Marine restoration has increased globally, particularly during the current United Nations Decade on Restoration. Many restoration practices are species- or habitat-specific, tend to sit under one ecotone and are at relatively small scales of ≤10 ha. In terrestrial realms, and few marine exemplars, land- or sea-scape scale restoration is built upon long-term multidisciplinary research and development. In some cases, large spatial scale restoration has not been fully successful, with failed biodiversity targets and promotion of monospecies as habitat formers. Habitat restoration in all environments tends to be acting as a trailblazing conservation activity, but, best practice for restoration success tends to be many steps behind. In urban environments, there are significantly more challenges to habitat restoration due to legacy and ongoing anthropogenic pressures. Here, we provide an example of the Adelaide metropolitan coastline, where significant habitat loss (e.g. seagrass) occurred with industrialisation and urbanisation. Improved coastal management did regain ~12,000 ha of seagrass in recent decades, but the complexities of hydrodynamics, sediment stabilisation and urban catchment inputs remain. We discuss the challenging task ahead as we attempt to shift the paradigm to incorporate ongoing anthropogenic-related stressors in restoration design of urban coastlines, where traditional approaches alone have halted restoration success.