Future Melbourne podcast turns to Lygon Street’s past, present and future

The latest episode of Future Melbourne turns to one of Melbourne’s most recognisable main streets, with Carlton Inc. president Sergio Alderuccio joining the podcast to unpack the changing identity of Lygon St and ask what comes next for the city’s so-called Little Italy.

Hosted by Hyperlocal News publisher and editor Sean Car, the new episode explores Lygon Street as both a place of deep memory and a precinct now facing many of the same pressures confronting high streets across Melbourne.

For generations, Lygon Street has occupied a special place in the city’s imagination. It has been synonymous with Melbourne’s café culture, Italian migration, outdoor dining and major public celebration. But as the conversation makes clear, the street is no longer one simple story. It remains iconic, but it is also evolving.

Alderuccio, who leads Carlton’s main trader association, brings both personal connection and on-the-ground knowledge to the discussion. The episode traces the street’s rise from postwar migrant hub to cultural institution, revisiting its golden years of packed restaurants, street festas and unforgettable scenes such as World Cup celebrations spilling into the boulevard.

The conversation also broadens beyond food, touching on the wider identity of the precinct as a place shaped by arts, books, ideas and performance, with institutions such as Readings, Cinema Nova, La Mama and the Museo Italiano all forming part of the broader Lygon Street story.

But much of the episode is focused on the present and future.

Like many traditional shopping strips, Lygon Street is grappling with changing foot traffic, shifting spending habits, business turnover, vacancies, cleanliness and safety concerns. The discussion examines how those pressures are playing out differently across various sections of the street, and whether the centre of gravity has shifted in recent years.

One of the key questions raised is whether Lygon Street is still “Little Italy” in any simple sense. As new cultures and cuisines reshape parts of the strip, especially toward the southern end, the episode asks what that phrase really means in 2026, and whether preserving identity should mean holding the street in time or allowing it to evolve while keeping its soul intact.

The role of Carlton Inc. also features strongly, with discussion around trader support, precinct activation, the Lygon Street Market, and efforts to bring traders and residents into closer alignment around the future of the strip.

The possibility of reviving the much-loved Lygon Street Festa is another major theme, framed not just as an events question but as a broader test of whether the precinct can reclaim some of its former civic and cultural energy.

As with earlier episodes in the Future Melbourne series, the discussion aims to move beyond nostalgia and into something more useful: a conversation about identity, adaptation and what it takes to keep a great Melbourne street alive.

Previous episodes have explored Queen Victoria Market, the city economy, Docklands, housing, city safety and Arden-Macaulay, with guests including Matt Elliott, Stephen Mayne, Jamal Hakim, Rob Pradolin, Dale Huntington and Rohan Leppert.

The latest episode of Future Melbourne is available online now, with the full video also available on YouTube.