Review of SOAC 2025 in Brisbane: Australasian cities at the crossroads

In December 2025, Brisbane became the meeting point for a wide community of urban scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and industry representatives as it hosted the State of Australasian Cities (SOAC) Conference. Under the theme Australasian Cities at the Crossroads: Navigating Legacy, Innovation and Sustainability, the conference created a timely forum for reflecting on the pressures reshaping contemporary urban life in the Australasia region. Organized collaboratively by The Queensland University of Technology, The University of Queensland, and Griffith University, the event opened up conversations about climate change, housing affordability, urban governance, infrastructure transitions, and social inequality. Its scale was significant: 379 delegates, 224 oral presentations, four keynote addresses, and participants from 109 organizations across Australia and eight other countries, demonstrating the expanding reach and interdisciplinary character of urban scholarship (Absolute Events & Marketing and Australasian City Research Network Citation2026).This review follows the central conversations that emerged across the conference, tracing how participants engaged with questions of sustainable urban development, governance reform, social inclusion, and urban resilience across Australasian cities. Brisbane provided more than a backdrop to these debates. As the future host of the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the city embodied many of the tensions discussed throughout the event: the promise of large-scale infrastructure investment, the risks of uneven urban transformation, the urgency of housing affordability, the need for mobility transitions, and the importance of long-term legacy planning.