Recent reports have confirmed what many already know: the cost of housing in Australian cities is among the highest in the world. The growth rate in Australian property prices over the last 15 years is…
Trees cool cities down, naturally.
emmett anderson
Air conditioners across the country are running on full this week as Australia battles a heatwave – but are we missing an obvious, leafy solution? Trees, which provide shade and act as natural air conditioners…
If overnight temperatures are due to fall below your inside temperature, open the house as much as possible from late afternoon.
Image from shutterstock.com
Should you open or close your house to keep cool in a heatwave? Many people believe it makes sense to throw open doors and windows to the breeze; others try to shut out the heat. Listen to talk radio during…
US architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed Fallingwater, believed that appropriate architecture would save the US from corruption.
Via Tsuji
In 1966, a British planner called Maurice Broady came up with a new term for the architectural lexicon: architectural determinism. This was to describe the practice of groundlessly asserting that design…
The Field Day music festival, held annually in The Domain in Sydney, is among a growing number of private or ticketed events held in public parks.
jo3hug
Privatisation of the public realm is increasingly seen by governments as a relatively painless user-pays way of addressing their budget problems and parks have not escaped the trend. Public spaces such…
Car Free Day - every Sunday in Jakarta.
Gunawan Kartapranata
Is a car-free city possible? In many European cities walking and cycling already account for more than half of all journeys. In Britain, the Sustainable Travel Demonstration Towns project between 2004-08…
A cyclist “die-in” protest outside the offices of Transport for London to protest.
Dominic Lipinski/PA
Much has been said in recent weeks about the death toll of cyclists in London. Yet the only immediate response media coverage seems to have produced is police on street corners handing out tickets to cyclists…
The best objectives of Plan Melbourne lack any real mechanisms or scope for implementation.
AAP/David Crosling
Metropolitan planning is an enormous undertaking, and no Australian government has yet appeared up to the task. That includes the strategy for Melbourne that the Victorian government has been preparing…
Old buildings are standing in the way of improving our cities.
Flickr/Becky EnVérité
Making Australian cities truly resilient to extreme events is being held back by archaic planning. The majority of buildings don’t fall under new sustainability and resilience regulations, meaning private…
The proposed HS2 line near Altofts, south of Leeds: big changes, but who decides?
HS2
The UK’s largest infrastructure projects of coming decades have been wrapped in controversy: the HS2 high-speed rail line linking London to the north is mired in political wrangling and disputed facts…
It has been a grim month for cycling in London. Just days ago newspapers wrote of five deaths in nine days, and barely is the ink dry before yet another death this morning makes six in under two weeks…
Sometimes the best plans aren’t enough.
Ben Birchall/PA
As a planning academic you might think that I get heavily involved in the planning system – commenting on draft development plans, or objecting to proposed developments – but actually I tend to steer clear…
We should worry less about emissions and more about getting people out of harm’s way.
AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts
Climate change has yet again been blamed for another natural disaster, this time the recent bushfires in NSW. But much more important is the role of poor land-use planning decisions that are increasing…
Planning law could do much more to prevent us living in bushfire-prone areas.
Brian Yap
With an early, devastating start to the bushfire season in New South Wales and Queensland, recent disasters in Victoria and Tasmania, and projections that current trends will continue under climate change…
Cars stuck in traffic at an intersection.
www.shutterstock.com/e2dan
The strength of Australia’s economy depends on how well our cities function - yet right now, it’s as if we’re driving with the handbrake on. Cities are crucial to productivity. When they work well, they…
Things could be looking up for urban planning if Greg Hunt has his way.
Michelle Robinson
The new Coalition Government has been elected with a mandate to reduce the national debt and make Australia “open for business”. Does this mean fixing Australia’s cities will be left to market forces…
Beautiful – but most greenbelt is on private land.
Barry Batchelor/PA
Paul Cheshire, London School of Economics and Political Science
What a strange place the UK is - when the most important thing Britons spend money on becomes even less affordable, it’s received as good news. Because that is what “confidence returns to the housing market…
Private land disguised as public space. Even London’s City Hall is rented back from the private sector.
Toby Melville/PA
When a public utility is acquired by a private equity firm, there is no doubt what kind of process is underway. The take-over of provision of services and, by extension, ability to profit from them is…
The Spirit of Detroit may yet rise again.
Dave Sizer/Flickr
On the surface it appears that the City of Detroit is facing a hopeless future. A closer look suggests that the picture is not so bleak. The alarm has been raised by the State of Michigan placing the city…