A key problem with working out the impacts of negative gearing is that we don’t know exactly which properties it affects or the status of their tenants.
AAP/Dan Peled
What if there was a middle option between retention and abolition that made negative gearing work better? There are multiple ways to improve accountability for this $8 billion-a-year tax concession.
Research shows that elevated rail, like this design for Moreland station, has many advantages.
Evelyn Hartojo, Melbourne School of Design
Elevated rail to remove level crossings, done properly, has many benefits – and the alternatives are more disruptive and costly. But announcing projects with little consultation is asking for trouble.
The earthquake shattered buildings and communities, with many residents left feeling even more powerless by the government’s approach to recovery.
Reuters/Simon Baker
By removing elected officials and installing a powerful command-and-control agency, the government’s approach to recovery has left many of the city’s people feeling disenfranchised and excluded.
The report criticises the state’s failure to adequately integrate the planning of land use development and transport priorities, but falls into the same trap itself.
AAP/Melanie Foster
Infrastructure Australia’s latest report is substantial but, critically, it fails to incorporate the transport thinking needed to develop more compact cities that work better for everyone.
If a state-owned port is sold at a higher price with competition restrictions, consumers will pay higher prices in the future because of these restrictions.
AAP/Martin Philbey
State governments are now seeking to maximise the price of privatised assets by adding sale terms that restrict competition for the future private owners. That amounts to a hidden tax on consumers.
There are always tensions, and sometimes outright hostility, between urban planners, the public and private sector developers.
AAP/Newzulu/Peter Boyle
Tensions are mounting between the professional practices of government planners, processes of public participation and the private sector’s increasing role in shaping Australian cities.
Labor’s Chris Bowen and Bill Shorten announced plans for new tax rules, and the government, even as it attacked their plan, has also opened the door to changes to negative gearing.
AAP/Gemma Najen
The problem is there are already too many buyers willing to pay high prices, and negative gearing is designed to create more buyers willing to pay more.
With so many city dwellers enjoying the benefits of digital connectivity, it is easy to overlook the barriers to access that homeless people face.
Reuters
We have come to see being digitally connected as part of the fabric of life in the city, but staying connected is a daily struggle for the marginalised and homeless.
The cover that trees provide transforms cities into much more hospitable places, especially in hot weather.
AAP/Joe Castro
Six years after Black Saturday, it’s worth remembering that heatwaves kill more people than bushfires do, so shade can be a life-saver. But tree cover and shade are not evenly distributed in cities.
The housing problems experienced by low-income households are a symptom of entrenched inequality within Australia.
AAP/Dan Peled
Government policy has not, on the whole, failed. It has been a huge success insofar as protecting the opportunities for speculative investment and profit for homeowners and private landlords.
When would-be renters enquire about a property, their ethnicity can make a significant difference to how the agent responds.
AAP/David Crosling
An experiment compared the experience of Anglo, Indian and Muslim Middle Eastern “renters” looking for housing. The differences in how they were treated were significant.
For one in three people who live in cities in the global south that means living in a slum.
AAP/Diego Azubel
At the Habitat III summit in October, governments will agree an agenda to guide sustainable global urban development over the next 20 years. The rise of the ethical city is a key element of this.
The urban landscape is complex and ever-changing in cities such as Perth, but digital aerial photography can now monitor even the smallest changes.
Wikimedia Commons
Constant, complex changes in cities and mine sites are hard to monitor. Drawing on digital aerial photography, it’s now possible to track land-use and vegetation changes in areas as small as 10-20cm.
With a quarter of the population aged over 65, Japan has had to be innovative in catering for their wants and needs.
Martyn Jones
Japan’s ageing population is at the point that Australia is forecast to reach in 2056. The Japanese have had to develop new models of aged care in the community and we can learn a lot from them.
The freedom of the space outside can be a seductive distraction.
from www.shutterstock.com.au
Had the Romans, Chinese and English of old seen our buildings, built around views that distract from the interior and our interior lives, they would not have been surprised by modern discontent.
It looks great – but what about the wildlife?
Tree image from www.shutterstock.com.
On average, people won’t accept a commuting time of more than an hour. As cities grow ever bigger, new road projects can’t achieve this, yet policymakers still rely on modelling that defies evidence.
Lucy and Malcolm Turnbull are a formidable double act capable of driving a Commonwealth-led transformation of urban policy.
AAP/Carol Cho
Cities have been called “orphans of public policy”, so Malcolm Turnbull’s decisive entry into the fray is remarkable. He has the credibility, nous and drive to deliver a national urban policy agenda.
What challenges and transformations will disrupting mobility bring to cities?
from www.shutterstock.com
Cities are complex systems. One visible artery of the city is traffic – the cluster of moving people and flowing goods – and that mobility is critical for a city’s life.
It’s much cheaper and easier to build better access into homes instead of doing it later.
AAP/Paul Miller
Community and housing industry leaders agreed a national guideline and a plan to provide basic access features in all new housing by 2020. But this voluntary approach is failing.