The 2016 articulation of an urban agenda assumes building more highways, railways and trams will produce better, more productive cities that somehow give everyone a job.
A decent national housing policy is not just about the million or so Australians who are in housing need, marginal housing or homeless. In reality, all the housing sectors are connected.
Ballooning borrowing to invest in the housing market is impeding investment in the real economy, holding back investment in skills and jobs, and driving up inequality.
With the failures of past planning now apparent, the unruly threat of a damaged and depleting planet is ushering us toward a fourth era of urban restructuring. What might City v4.0 look like?
The hospitality and tourism sector is struggling to find a good supply of lower-paid workers in the CBD, because that is also where they face either high housing or travel costs.
Falling homeownership rates, stagnant wages and diminishing retirement savings mean that for more and more Americans, the middle-class dream is slowly dying – if it’s not already gone.
The default position for politicians is to sound concerned about housing affordability, but do nothing. This can be explained by the idea of ‘policy capture’, in this case by industry interests.
What if there was a middle option between retention and abolition that made negative gearing work better? There are multiple ways to improve accountability for this $8 billion-a-year tax concession.
The problem is there are already too many buyers willing to pay high prices, and negative gearing is designed to create more buyers willing to pay more.
In what looks to be a landmark policy announcement with possible national ramifications, the NSW government has outlined the first phase of a $1 billion fund to develop social and affordable housing.
About a quarter of all renters are spending at least half of their income on housing, and the situation is projected to get much worse over the next decade.
Ignoring residents’ concerns about boarding houses and failing to allay their fears helps nobody – least of all those in dire need of affordable housing options.
As Glasgow’s most famous tower blocks are razed, we’re again being asked to celebrate destruction of old notions of housing provision. We should treat it as a different opportunity entirely.
Professor; School of Economics, Finance and Property, and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University