Dorina Pojani on the Courier Mail: The fall of Kelvin Grove Urban Village

2 Jul 2025

Despite being overseas on a research fellowship, UQ | UP member Dorina Pojani remains an active voice in Australia’s planning discourse. In a recent media interview, she weighed in on the decline of Brisbane’s Kelvin Grove urban village — a project once celebrated for its promise of mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly living.

Today, that promise appears to be faltering: shops are shuttered, lease signs dominate windows, and high-profile tenants have left. Dorina points to structural issues underpinning the problem.

Unlike Sydney or Melbourne, which boast well-established and organically formed urban villages, Brisbane’s newer attempts require a different recipe for success. These sorts of urban villages need foot traffic, a certain threshold of locals, she explained. Otherwise you need an attractor and have to provide a lot of parking to make them work.

Unlike South Bank or Queen Street Mall, Kelvin Grove was never meant to serve a wide regional population. Its design was centred around local residents — a strategy now being tested under economic pressure.

Read the full article on the Courier Mail website.

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