We began with Urbanisation and asked: are cities the agents of landcover change and if so is this change significant?

We used satellite images to survey change during the last two decades in the capital cities. We used census data to help interpret what we saw. The census data testified to continuing overall population growth, though the absolute and relative rates of growth vary between cities. Australia is an urbanised country and the level of urbanisation is increasing.

For all cities the satellite data indicated landcover change, from agriculture to urban, as the outlying residential areas continued to expand. This urban expansion differed significantly between the capital cities both in the area that was observed and its spatial pattern, but one thing is now common: All the cities are now Car Cities.

The growth of our cities has many economic, political, social and ecological ramifications for the surrounding countryside. The ecological ramifications - the landcover change as the urban areas subsume their surrounds - was our focus. The irreversible conversion of agricultural to urban landcover is still occurring. Nonetheless, as all city and rural dwellers alike will come to realise, it is the economic, political and social ramifications of the continuing growth of cities that are the most critical issues to confront.

We examined two extremes in future prospects of cities: Cairo and Dallas-Fort Worth. Both confront the prospect of catastrophe. The future of Australia's cities lies somewhere between these two extremes and is a matter of choice. In Australia we have the time to change, as well as the political and technological capacity to effect that change. All that is needed is the recognition that change is necessary, now.