The Melbourne suburb of Richmond is prime inner-city real estate, but the community is paying a price for redevelopment that jars with the existing neighbourhood.
The increasing global focus on essential services and public space as a key combination for successful city-making is relevant to fast-growing Australian cities too.
Many factors have influenced population density change in Australian cities over the past 30 years. Melbourne has led the way in inner-city rebirth as a way to help manage future growth.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It’s a project that creates benefits for Melbourne’s western suburbs and the state as a whole. But the inner-city elite don’t like it and recent experience suggests their opinion holds sway.
A citizens’ jury has been working to refresh the Future Melbourne strategy. It’s part of a broader shift from government decision-making for communities to decision-making with communities.
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.
Australia’s Smart Cities Plan largely conveys a limited role for people: they live, work and consume. This neglects the rich body of work calling for better human engagement in smart cities.
Kim Dovey, The University of Melbourne and Elek Pafka, The University of Melbourne
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.
Victoria’s volcanic plains offer fertile ground for grasslands teeming with wildflowers. But that same fertility has also made the plains a tempting target for grazers and growers, and developers too.
Pro-bike policies can boost local business. In one Melbourne case study, the average hourly retail spending from six bikes was $97.20 compared to $27 from one car occupying an equivalent space.