One of the successful outcomes of being part of 100 Resilient Cities is Living Melbourne: our metropolitan urban forest, a newly released strategy to increase vegetation cover in the city.
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Melbourne and Sydney are members of 100 Resilient CIties, which the Rockefeller Foundation has said it will no longer fund. So what has the global network achieved? And what can we learn from this?
The Lacrosse building fire in Melbourne’s Docklands district rang alarm bells about the risks of combustible cladding back in 2014.
MFB
Estimated costs for Victoria alone range from hundreds of millions to as much as $1.6 billion If work to rectify buildings fitted with combustible cladding isn’t well handled.
Too many Australians struggle to get their housing maintained and problems fixed.
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Having quality housing matters. What’s standing in the way of ensuring every Australian has housing that meets basic comfort and health standards? And how can we overcome these problems?
Analysing big data can tell us how a big city ticks, including where suitable housing and jobs are, and how best to get to them.
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Sae Chi, The University of Western Australia e Linda Robson, The University of Western Australia
We have learnt to be wary of big data, but it can also be your friend: one platform combines and analyses data about housing, jobs and transport to reveal very useful information about living in Perth.
Oceanix, a proposed floating city, has captured the attention of the UN.
OCEANIX/BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group
Floating cities are back on the agenda, with the UN recently hosting a meeting on the subject. The latest in a long line of proposals since the ‘50s was unveiled, but just how feasible is the idea?
Policies focused on ownership do little to help lower-income households that are struggling to pay the rent.
Iakov Filimonov/Shutterstock
The policy focus remains on home ownership, but a new survey shows slight improvements in affordability do little to help people on low incomes. Their plight calls for better social housing policy.
Floral tributes form a makeshift memorial to Courtney Herron, whose body was found in Royal Park, Melbourne, on Saturday.
David Crosling/AAP
Media coverage often uses the label ‘homeless’ in ways that link the plight of tens of thousands of Australians to criminality. But a homeless person is much more likely to be vulnerable than violent.
The Northern Territory government is expanding the CCTV surveillance network.
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
Darwin is one of the aspiring ‘smart cities’ that is adopting Chinese technology that can identify and track individuals. Add changes in Australian law, and we have the makings of a surveillance state.
Bright light does not necessarily make a space feel safer, as seen here where there’s a sharp drop-off into dark shadows at the edge of the path.
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Bright lighting alone does not make a space feel safe. It can blind and disorientate and create dark shadows at the edges. Tellingly, ‘unsafe’ places had much higher illuminance than ‘safe’ places.
Scott Morrison talked about first home buyers during the election campaign, but had little to say about social housing.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
The Morrison government, having added a housing minister to its ranks, needs to recognise housing as having more than just economic value. Its impact on our ability to give and receive care is critical.
Tongans gathered in the Sunraysia centre of Mildura to celebrate the Tongan team’s victory over Lebanon in the Rugby League World Cup in November 2017.
A greater focus on the well-established migrant populations and second-generation youth is crucial when planning for the social and economic well-being of rural and regional areas.
Towering canyons of concrete and glass are an increasingly dominant feature of fast-growing cities like Melbourne.
ymgerman/Shutterstock
Planning controls in Melbourne were eased 20 years ago, with mixed results, and new limits are now in place. Will other cities that have eased height limits, like Adelaide, avoid the same mistakes?
Venice is among the cities that have had public protests against soaring numbers of tourists – including this protest banner on the Rialto bridge.
Andrea Merola/EPA/AAP
The future of tourism depends on ensuring visitors do not wear out their welcome. Giving locals more of a say in tourism can help ensure they share in the benefits and minimise the costs.
Sydney CBD is highly accessible and remains clearly the dominant centre in the metropolitan region.
Holli/Shutterstock
When a city gets to a certain size, it starts to make sense to have multiple centres of activity, and three are planned for Sydney. So what needs to be done to bring the city closer to this goal?
In a nation of multiple faiths, Hindus celebrate Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, with Mughal-era buildings behind them.
Rajat Gupta/EPA/AAP
India has always been a nation of multiple faiths but the BJP government, which is favoured to be returned this week as winner of the general election, is eroding the country’s Muslim heritage.
As one of the fastest-growing cities in the developed world, Melbourne’s suburban sprawl has many costs.
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John Stanley, University of Sydney; Janet Stanley, The University of Melbourne e Peter Brain, National Institute of Economic and Industry Research
State and local governments can’t do much about the rapid population growth in Melbourne, but they can take steps to reduce the costs of growing disparities between the outer suburbs and inner city.
New housing estates on the city fringes might be soulless, cookie-cutter developments, but communities can invest them with layers of meaning that create a sense of place.
Lukas Coch/AAP
A sense of place matters for people and communities. When a suburb is created from scratch, close attention needs to be paid to the cues from the landscape and meanings people attach to the area.
Landcorp’s WGV residential development in Fremantle is demonstrating the benefits of making the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
Josh Byrne & Associates
The debate about the transition away from fossil fuels has focused on costs, but right here in Australia we have examples of the benefits of sustainable new energy sources for our cities.
When most inner-city apartment residents don’t use cars to get around, you can expect public transport to feel the impacts of new developments.
Eric FIscher/Wikimedia
Traffic impact assessments required of major building developments mainly focus on the movement of cars, but these account for only 30-40% of trips by inner-city apartment dwellers.
The nation that once took in the “huddled masses” has now shut its “golden door” on outsiders.
Brandon Bourdages/Shutterstock
Ancient Rome and its empire had the concept of asylum at its heart. Its legacy provided inspiration for centres of power around the world, but today outsiders are no longer welcome.