All parks are not equal. The response to the opening of golf courses to the public during the COVID pandemic shows the quality of green open space is a big issue for city residents.
Makoko neighbourhood in Lagos, initially founded as a fishing village.
Frédéric Soltan/Corbis via Getty Images
If we learn from COVID-19, there are three key areas to tackle to make cities safer from outbreaks of future infectious diseases.
Eko Atlantic city in Lagos is described as the largest real estate project in Africa and dubbed the “Dubai of Africa”.
Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images
Australia lacks a coherent national approach to planning where settlement and growth happens. It's time to take stock of our cities and regions and work together to improve outcomes across the nation.
If more people work from home and shop online, many commercial buildings won't be needed any longer. What will be needed is affordable housing, and these buildings can be converted to meet this need.
City streets were built to accommodate cars, but the COVID-19 pandemic has scrambled our transport needs. Many cities are moving to make streets more people-friendly and less car-centric.
Philadelphia’s LOVE Park, featuring a sculpture by American artist Robert Indiana, shows how love can shape our cities and their futures.
(Shutterstock)
Digital communications could be a force for greater local democracy in urban planning and development, but many councils use the technologies in ways that mirror traditional consultation.
A cyclist uses New York’s bike-share program.
Noam Galai/Getty Images
Re-imagining cities after COVID-19 is both a practical and philosophical task. People’s perceptions of places are changing. It is a time for planners and policymakers to plan with, not for, people.
Sidewalk Labs had planned to develop the Toronto Port Lands, seen here in June 2019.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Lahodynskyj
The economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic has caused Sidewalk Labs, a Google affiliate, to withdraw from the Toronto waterfront development partnership.
Cities are going to be reshaped by the coronavirus pandemic, which has closed public parks, decreased traffic and put pressures on housing.
(Nathan Shurr/Unsplash)
After the 'world's biggest work-from-home experiment', many people (and their employers) might decide they needn't commute every day. If even a fraction do that, infrastructure needs will change.
In reacting to the pandemic, architecture can reclaim its impact by conceding its loss of connection with public health, looking beyond Western thinking for its references.
What we build in high bushfire risk areas might have to change.
AAP/Sean Davey
While the bushfire crisis might provoke a sense of urgency to rebuild, we need to stop and properly plan where and how we construct buildings and open spaces.
Demonstrations against freeway construction in Melbourne included a street barricade erected in protest at the F19 extension of the Eastern Freeway.
Barricade! – the resident fight against the F19
Public protests eventually forced the scrapping of some proposed freeways in 1973. Today, we have another round of projects and people are protesting again, with good reason. Government should listen.
When politicians use selected modelling results to justify their decisions on contentious projects like Melbourne’s North East Link, the credibility of transport models suffers by association.
Vic Govt/AAP
Transport modelling has been tarnished by its use to justify the predetermined projects politicians favour. But, if used more transparently, it's a valuable tool for planning our future cities.
The Melbourne Transportation Plan included every freeway and major arterial road built in the city since 1969.
Shuang Li/Shutterstock
While called a transportation plan,
it was heavily skewed towards roads. We need the type of city-shaping thinking that underpinned the plan, but today's plans must match 21st-century priorities.
Telstra’s new digital advertising payphones can be found at Melbourne’s Bourke Street Mall. In this photo, the older centre booth sits between two of Telstra’s larger high-tech booths.
City of Melbourne
The new payphones have Wi-Fi, mobile charging and transport information. But city councils are concerned they're digital billboards for Telstra, which could cost billions in lost productivity.
When people weren’t asked about a proposed development in their area, they voiced their opposition.
Protect Taringa Facebook page
Professor of Public Transport, Director Public Transport Research Group, Director Monash Infrastructure, Adjunct Professor, Monash Art Design and Architecture, Monash University