Six years after Black Saturday, it’s worth remembering that heatwaves kill more people than bushfires do, so shade can be a life-saver. But tree cover and shade are not evenly distributed in cities.
Hundreds of cities worldwide have pledged to act against climate change. New York City’s experience rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy offers useful lessons about making urban areas more resilient.
Lucy and Malcolm Turnbull are a formidable double act capable of driving a Commonwealth-led transformation of urban policy.
AAP/Carol Cho
Cities have been called “orphans of public policy”, so Malcolm Turnbull’s decisive entry into the fray is remarkable. He has the credibility, nous and drive to deliver a national urban policy agenda.
City residents are embracing the bike as the fastest, most convenient transport in areas like Brunswick, yet an apartment building has been blocked for not providing car parking.
flickr/Takver
It’s up to state governments to ensure urban planning rules properly reflect both the desires of residents in the 21st century and the principles of sustainability.
Unlike CEOs, mayors are enthusiastic imitators and intimate allies, rather than fierce competitors. On World Cities Day, how US mayors are looking abroad for inspiration to solve problems
Cities are places of integration, intense population pressures, migration flows, cultural interactions and variations in socio-economic positioning and values. But what makes them liveable?
Mick Tsikas/Reuters
A liveable city has become the highest form of praise we can give to a city space. But we need to discuss what that means and who gets to participate in the process of governing and shaping a city.
Federal governments have traditionally struggled to develop a coherent view for our cities.
AAP Image/NewZulu/Thinking Media
For the first time, both major parties have a cities portfolio in their front bench team. With a few more changes, the government could create a structure that will really get to grips with urban issues.
Speaking with: Cameron McAuliffe on graffiti, art and crime
CC BY-ND21,2 MB(download)
Is graffiti art or crime? While many cities have adopted tough legal measures to prevent graffiti, they are also beginning to recognise the cultural and economic value of street art.
Community protests ensure urban planners pay attention to the politics of their work, while research evidence can more easily be neglected.
AAP/Courtney Biggs
Urban planners tend to be attuned to council and community politics. They are less well informed when it comes to applying the findings of research to improve the quality of their work.
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
Meet the indoor shopping mall’s hipper, “New Urbanist” cousin.
Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore gives car-sharing a try. By 2016, one in ten of the city’s households will have joined a car-share scheme.
AAP Image/Paul Miller
Owning a car can be a hassle, especially if you live somewhere where driving is an occasional, rather than daily, necessity. This might help to explain why car-sharing schemes are going from strength to…
Fast-growing Tehran is at the heart of the economic and demographic pressures for change in Iran.
EPA/Abedin Taherkenareh
Iran is involved in P5+1 talks with the US and Europe ostensibly about nuclear capacities. But the real talk in Iran and around the world is that Iran’s government knows things have to change. As Egypt…