Done right, a plaza can bring life and a sense of identity to an area. So why has urban design in Australia neglected the town square in favour of green space, and what makes for a successful one?
Australia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gillian Bird, makes a statement at the 2016 Habitat III conference, where the New Urban Agenda was adopted.
Alexei Trundle
Australia and other United Nations member states signed up to the New Urban Agenda more than a year ago. But how well is health being integrated into sustainable urban development?
New affordable housing development in Melbourne.
Ryan van den Nouwelant
Based on research comparing projects across the country, a new assessment tool calculates cost-effective ways to fund affordable housing to meet specified needs in different markets.
A man experiences a virtual reality bike ride in a display at the World Urban Forum in Kuala Lumpur.
Ahmad Yusni/EPA
Representatives of nations around the world have come together to discuss how to achieve the New Urban Agenda. Collective political will is needed, but the Australian government didn’t show up.
Nurses who care for people in the city can’t afford a property anywhere near their place of work.
didesign021/Shutterstock
People on moderate incomes, including police and emergency workers, have been forced to seek housing on the city fringes, far from their places of work. But there are ways to reverse this trend.
King tides now regularly breach seawalls meant to protect Torres Strait Island communities, and it happened again last week.
Suzanne Long/AAP
King tides and rising seas are an increasing and predictable threat, but adaptation plans to limit the damage to coastal property are still not managing the political obstacles.
Much of the traffic using Sydney’s Anzac Bridge and, in the distance, Harbour Bridge is travelling through the city centre, not to it or from it.
Rob Roggema
One potential benefit of WestConnex, which remains untouched, is that it could relieve Sydney’s city centre from cars and make it more pedestrian-friendly.
Children’s right to play outdoors depends on them having access to safe and inclusive public spaces.
For a public space to be seen as safe, welcoming and accessible, a diverse range of people need to actively use it. That’s why any space-changing project needs to engage broadly with the community.
Only in a few active travel strongholds, typically in the inner city, do Australian cycling and walking rates get close to those in Europe.
Andrew Robinson/Flickr
A comparison of Australian cities reveals cyclists and walkers are still very much a minority of commuters, despite the economic, health and environmental costs. Action on three fronts is needed.
A 3D model of a development scenario in Brisbane’s West End produced using ESRI’s CityEngine program.
Author supplied
Looking back through all Melbourne’s strategic plans from 1929 onwards, it becomes clear that the 20th-century legacy of car-centric planning and its focus on parking is still deeply entrenched.
Share-bikes can litter our cities and be found in rivers, up trees, in gutters, and strewn around public places.
Obikes in unusual places/Facebook
There are three key cultural reasons why a share-bike business model that could be successful in Singapore is much less likely to be so in Australia.
Over the past year, there has been a surge of enthusiasm in Australia for developing a sector of large-scale institutional landlords.
AAP/David Crosling
There is a risk that affordable housing policy may be colonised by for-profit interests if Australia imports the wrong rental housing ideas from overseas.
The White Night festival is an example of Melbourne’s efforts to promote itself as a convivial city.
John Gollings/AAP supplied
Australian cities generally minimise negative attributes such as crime, segregation and violence, but developing positive attributes such as inclusivity appears more challenging.
Cities will be driving globalisation and innovation in the emerging world order.
28 November Studio/Shutterstock
Welcome to the era of TechPlomacy where a new world order is emerging around cities and their economies, rather than nations and their borders.
Transport Minister Andrew Constance and the Coalition government are under pressure to fix long-standing problems with Sydney’s train system which have now come to a head.
Daniel Munoz/AAP
The real challenge is finding appropriate ways to invest in public transport that will not only take pressure off the system but also support improved travel on all modes, including cars.
Residents and councils object to share bikes littering their city.
OBikes in unusual places/Facebook
If we’re going to intervene to stop the dumping of share bikes, we need to understand the bad behaviour in the first place, then design effective measures to change how bike users behave.
When a house is better sealed, the quality of ventilation becomes more critical.
Mile Atanasov/Shutterstock
Our health depends on the quality of air indoors, where most of us spend 90% of our time. The easiest solution is to open a window, but what if that’s not an option?
In Nagoro, in Tokushima Prefecture, one resident has made around 300 dolls to replace villagers who are no longer around.
Roberto Maxwell/flickr
Across Japan, towns and villages are vanishing as the population ages and young people move to the cities. How the country manages this holds lessons for other developed nations facing a similar fate.
In a move that suggests physical retail stores aren’t dead, Amazon has opened three bookstores and over 60 pop-up stores in the US, and has plans for up to 2,000 grocery stores.
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Urban retail space is being transformed yet again. Predictions of the demise of physical retailing in the face of online competition overlook its resilience over two centuries of disruptive innovations.