Scott Morrison has been exploring a UK model for channelling investment via a specialist financial intermediary into new affordable housing provided by landlords with a social purpose. It makes sense.
With one of the world’s largest infrastructure pipelines, Australian governments could leverage their procurement spending power to benefit the communities where the work is done.
The new NSW premier is right to identify housing affordability as a priority for the people and economy of Sydney. It’s not just housing supply that’s the problem – action is needed on many fronts.
Rebekah Brown, Monash University; Karin Leder, Monash University, and Tony Wong, Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities
A five-year project announced today will implement an innovative water-sensitive approach tailored to informal settlements. The goal is to revitalise 24 communities in Fiji and Indonesia.
State revenue offices are using data matching to identify people who earn income from Airbnb, then sending notices that they may be liable for land tax, even though this remains a legal grey area.
Bans are ineffective when used against populations that have nowhere else to go. Importantly, research shows that punitive approaches to the homeless cost more than supported housing strategies.
Federal politicians and the public like the idea of abolishing the states. But consider the likely result: a more powerful Canberra, with regional governments amounting to glorified shire councils.
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.
Carlo Ratti, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Physical exercise was once primarily an open-air activity, until gym training and monitoring took hold. Digital devices and augmented reality now offer the freedom to head out into the city again.
Most of our hospitals were not designed to cope with the health impacts of future extreme weather. And hospital infrastructure has not been adapted to secure health care during such events.
Outside the capital cities and the coastal fringes, the towns and people of rural and regional Australia have had to be inventive to get through the tough times.