Book excerpt: This collection of essays highlights current debates for cities undergoing urban renewal, focussing on regional cities as places that lead change. Like many regional cities, Geelong is grappling with the legacy of its industrial architectural heritage and identity. This in-depth study of the city of Geelong examines theories and realities - from the speculative to the mundane – critical to change pre-empted by deindustrialisation. While this book argues that architecture and the built environment are key to urban renewal, an intersectional perspective on Geelong as a place raises contested pasts and territories. This brings attention to the dispossession of First Nations people by British colonisers, as well as the exploitation of immigrant communities in industrial production. Informed by positions on design futures, decolonising and cultural urbanisms, adaptive re-use and the post-industrial city, the chapters in this book expand an interdisciplinary field relevant to scholars and practitioners in heritage and conservation, urban design, community engagement and place-making more generally.