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Articles on Urban policy

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At Tolhuistuin, the government provides the land, old building stock and a maintenance budget for a fixed period while the creatives develop the precinct themselves. Maurice Mikkers/flickr

Create to regenerate: cities tap into talent for urban renewal

When municipal or state governments join forces with smaller creative communities to shape urban regeneration the results can be far-reaching.
Melbourne is being transformed by high-rise apartments, with some even being purpose-built for the Airbnb market. Jorge Láscar/flickr

How Airbnb is reshaping our cities

If the sharing economy is here to stay, planners and designers must respond with imagination to spread the positive effects of the tourism economy for the benefit of residents as well as tourists.
PARKing Day in Montreal, 2015. Amelia Thorpe

A day for turning parking spaces into pop-up parks

This Friday is the 11th PARKing Day, when people pay a parking meter, then turn the space into a pop-up parklet. It’s a day that invites citizens to rethink the city and their place in it.
Public protests forced a backdown on a proposed merger of university art schools, but their value to cities is still being underestimated. Joel Carrett/AAP

Why arts schools matter, not just for art’s sake but for urban renewal in Sydney and other cities

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.
By persuading some drivers to travel a different route or at a different time, congestion charges can dramatically improve the flow of traffic. AAP/Andrew Brownbill

How to make cities work better – here’s what the government needs to do

Bigger cities increase wages, output and innovation, but also problems of congestion and pollution. Congestion charges can minimise these problems by dramatically improving traffic flows.
In addition to a shortage of public toilets, current innovations in their design may not be suitable for an ageing population. AAP/City of Sydney

Caught short: we need to talk about public toilets

Millions of people need to be confident that suitable public toilets will be available when they leave their homes. A shortage of such facilities is a serious problem for an ageing population.
Melbourne is powered by the coal-fired stations of Gippsland, which illustrates the problems with any urban strategy that neglects regional roles and interests. AAP/Julian Smith

‘The urban’: a concept under stress in an interconnected world

City-centric thinking arguably obscures connections between ‘humans’ and ‘nature’, and ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ or ‘wild’. Growing evidence of the depths of these links is testing the concept of ‘urban’.
Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is one of the fastest-growing cities in the world despite its ranking as one of the ‘least liveable’. mariusz kluzniak/flickr

Signals from the noise of urban innovation in the world’s ‘second-least-liveable’ city

Bringing significant benefits to an emergent middle class, Dhaka’s cultural, economic, environmental and political landscapes are being rapidly but unevenly transformed.
Much of the ‘smart cities’ rhetoric is dominated by the economic, with little reference to the natural world and its plight. Ase from www.shutterstock.com

Taking the city’s pulse: we need to link urban vitality back to the planet

The rhetoric of ‘smart cities’ is dominated by the economic, with little reference to the natural world and its plight. Truly smart and resilient cities need to be more in tune with the planet.
Jane Jacobs holds up documentary evidence at a 1961 press conference during the campaign to save the West Village. Wikimedia Commons

What might Jane Jacobs say about smart cities?

In an age of data-driven urban science, we need to remember how Jane Jacobs gave voice to the multiple languages, meanings, experiences and knowledge systems of a vibrant city.
Opponents of projects are often scorned as NIMBYs, but active citizenship and local consultation are key elements in creating a city that works well for as many people as possible. Teresa Parker/AAP

30-minute city’? Not in my backyard! Smart Cities Plan must let people have their say

Cities are home to many different people who will not always agree. We need to learn to embrace public debate as an ongoing, constructive process for working through diverse views and values.
Mature gum trees will be important for visual amenity among the higher-density residences being built to house a population growing at 5.1% a year for the next two decades. AAP/McGregor Coxall

Move over suburbia, Green Square offers new norm for urban living

The Green Square urban renewal area – expected to be Sydney’s most densely populated area by 2030 – represents a new paradigm of urban living.
Streetlife density in Florence – urban buzz or overcrowding? Kim Dovey

Urban density matters – but what does it mean?

One person’s high density may be another’s sprawl; the same tall building may be experienced as oppressive or exhilarating; a “good crowd” for one can be “overcrowded” for another.
While state and territory leaders will be partners, Malcolm Turnbull’s government intends to be the driver of a national policy for Australia’s cities. AAP/Lukas Coch

New name, new look for latest national urban policy, but same old problem

The Turnbull government’s cities policy is the latest incarnation of ‘the-Commonwealth-knows-best’ approach, with little regard for whether urban issues are best resolved at the metropolitan level.

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