The highly politicised nature of the NBN has led to a lack of transparency that makes it even harder to fix the mess that has been made of this vital national infrastructure.
Southport station, Nerang Street, soon after the light rail began running in 2014.
Matthew Burke
The light rail project pushed up property values within 800 metres of the stations by over 30% from 1996 to 2016. Gains on this scale offer a potential source of finance for public transport.
Both Donald Trump and his political opponents are on board the global infrastructure bandwagon.
Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
The trillions of dollars spent on infrastructure demands democratic transparency and accountability. This applies to both the investment and to the effects on cities, societies and the environment.
What new and innovative infrastructure is likely to emerge from the suburbs?
Roger Keil
Suburban areas feel infrastructure stress most acutely. Having to deal with severe inadequacies, suburbs offer fertile ground for infrastructure experimentation and innovation.
The Snowy Mountain Scheme is an iconic example of postwar nation-building infrastructure. By the decade after its completion, the sell-offs were in full swing.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Long-term privatisation contracts, most of them closed to scrutiny, lock urban infrastructure into 20th-century formats unsuited for a climate-threatened planet.
Politicised projects that steamroll proper process are giving transport planning a bad name.
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Politicised transport projects that flout proper process lead to hostility between residents and governments, and give planners a bad name.
Aspiring ‘smart cities’ like Barcelona have worked to build their profile – it recently hosted the Smart City Expo World Congress – but Australia may benefit from not having rushed in.
Ramon Costa/AAP
Critical infrastructure is our means of survival as an urban species. So, we must identify what is critical, for whom and how it might fail us.
The uncertainties about the new Badgerys Creek airport in Western Sydney are raising many questions that only good governance can resolve.
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Building a second Sydney airport will be a demanding engineering project. But the real challenge will be one of governance needed to choreograph the mix of old and new city that will surround it.
Federal Urban Infrastructure Minister Paul Fletcher and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull are eyeing value capture as a way to fund projects, but how will they sell a new tax to voters?
Paul Miller/AAP
Consider these home truths: value capture is a tax, it would need to apply to the family home and deciding which areas it covers would be politically contentious. A broad-based land tax is simpler.
Fencing goes up along the route of the Roe 8 highway construction project in Perth.
Richard Wainwright/AAP
Like a 5D movie on speed, the city today defies conventional boundaries. This raises new questions about what we imagine to be ‘the city’ – and how we as a democratic community can shape it.
Johannesburg skyline: the challenge is to create a city that is liveable, safe and resource efficient.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
Populations revolt when lives are improving but not fast enough to meet their rising expectations.
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.
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.
Is Labor right to say that public sector infrastructure investment has fallen by 20% under the current government?
AAP/Dan Himbrechts
Labor says that public sector infrastructure investment has fallen 20% under the Abbott-Turnbull government. Is that right?
Opponents of projects are often scorned as NIMBYs, but active citizenship and local consultation are key elements in creating a city that works well for as many people as possible.
Teresa Parker/AAP
Cities are home to many different people who will not always agree. We need to learn to embrace public debate as an ongoing, constructive process for working through diverse views and values.