As well as the added costs of upgrades and options that the marketing glosses over, people need to consider five other sources of cost blow-outs when building a home.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on Better Cities
Displaying 1 - 20 of 378 articles
A project in Melbourne’s Royal Park has proved city parks and streets can be used as sites for nature repair that help endangered ecosystems and species to survive.
We’re still waiting for Australian cities to ensure public venues are fully accessible – and when that happens it won’t just be people with disabilities who’ll be better off.
Urban mining recovers valuable resources from the vast amounts of waste cities produce.
The rapid shift in our electricity system calls for a huge increase in the workforce needed to construct, operate and maintain it. Urgent action on building up this workforce is needed.
Whether it’s electric two-wheelers or trucks, buses or bicycles, electric vehicles in India are hard to miss.
We examined how households in Victoria cope with, adapt to and endure summer heatwaves. Most took a short-term view. A more sophisticated, long-term approach to managing heatwaves is needed.
Despite loud calls for tough policing of e-scooters and even outright bans, the problems can be better managed with technology and public education.
The High Speed Rail Authority has publicly outlined plans that allow for some optimism that Australia could have these trains in the late 2030s.
Limiting or scrapping negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount would help take the heat out of the market and give the government much more money to invest in social housing.
There’s a risk that the belief that electric vehicles are much greener results in owners driving more often or faster, or using cars instead of public transport.
Energy storage really is the special sauce that makes renewables work anytime, anywhere – and everywhere. This makes the most of the existing electricity network, including transmission lines.
Shared e-scooters are much more regulated and monitored than privately owned e-scooters, which are likely to pose greater risks as a result.
The current Lord Mayor of Melbourne has said if re-elected he would sell the City of Melbourne’s majority stake in Regent Theatre. What could this mean for the community?
We’ve just finished a three-year investigation into how we can rebuild Australians’ trust in residential building construction – including the strata management industry. Here’s where we’d start.
Think of single-phase power as a single-lane road. It’s enough to handle regular household appliances. Three-phase power is more like a three-lane highway. It’s designed to handle much heavier loads.
There are thousands of disused graveyards that could provide crowded cities with essential public green space.
Better urban planning can help stem the loss of birds by protecting and connecting the areas of habitat they need to survive.
We know what needs to be done, but it depends on the political will to act. And some states and territories have failed to adopt actions to improve housing quality that were agreed in 2022.
The parking of e-scooters is a source of fierce debate, but technology offers a solution to control the problem.
Job Board
-
Administration Lead
-
Economics Editor
-
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Strategy and Services)
-
Chief People & Culture Officer
-
Lecturer / Senior Lecturer in Construction and Project Management
Top contributors
-
Associate Professor, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University
-
Associate Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research & Innovation, College of Design & Social Context, RMIT University
-
Professor of Housing Research and Policy, and Associate Director, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
-
Professor of Future Urban Mobility, Swinburne University of Technology
-
Professor of Housing Research, University of Adelaide
-
Alan Morris is a Friend of The Conversation.
Professor, Institute for Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney
-
Adjunct Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Technology Sydney
-
Honorary Professor of Planning, The University of Queensland
-
Research Associate, Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology
-
Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University
-
Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
-
Adjunct Research Fellow, The University of Western Australia
-
Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Retailing and Consumer Behaviour, University of Tasmania
-
Professor of Housing & Social Policy, Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology
-
Senior Lecturer, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University
