In 1961, autodidact urbanologist Jane Jacobs forever changed how we understood our cities. ‘Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody,’ she wrote in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, ‘only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.’

More than half a century later, her then-contentious argument – that the real life of a city emerges from the ground up – is a widely accepted wisdom.

Even so, in Melbourne and elsewhere, top-heavy developments are struggling to address urban planning problems like long-term homelessness, under-utilisation of public space and the socioeconomic fracturing of inner-city communities.

However, there are citizens, architects, artists and planners are working to change that. Whether it’s ‘tiny houses’, radically accessible public art spaces or ‘tactical urbanism’, there’s a growing movement devoted to exploring how low-cost, playful, and often impermanent forms of living can improve the lives of city-dwellers in meaningful ways.

RRR broadcaster and former editor of small footprint living bible Assemble Papers Sara Savage is joined by a panel of guests, including Mimi Zeiger, Millie Cattlin and Jessica Christiansen-Franks, for a discussion of engaged, practical city-making with a sense of play. 

(Self-Made City is part of the Open House Melbourne program: What Would Jane Do?, and presented in partnership with Open House Melbourne.)

'There is always another history or a more private story underneath the public face of any city, of any suburb,' wrote Sophie Cunningham in her acclaimed 2011 book, Melbourne. In Cunningham’s latest project, she continues to excavate these histories, and Melbourne’s shifting boundaries.

What is the history and logic of the current boundaries of the City of Melbourne, and what do we discover when we walk them? Where were the borders, limits and landmarks of the area pre-colonisation, and do they relate in any way to the boundary lines we have today? How do we manage resources, like water, that don’t care about boundaries at all?

Writer Sophie Cunningham and photographer Dianna Wells have been walking and documenting the defining boundaries of the City of Melbourne as part of the city’s Arts Grants program. Join them for a fascinating discussion with historian Gary Presland and water engineer Professor Tony Wong.

Sophie Cunningham, Tony Wong, Dianna Wells and Gary Presland

The overwhelming majority of Australians say they care deeply about our built heritage, but recent battles over heritage listed Melbourne properties reveal that the protection and preservation of our buildings is fraught.

Grass-roots campaigns to preserve local landmarks – like Bourke Street’s Palace Theatre or Carlton’s Corkman Irish Pub – have tended to focus overwhelmingly on the social significance of our favourite sites, but such battles are often prone to failure. As it stands, it’s highly unlikely that a community’s emotional investment alone is enough to save a building from the march of progress.

Emma Telfer, Stuart Macintyre, Chris Johnston and Marcus Westbury

Is the bar for ‘heritage protection’ – which must include proof of the historic, aesthetic, social or scientific significance of a site – set too high? Should some buildings be saved simply because of what they mean to us … and how do we measure the strength of a community’s emotional attachment to a building, anyway? What happens to perfectly preserved buildings that sit dormant due to rigid heritage controls? When a site is protected, what happens next?

Open House Melbourne’s Emma Telfer joins panelists including Stuart Macintyre, Chris Johnston and Marcus Westbury for a discussion of what’s worth saving.