the extent of medium density historic terrace housing.

Some Brisbanites think of the inner city as the large area covered by the Brisbane City Council (1,367 km²) while some Melburnians think of it as the area serviced by tram lines.

Planners have addressed this problem by adopting simple measures. For example, in Melbourne the inner city is customarily defined as the area covered by the central municipalities of Melbourne, Yarra and Port Phillip (77 km²). Sometimes the Prahran portion (SLA) of the City of Stonnington is also included.

In my work on Melbourne I define the inner city as the area (79 km²) within a 5 km radius of the City Hall . This approximates closely to the three inner municipalities, but I use it because it’s consistent with what’s done elsewhere. US researchers typically use a 3 mile radius to define the inner city – an area approximating the size of the central Counties of the larger metros.

There are a number of problems with this sort of ‘administrative’ approach. A key one is that there is no underlying rationale for where the boundary is drawn – why not 2 km or 10 km? Another is that it doesn’t really connect with people because it has no obvious reference like, say, the tram network. Read the rest of this entry »