In this paper, the peri-urban is conceptualised as a territory to analyse the tensions associated with governments pursuing various agendas in isolation from those inhabiting these spaces. Two peri-urban vignettes are drawn together and Taylor’s conception of a ‘social imaginary’ is used to recognise the conundrum for government planners, as well as to support the narratives about the social and ecological meaning of what local in-migrants are doing in the landscape. A resilience framework assists in clarifying system boundaries and the concept of social-ecological memory is used to interrogate how practices emerge within the various social imaginaries. The findings emphasise that this combination of tropes assists in acknowledging the rich, social imaginaries of local people ‘making’ the new landscapes. It is argued that acknowledging and incorporating their interests requires engaging with local networks and, more strategically, conceding that the social imaginaries of the peri-urban can be co-constructed for other strategic landscape outcomes.