Planner Imaginaries of Industrial Land: Established, Emerging, Eroding

This paper examines how planners imagine the needs of urban industrial land amid competing economic and policy pressures. Drawing on interviews with professional planners in Australia, we identify three competing imaginaries: (1) industrial land as protected space for conventional industrial uses; (2) industrial land as supporting emerging forms of industrial activity; and (3) a reframing of industrial land as ‘employment land’, where economic productivity supersedes industry-specific protections. These imaginaries coexist uneasily, creating policy tensions and ambiguity, highlighting a need for critical and adaptive engagement with urban policy to support industrial and economic activity amidst changing urban landscapes.