Kim Dovey, The University of Melbourne e Elek Pafka, The University of Melbourne
We’re still in the early days of understanding how cities work. But we do know that creative, healthy and productive cities have certain things in common – and it’s all to do with their ‘urban DMA’.
Sex workers and massage parlours make friendly neighbours and prop up local economies.
Shutterstock
Renewable energy programmes in South Africa need stronger policies to ensure that communities benefit.
Volunteering is a way to get involved in your community as this man, who has a refugee background, is doing in his work with older vision-impaired people.
Volunteering Western Australia (VWA)
The rate of volunteering among Australians and the hours individuals contribute appear to be falling. So how do people see volunteering and what can be done to restore this vital community activity?
A Grateful Dead fan wears a shirt commemorating the band’s farewell tour.
Stephen Lam/Reuters
We now know that we cannot spend our way to happiness nor pursue it as an individual goal. It turns out that happiness is built on the foundations of good relationships and broad well-being.
Santana Row, located in San Jose, California, is one of many Lifestyle Centers cropping up around the country. Parading themselves as a Main Street from a bygone era, these new retail centers hope to recreate what was lost in the rush to cover America with large malls from the 1950s through the 1990s.
Santana Row
Race-related demonstrations, Title IX disputes, affirmative action court cases, same-sex marriage bans. These issues made headlines in all spheres of the media this year. However, thoughtful articles on…
Last year’s election of federal independent MP Cathy McGowan as a result of Voices 4 Indi’s kitchen table campaign was a spectacular demonstration of the potential power of this model of community engagement.
Voices4Indi/Facebook
Grassroots common sense and decency lie at the heart of two growing movements to reassert the voice of the people in the management of our local and national affairs. Kitchen table conversations and community…
The Sydney Alliance’s founding assembly in 2011 filled the Town Hall with people eager to put community back into politics.
Kurt Iveson/citiesandcitizenship.blogspot.com.au
In the wake of the Second World War, Karl Polanyi wrote that the public arena is made up of three interconnected sectors: the market, government and civil society. He argued that democracy thrives when…
Interim Director, UWA Public Policy Institute; Associate Professor & Programme Co-ordinator (Masters of Public Policy), The University of Western Australia