The Queensland government’s interpretation of public housing transfers conflicts with that of Labor colleagues federally and in some other states.
AAP/Dan Peled
Given its flagship status, the Logan public housing project’s abandonment could be a serious setback for Australian housing and urban policy.
The Western Distributor project announced by the Andrews government will benefit Melbourne’s suburban residents in the west and north, but inner-city elites are mobilising against it.
AAP/Melissa Meehan
It’s a project that creates benefits for Melbourne’s western suburbs and the state as a whole. But the inner-city elite don’t like it and recent experience suggests their opinion holds sway.
How people conceive of their city’s future is important in shaping how the city’s future unfolds.
Zachary Powson/500px.com
With foresight, we can steer our cities closer to the future we want instead of the futures we fear.
In a citizens’ jury, difficult issues are passionately but respectfully discussed by a cross-section of people from the community.
NHS Citizen Assembly
A citizens’ jury has been working to refresh the Future Melbourne strategy. It’s part of a broader shift from government decision-making for communities to decision-making with communities.
China has the most extensive high-speed rail network in the world, which has helped reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Jason Lee/Reuters
High-speed rail is now a well-established technology and Australia needs it, as long as the project ticks all the boxes needed to deliver both private and public benefits.
In Australia, a small but growing cadre of residents is experimenting with hacktivism in planning. Giving a voice to real people living in everyday places can help ensure planning meets public needs.
From its earliest days, the influx of outsiders created the distinctive urban character that has driven the development of Shanghai into a modern metropolis.
Wenjie, Zhang/flickr
From its earliest days as a haven for refugees, Shanghai developed a distinctive character and urban identity that have driven its emergence as one of the world’s great metropolises.
By persuading some drivers to travel a different route or at a different time, congestion charges can dramatically improve the flow of traffic.
AAP/Andrew Brownbill
Bigger cities increase wages, output and innovation, but also problems of congestion and pollution. Congestion charges can minimise these problems by dramatically improving traffic flows.
Online and offline activism are merging, as recognised by this protest against the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Twitter
Not only do healthy, well-maintained trees provide shade and benefit the ecosystem, they can have a meaningful social impact: people in newly greened neighbourhoods start to look out for each other.
There’s a lot to consider before you can be sure a shipping container home is your best affordable housing option.
Nicolás Boullosa/flickr
Have you thought about usable space, re-engineering, structural integrity, contamination, insulation and comfort? If not, you need to before jumping into building a home from shipping containers.
Uber may open cities from taxi oligopolies, but ultimately it closes them off to the possibility of more meaningful alternatives.
Scott L/flickr
Millions of people need to be confident that suitable public toilets will be available when they leave their homes. A shortage of such facilities is a serious problem for an ageing population.
Melbourne is powered by the coal-fired stations of Gippsland, which illustrates the problems with any urban strategy that neglects regional roles and interests.
AAP/Julian Smith
City-centric thinking arguably obscures connections between ‘humans’ and ‘nature’, and ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ or ‘wild’. Growing evidence of the depths of these links is testing the concept of ‘urban’.
Despite Malcolm Turnbull’s enthusiasm for public transport, the Coalition tends to favour road projects over rail.
AAP/Lukas Coch
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.
On average, Gen Ys are $50,000 short of the deposit they expect they’ll need to buy their first home.
Lolostock from www.shutterstock.com
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 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.