The Coalition, Labor, and the Greens are making substantial commitments to projects that not only lack proper business cases, but are not even on the Infrastructure Australia priority list at all.
Without long-term solutions to the imbalance between incomes and house prices, Gen Ys face a lifetime of renting without the financial and emotional security of home ownership.
Transit value capture is used in Hong Kong.
Flickr/Kin
The 2016 articulation of an urban agenda assumes building more highways, railways and trams will produce better, more productive cities that somehow give everyone a job.
A 17th-century folding screen depicting the early Edo period on the site of modern-day Tokyo.
Wikipedia
Edo, which gave rise to Tokyo, was also the world’s largest city three centuries ago. Facing ecological collapse, Edo developed a culture and practices that supported sustainable living.
A chance to shine: festivals bring fringe benefits.
Paula Bailey/Flickr
Forget the main stage headliners, the real festival heroes might be selling you crocodile burgers and mango smoothies.
A national housing policy is needed that recognises how all the sectors – buying, renting, investing, social housing or homeless – are connected.
AAP/Paul Miller
A decent national housing policy is not just about the million or so Australians who are in housing need, marginal housing or homeless. In reality, all the housing sectors are connected.
The Southeast Queensland Regional Plan’s revision will include engagement of the community.
Colin Russo
A long-term plan can’t properly underpin a vision without engaging many of Southeast Queensland’s stakeholders and visitors or without the use of appropriate futures methods.
Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is one of the fastest-growing cities in the world despite its ranking as one of the ‘least liveable’.
mariusz kluzniak/flickr
Bringing significant benefits to an emergent middle class, Dhaka’s cultural, economic, environmental and political landscapes are being rapidly but unevenly transformed.
The White Bay Power Station is a prime harbourside redevelopment site.
Wikimedia Commons
The fact that the NSW government has stepped in to take back control of the White Bay redevelopment is actually an amazing story. One would hope this is a process of learning at work.
Sparrows are one of the five most common birds in Australian cities.
Sparrow image from www.shutterstock.com
It’s easy to get excited about smart city technology – but we need to think through the human consequences.
Much of the ‘smart cities’ rhetoric is dominated by the economic, with little reference to the natural world and its plight.
Ase from www.shutterstock.com
The rhetoric of ‘smart cities’ is dominated by the economic, with little reference to the natural world and its plight. Truly smart and resilient cities need to be more in tune with the planet.
A seemingly purified city is not necessarily a healthy or diverse one.
AAP/Paul Miller
Heightening liquor regulation has for centuries been the immediate response of urban policymakers when confronted with people and behaviours deemed socially undesirable.
Almost one in three older Australians would like to downsize to reduce the demands of maintaining their garden, but many can’t find alternative homes to suit their needs.
Pierdelune from www.shutterstock.com
Open public spaces are good for mind and body – we shouldn’t have to pay to use them.
The regulation of drinking has helped create precisely the violent, misogynistic and law-breaking culture that it was intended to control.
John Brack/Wikimedia Commons
Since the earliest days of British colonisation, authorities have sought to limit the problems associated with alcohol by licensing its sale and limiting the times and places where it is drunk.
Rather than create regulatory frameworks that allow innovations to thrive, governments have created hurdles to transformative applications like Uber or Airbnb.
Torrenegra/flickr
Carlo Ratti, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Governments too often hinder change, when instead they should aim to foster an organic innovation ecosystem. This is more about bottom-up innovation than top-down schemas.
Key discussion points are captured during one of the forums that helped develop the Resilient Melbourne Strategy.
City of Melbourne
The story of the Builders Labourers Federation campaigns that saved historic locations and green spaces in the 1970s still speaks to contemporary Australians’ concerns about urban development.
Brisbane aspires to be a truly smart and connected city.
Marcus Foth
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.
Jane Jacobs holds up documentary evidence at a 1961 press conference during the campaign to save the West Village.
Wikimedia Commons
In an age of data-driven urban science, we need to remember how Jane Jacobs gave voice to the multiple languages, meanings, experiences and knowledge systems of a vibrant city.
The UK’s ‘City Deals’ have been claimed as responsible for the renaissance of Greater Manchester.
Naeem Tilly