Appendixes > Glossary

A - B - C :: E - F - G :: H - I - K :: L - M - N :: P - R - S :: T - U - V - W

A - B - C
Term	Definition
Activity centres	Provide the focus for services, employment and social interaction in cities and towns. They are where people shop, work, meet, relax and often live. Usually well-served by public transport, they range in size and intensity of use from local neighbourhood strip shopping centres to traditional universities and major regional malls.
Affordable housing	Well-located housing, appropriate to the needs of a given household, where the cost (whether mortgage repayment or rent) is no more than 30 per cent of that household's income. Exceeding the mark places one under 'housing stress', particularly in the lower 40 per cent of the income distribution scale.
Biosolids	Stabilised organic solids derived from sewage treatment processes that can be managed and used safely for nutrient, soil conditioning, energy or other value.
Broadband services	Communications that send several different channels of digital information down a wire at the same time, or use a wider range of frequencies to transmit a single data stream. Broadband is often referred to as 'high bandwidth' and is applied to technologies such as cable Internet, where it allows constant connection.
Catchment	An area of land where run-off from rainfall goes into one river system.
Central Activities District	Metropolitan Melbourne's largest activity centre with the greatest variety of uses and functions, and the most intense concentration of development. It includes the Central Business District, Docklands, the Sport and Entertainment Precinct, the Knowledge Precinct, the Arts Precinct, and Southbank.
Central Business District	Melbourne's gridded original street layout designed by Robert Hoddle bounded by the Yarra River, Spring Street, La Trobe Street and Spencer Street, as well as the triangular area to the north bounded by Victoria, Peel and La Trobe Streets. This is part of the larger Central Activities District.
Central Melbourne	Those parts of the cities of Melbourne, Yarra and Port Phillip with a capital city function.
Corridors	Main road/rail transport routes linking key cities, towns or other land uses (and see Metropolitan radial corridors, Regional corridors).
Community capacity building	The process of accumulation of human, financial and social capital within disadvantaged communities.

E - F - G
Term	Definition
Ecological footprint	A way of measuring human impact on natural systems.
Ecologically Sustainable Development	Development that improves the total quality of life, now and in the future, in a way that maintains the ecological processes on which life depends.
Freight corridors	Routes that carry significant volumes of freight (greater than two million tonnes each year).
Fringe	Areas of the city that border on non-urban areas or the 'edge' (loosely defined) of the built-up urban area.
Greenfield site	Undeveloped land identified for residential or industrial/commercial development, generally on the fringe of the metropolitan area.
Greenhouse effect	The warming of the earth's surface caused by greenhouse gases in the lower atmosphere. These gases regulate the earth's temperature – making it capable of sustaining life – by retaining some of the heat that otherwise would radiate back into space.
Greenhouse gases	The most prominent greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide (mainly from the burning of fossil fuels and land clearing), methane and nitrous oxide.
Green wedges	The non-urban areas that provide opportunities for infrastructure that supports urban areas (such as airports). They safeguard agricultural uses, preserve rural and scenic landscapes, non-renewable resources and natural areas including water catchments, and provide opportunities for tourism, recreation and a network of open space.
Grey water (or sullage)	Waste water from showers, baths, handbasins, laundries and kitchens.
Growth areas	Areas on the fringe of metropolitan Melbourne around major regional transport corridors that are designated for large-scale change, over many years, from rural to urban use. The new communities of the future will be located in growth areas, with housing, shopping, employment, parks and other features of urban life.

H - I - K
Term	Definition
Heritage	Aesthetic, historic, scientific or social value for past, present or future generations.
Higher-density housing	Housing units on a given area of land that are more numerous than the average in the surrounding locality.
Hinterland	The broader area within the economic sphere of influence of a settlement.
Incompatible land uses	Land uses that have negative effects on adjacent land uses.
Innovation economy	An economy in which research, knowledge, technology skills and innovation underpin the competitiveness of traditional sectors (such as mining and agriculture) and of emerging sectors. The term is more encompassing than 'knowledge economy', and is about new processes, practices and ways of doing things, locally and internationally.
Interface councils	A self-formed grouping of fringe municipalities including Wyndham, Melton, Hume, Whittlesea, Nillumbik, Yarra Ranges, Cardinia, and Mornington Peninsula.
Knowledge workers	People who work with information and turn it into new ideas, concepts or products.

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