This global conference will set out how cities should develop over the next 20 years, tackling some of humankind’s toughest issues.
The Tent Embassy in Canberra has for decades been symbolic of the tensions in Australian cities about recognition, reconciliation and land justice.
Dylan Wood/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.
At Tolhuistuin, the government provides the land, old building stock and a maintenance budget for a fixed period while the creatives develop the precinct themselves.
Maurice Mikkers/flickr
If the sharing economy is here to stay, planners and designers must respond with imagination to spread the positive effects of the tourism economy for the benefit of residents as well as tourists.
This Friday is the 11th PARKing Day, when people pay a parking meter, then turn the space into a pop-up parklet. It’s a day that invites citizens to rethink the city and their place in it.
Worldwide real estate makes up 60% of the value of all global assets. But it’s being concentrated into the hands of a wealthy few.
Public protests forced a backdown on a proposed merger of university art schools, but their value to cities is still being underestimated.
Joel Carrett/AAP
Art schools are emerging globally as very powerful instruments of urban renewal. In a time of transformation, Sydney must learn to tap into the value of having multiple art colleges.
How people conceive of their city’s future is important in shaping how the city’s future unfolds.
Zachary Powson/500px.com
In Australia, a small but growing cadre of residents is experimenting with hacktivism in planning. Giving a voice to real people living in everyday places can help ensure planning meets public needs.
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.
In addition to a shortage of public toilets, current innovations in their design may not be suitable for an ageing population.
AAP/City of Sydney
Millions of people need to be confident that suitable public toilets will be available when they leave their homes. A shortage of such facilities is a serious problem for an ageing population.
Melbourne is powered by the coal-fired stations of Gippsland, which illustrates the problems with any urban strategy that neglects regional roles and interests.
AAP/Julian Smith
City-centric thinking arguably obscures connections between ‘humans’ and ‘nature’, and ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ or ‘wild’. Growing evidence of the depths of these links is testing the concept of ‘urban’.
Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is one of the fastest-growing cities in the world despite its ranking as one of the ‘least liveable’.
mariusz kluzniak/flickr
Bringing significant benefits to an emergent middle class, Dhaka’s cultural, economic, environmental and political landscapes are being rapidly but unevenly transformed.
Much of the ‘smart cities’ rhetoric is dominated by the economic, with little reference to the natural world and its plight.
Ase from www.shutterstock.com
The rhetoric of ‘smart cities’ is dominated by the economic, with little reference to the natural world and its plight. Truly smart and resilient cities need to be more in tune with the planet.
Brisbane aspires to be a truly smart and connected city.
Marcus Foth
Australia’s Smart Cities Plan largely conveys a limited role for people: they live, work and consume. This neglects the rich body of work calling for better human engagement in smart cities.
Jane Jacobs holds up documentary evidence at a 1961 press conference during the campaign to save the West Village.
Wikimedia Commons
In an age of data-driven urban science, we need to remember how Jane Jacobs gave voice to the multiple languages, meanings, experiences and knowledge systems of a vibrant city.
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.
Mature gum trees will be important for visual amenity among the higher-density residences being built to house a population growing at 5.1% a year for the next two decades.
AAP/McGregor Coxall