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Articles on Cities & Policy

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One of the successful outcomes of being part of 100 Resilient Cities is Living Melbourne: our metropolitan urban forest, a newly released strategy to increase vegetation cover in the city. Shutterstock

What next after 100 Resilient Cities funding ends?

Melbourne and Sydney are members of 100 Resilient CIties, which the Rockefeller Foundation has said it will no longer fund. So what has the global network achieved? And what can we learn from this?
Too many Australians struggle to get their housing maintained and problems fixed. Trevor Charles Graham/Shutterstock

Chilly house? Mouldy rooms? Here’s how to improve low-income renters’ access to decent housing

Having quality housing matters. What’s standing in the way of ensuring every Australian has housing that meets basic comfort and health standards? And how can we overcome these problems?
Analysing big data can tell us how a big city ticks, including where suitable housing and jobs are, and how best to get to them. LIPING/Shutterstock

How big data can help residents find transport, jobs and homes that work for them

We have learnt to be wary of big data, but it can also be your friend: one platform combines and analyses data about housing, jobs and transport to reveal very useful information about living in Perth.
Oceanix, a proposed floating city, has captured the attention of the UN. OCEANIX/BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group

Floating cities: the future or a washed-up idea?

Floating cities are back on the agenda, with the UN recently hosting a meeting on the subject. The latest in a long line of proposals since the ‘50s was unveiled, but just how feasible is the idea?
Policies focused on ownership do little to help lower-income households that are struggling to pay the rent. Iakov Filimonov/Shutterstock

Housing affordability has improved slightly, but people on lower incomes will continue to struggle

The policy focus remains on home ownership, but a new survey shows slight improvements in affordability do little to help people on low incomes. Their plight calls for better social housing policy.
Floral tributes form a makeshift memorial to Courtney Herron, whose body was found in Royal Park, Melbourne, on Saturday. David Crosling/AAP

Carelessly linking crime to being homeless adds to the harmful stigma

Media coverage often uses the label ‘homeless’ in ways that link the plight of tens of thousands of Australians to criminality. But a homeless person is much more likely to be vulnerable than violent.
The Northern Territory government is expanding the CCTV surveillance network. Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Is China’s social credit system coming to Australia?

Darwin is one of the aspiring ‘smart cities’ that is adopting Chinese technology that can identify and track individuals. Add changes in Australian law, and we have the makings of a surveillance state.
Bright light does not necessarily make a space feel safer, as seen here where there’s a sharp drop-off into dark shadows at the edge of the path. grafxart/Shutterstock

More lighting alone does not create safer cities. Look at what research with young women tells us

Bright lighting alone does not make a space feel safe. It can blind and disorientate and create dark shadows at the edges. Tellingly, ‘unsafe’ places had much higher illuminance than ‘safe’ places.
Scott Morrison talked about first home buyers during the election campaign, but had little to say about social housing. Mick Tsikas/AAP

Is this a housing system that cares? That’s the question for Australians and their new government

The Morrison government, having added a housing minister to its ranks, needs to recognise housing as having more than just economic value. Its impact on our ability to give and receive care is critical.
Tongans gathered in the Sunraysia centre of Mildura to celebrate the Tongan team’s victory over Lebanon in the Rugby League World Cup in November 2017.

The forgotten people in Australia’s regional settlement policy are Pacific Islander residents

A greater focus on the well-established migrant populations and second-generation youth is crucial when planning for the social and economic well-being of rural and regional areas.
Venice is among the cities that have had public protests against soaring numbers of tourists – including this protest banner on the Rialto bridge. Andrea Merola/EPA/AAP

Rethinking tourism so the locals actually benefit from hosting visitors

The future of tourism depends on ensuring visitors do not wear out their welcome. Giving locals more of a say in tourism can help ensure they share in the benefits and minimise the costs.
Sydney CBD is highly accessible and remains clearly the dominant centre in the metropolitan region. Holli/Shutterstock

How close is Sydney to the vision of creating three 30-minute cities?

When a city gets to a certain size, it starts to make sense to have multiple centres of activity, and three are planned for Sydney. So what needs to be done to bring the city closer to this goal?
As one of the fastest-growing cities in the developed world, Melbourne’s suburban sprawl has many costs. Nils Versemann/Shutterstock

Rapid growth is widening Melbourne’s social and economic divide

State and local governments can’t do much about the rapid population growth in Melbourne, but they can take steps to reduce the costs of growing disparities between the outer suburbs and inner city.
New housing estates on the city fringes might be soulless, cookie-cutter developments, but communities can invest them with layers of meaning that create a sense of place. Lukas Coch/AAP

How to turn a housing development into a place where people feel they belong

A sense of place matters for people and communities. When a suburb is created from scratch, close attention needs to be paid to the cues from the landscape and meanings people attach to the area.
Landcorp’s WGV residential development in Fremantle is demonstrating the benefits of making the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Josh Byrne & Associates

Cutting cities’ emissions does have economic benefits – and these ultimately outweigh the costs

The debate about the transition away from fossil fuels has focused on costs, but right here in Australia we have examples of the benefits of sustainable new energy sources for our cities.
When most inner-city apartment residents don’t use cars to get around, you can expect public transport to feel the impacts of new developments. Eric FIscher/Wikimedia

Crowded trains? Planning focus on cars misses new apartment impacts

Traffic impact assessments required of major building developments mainly focus on the movement of cars, but these account for only 30-40% of trips by inner-city apartment dwellers.

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