Two years of marathon negotiations have finally yielded agreement in last-minute meetings in New York on the New Urban Agenda to be adopted at the Habitat III summit in Quito in October.
Charging people to drive has been the dream of policy wonks – serving politicians tend to see it as political poison. So when federal minister Paul Fletcher raises it, that’s a step forward.
The draft agenda for the UN urban development conference in Quito neglects the food systems on which the wellbeing of the world’s 4 billion city dwellers depends.
Income poverty statistics tell us relatively little about why Australian children live in poverty, or how to alleviate it. But housing plays a critical part in the problem.
Hayley Henderson, The University of Melbourne; Alexei Trundle, The University of Melbourne; André Stephan, The University of Melbourne; Hesam Kamalipour, The University of Melbourne, and Melanie Lowe, The University of Melbourne
More than 25,000 delegates will meet in Quito in October to set out a New Urban Agenda for the UN, to be implemented over the next 20 years. But Australia is yet to play a major role in the process.
Businesses have traded on graffiti and the air of edginess that draws visitors to Melbourne’s laneways. But they draw the line at sharing space with the homeless, whose right to the city is denied.
Hangzhou is hosting the G20 summit and China is anxious to present a positive picture of the country to the world, but the official attitude to non-compliant citizens isn’t helping.
New research finds almost a million Australians are living in poor or very poor-quality housing, with more than 100,000 in dwellings regarded as very poor or derelict.
Emerging research challenges the idea that sustainable housing is unaffordable. It shows sustainability and good design can be affordable when analyses include social, health and wellbeing benefits.
Eye-tracking technology helps us understand how people interact with their environment. This can improve policy and design, but can also be a tool for surveillance and control.
Cities seeking to attract creative industries have relied heavily on the cluster concept. New research suggests a technology-driven transformation of how the sector works calls for a new approach.
Are penalty rates no longer relevant in the retail industry — and do they cost jobs? Recent research compared two neighbouring states where one raised rates to the other’s level to find the answer.
Landlords and property agents often apply ‘no pets’ rules even though many households see them as part of the family. Their difficulty in finding rental housing then becomes a source of great stress.
Imagine cities competed to eliminate hunger, poverty, unemployment, crime and greenhouse emissions, and to offer housing and transport for all. Don’t scoff – urban planning was once an Olympic event.
New technologies do not exist in a vacuum. To succeed, new transport technology needs to match the ways we want to move around cities and be accommodated by laws and regulations.
Might we enjoy our homes more if their rooms were characterised by their sense of loftiness or intimacy or cheerfulness or melancholy rather than lifeless labels such as ‘media room’ or ‘home office’?
Reliable data about the homeless population is vital when developing policy, allocating funding and developing services for vulnerable people. But first the census needs to find them.
Art schools are emerging globally as very powerful instruments of urban renewal. In a time of transformation, Sydney must learn to tap into the value of having multiple art colleges.