The government’s focus on treating chronic disease neglects the importance of obesity and the benefits of preventive health measures tailored to gender and socioeconomic circumstances.
A special tax paid for the Gold Coast light rail. But there is another way.
Bahnfrend/Wikimedia Commons
Much of the infrastructure Australia needs will be funded by “value capture” – raising tax revenue by boosting land values. Some have decried it as a tax hike in all but name, but it isn’t really.
The budget doesn’t provide either the infrastructure investment or financing details needed to flesh out the Smart Cities Plan.
AAP/Mal Fairclough
The budget paints a picture of higher debt, little relief for growing cities crying out for infrastructure investment, and no detail of how City Deals might work to fix this.
Ballooning borrowing to invest in the housing market is impeding investment in the real economy, holding back investment in skills and jobs, and driving up inequality.
Living in supported smart technology homes is liberating for young people with disability who would otherwise be trapped in unsuitable nursing homes.
Fred Kroh/Summer Foundation
Thousands of young people with disability who end up in nursing homes lead lives of isolation and boredom. Better and smarter housing finance and support options are at last being developed.
Malcolm Turnbull outlines his vision of ‘City Deals’ that enable ‘smart cities’ to drive growth in the new economy.
AAP/Lukas Coch
The Turnbull government sees the ‘City Deal’ as a way for ‘smart cities’ to drive innovation and growth. But what is the value proposition behind this UK concept and how might it work in Australia?
As machinery demolishes houses behind them, Jakarta police evict residents from the settlement of Luar Batang in April.
Reuters/Beawiharta Beawiharta
The world’s informal settlements are growing at an unprecedented rate, with about one in four urban dwellers living in slums. We need to rethink how we view and deal with these people and places.
The EVA Lanxmeer development in the Netherlands provides a model for how to incorporate green infrastructure in all aspects of the planning process.
Tony Matthews
Green infrastructure can be delivered relatively easily using existing planning processes. The main obstacle could be psychological: planners are wary of disruption to embedded practices.
People enjoy the green space of parks, but often their activities are of a fairly passive nature.
AAP/Bimal Sharma
Parks are found in most neighbourhoods, generally free to use and are enjoyed by diverse groups. Although most visitors don’t use parks for physical activity, modest improvements can change that.
Governments need not only to create affordable housing, but to keep it affordable in the long run.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
Some common misapprehensions remain about who needs affordable housing and how those needs might be met.
Some materials and surfaces radiate much more heat (red areas) than others, as can be seen in this thermal image of Arncliffe Street in Wolli Creek, Sydney.
Hot spots occur at the scale of where people live – the building, the street, the block – which means urban design and building materials have profound implications for our health and well-being.
The common brushtail possum has made itself well at home in Australia’s cities.
Possum image from www.shutterstock.com
We need to move away from thinking about the skyscraper as an “icon”. Instead, we should be asking how the tall building – which will always “stand out” – can also “fit in” to cities.
Melbourne is one of the fastest-growing cities in the developed world, and the other big Australian cities aren’t far behind.
AAP/David Crosling
With the failures of past planning now apparent, the unruly threat of a damaged and depleting planet is ushering us toward a fourth era of urban restructuring. What might City v4.0 look like?
In his ministerial reshuffle earlier this year, Malcolm Turnbull made Angus Taylor, an up-and-coming Liberal MP, the assistant minister for cities and digital transformation.
A park, in this case Hyde Park in Sydney, is one of the easiest and most accessible ways to engage with nature in the city.
Lucy Taylor
Nature is dispersed through our cities, even if we don’t notice it. And there’s abundant evidence that engaging with nature, even in urban settings, is good for us.
Continued development of our cities is putting pressure on urban green spaces.
AAP/David Crosling
Achieving green cities will require more than just canopy cover targets and central city strategies. It will need new approaches to urban planning and development.
Central to Sydney’s congestion problem is the journey-to-work rat race in the city’s western suburbs like Blacktown.
AAP/Dean Lewins
Sydney, as a whole, is lurching toward an urban structure where its transportation problems are impossible to solve. The only alternative is to create new centres of employment.