Our big cities increase incomes faster than population growth, but most residents miss out on the extra income growth. Creating multiple centres of activity may help make bigger better for everyone.
A professor takes us back more than 20 years, to when struggling white working-class voters in Oregon were convinced that a conservative social agenda would help bring back timber jobs.
South Africa’s student protests are raising difficult issues, some of which are not being debated openly.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
Demands being made by protesting students in South Africa purport to support the poor. But the most marginalised young people in the country will not benefit from free higher education.
South Africa isn’t the “rainbow nation” some claim it to be.
Thomas Mukoya/Reuters
A “buy now, pay later” model is well suited to financing higher education. Commercial bank loans are not viable. Government-backed loans with income-contingent repayment are the fair solution.
Grammar schools are not the answer.
SpeedKingz/www.shutterstock.com
Problems with who gets access to university date back to the 19th century.
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.
Tax policy appears to be one driver of inequality.
Lucas Jackson/Reuters
Multiple times over the centuries, climate issues caused Pueblo farming to collapse, taking the establishment down with it. New research suggests there are parallels with American inequalities today.
Mapping health outcomes and life expectancy against train stations reveals stark inequalities across cities.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
Where you live affects your health and life expectancy. This makes it possible to map health outcomes against train stations, so that you can readily see the inequalities across cities like Melbourne.