Public toilets are an essential amenity, but most of them aren’t places we’d want to go to unless we have to. What does the failure to provide more restful and inviting places say about us?
A new report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows home ownership rates have collapsed: today, just one in four middle-income millennials will own their own home.
Four major disruptions of urban transport are set to transform city life, but exactly how remains uncertain.
Taras Makarenko/Pexels
Self-driving, shared, electric vehicles and increasing urban density represent four disruptions that will transform city life. But a transport utopia isn’t a guaranteed outcome of their interactions.
The scene of the crime: an estate in England.
Shutterstock.
Done right, a plaza can bring life and a sense of identity to an area. So why has urban design in Australia neglected the town square in favour of green space, and what makes for a successful one?
African cities are failing to raise development funds through bond markets.
Australia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gillian Bird, makes a statement at the 2016 Habitat III conference, where the New Urban Agenda was adopted.
Alexei Trundle
Australia and other United Nations member states signed up to the New Urban Agenda more than a year ago. But how well is health being integrated into sustainable urban development?
New affordable housing development in Melbourne.
Ryan van den Nouwelant
Based on research comparing projects across the country, a new assessment tool calculates cost-effective ways to fund affordable housing to meet specified needs in different markets.
Representatives of nations around the world have come together to discuss how to achieve the New Urban Agenda. Collective political will is needed, but the Australian government didn’t show up.
Nurses who care for people in the city can’t afford a property anywhere near their place of work.
didesign021/Shutterstock
People on moderate incomes, including police and emergency workers, have been forced to seek housing on the city fringes, far from their places of work. But there are ways to reverse this trend.
King tides now regularly breach seawalls meant to protect Torres Strait Island communities, and it happened again last week.
Suzanne Long/AAP
King tides and rising seas are an increasing and predictable threat, but adaptation plans to limit the damage to coastal property are still not managing the political obstacles.
Paris “under water” and other European cities facing drastic climate change should trigger planners to think urban spaces differently.
S.Faric/Flickr
Dagmar Haase, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ
In the future, Europe will suffer from more heat waves as well as extreme rainfall, presenting new challenges for planners and health care services. Building resilient cities can help.
Much of the traffic using Sydney’s Anzac Bridge and, in the distance, Harbour Bridge is travelling through the city centre, not to it or from it.
Rob Roggema
One potential benefit of WestConnex, which remains untouched, is that it could relieve Sydney’s city centre from cars and make it more pedestrian-friendly.
Children’s right to play outdoors depends on them having access to safe and inclusive public spaces.
For a public space to be seen as safe, welcoming and accessible, a diverse range of people need to actively use it. That’s why any space-changing project needs to engage broadly with the community.
New York soon may charge a fee to drive into central Manhattan as a way of reducing traffic and raising funds for public transit. An urban scholar says this step is overdue in the United States.
Only in a few active travel strongholds, typically in the inner city, do Australian cycling and walking rates get close to those in Europe.
Andrew Robinson/Flickr
A comparison of Australian cities reveals cyclists and walkers are still very much a minority of commuters, despite the economic, health and environmental costs. Action on three fronts is needed.