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This paper is part of a project designed to investigate the extent to which urban communities that include significant populations of disadvantaged citizens are engaging in community-based strategies centred on learning and the contribution of vocational education and training (VET) organisations. The project included a research forum on urban disadvantage and learning communities at which invited speakers were asked to contribute an account of their experience and understanding of learning communities to a ‘focus on implications for the role of VET in building learning communities’. The author, executive director of Adult Learning Australia (ALA), outlines the common objectives for learning communities and a core set of learning community characteristics found in the academic and policy literature. He goes on to summarise the reasons why most Australian learning towns/cities/shires are located in regional areas, what they do, and how they have made good use of international experience.