Lots of parking: the extraordinary amount of valuable land used to park cars in most cities could soon be freed up for other uses.
Antonio Gravante/Shutterstock
Cities around the world are starting to rethink the vast areas of land set aside for parking. The convergence of several trends likely will mean this space becomes available for other uses.
The first autonomous vehicles are already upon us, but once their use becomes widespread they will change cities as surely as the original cars did.
AAP/nuTonomy
It’s clear autonomous vehicles will disrupt our cities, their land use and planning. Whether they make urban life better or worse depends on how well we anticipate and adapt to their impacts.
Perth has long had many fine parks but is losing vegetation cover in a band of increasingly dense development across the city.
Ruben Schade/flickr
Planners wish to correct past errors by increasing densities, discouraging car dependency and mixing land uses. But imposing imported strategies on Australian cities is producing unhappy results.
The BedZED eco-housing development in the UK challenged planning regulations.
Tom Chance/Flickr
Traditional urban planning is being stretched by the pace at which renewable energy systems are being installed. New codes and guidelines are needed to manage emerging conflicts over land use.
Some local councils are more tolerant than others in allowing residents to grow food where they want.
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Urban residents are increasingly keen to farm verges, parks, rooftops and backyards, but planning rules sometimes stand in the way.
The Cross River Rail project offers a solution to a narrowly conceived problem while ignoring the bigger picture of metropolitan planning.
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The rail project may well help get more commuters into the CBD, but offers few benefits for the parts of the broader metro area where most population growth is occurring.
About three-quarters of South Africa’s land is used for agriculture.
Robert Wallace/Flickr
The State of the Environment 2016 report shows that the main drivers of environmental change in Australia are land-use change, habitat destruction, invasive species and climate change.
Most of the major cemeteries in Australian cities, including Sydney’s Waverley Cemetery, date back to the 1800s.
Kate Ryan
Most big city cemeteries in Australia date back to the 1800s, so we need to consider our burial options before we reach the point when the number of deaths exceeds the available cemetery plots.
As temperatures rise, will species have enough habitat to move to suitable ground?
bonnyboy/flickr
Animals and plants will need escape hatches to move to cooler climes as the planet warms, but few parts of the U.S. have the natural habitat available for these migrations.
Residents near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota and many others are concerned of the impact of mining in its headwaters.
atbaker/flickr
Almost 100 years ago, the foundations to preserve the Boundary Waters in Minnesota for recreation were put in place. Now residents are debating whether to allow a mine in its headwaters.
While politicians like Malcolm Turnbull and Barnaby Joyce do the traditional photo-ops, fewer people than ever are taking on farming, which can no longer support vibrant rural and regional communities on its own.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
What are the issues facing rural and regional Australia? The challenges are many and varied – and only some have made the national political agenda – but these areas deserve better than neglect.
A recently-logged ranch on the edge of the Amazon rainforest.
Frontpage / shutterstock
Widespread adoption of a largely meat-free diet could feed the world and leave our forests intact.
‘Chook farms ruin lives!’. Australians consume a lot of cheap chicken, but not all of them appreciate an intensive chicken factory as a neighbour.
Marco Amati
As consumption has soared and prices have fallen, the realities of industrial chicken farming often clash with the values of people who live on the urban fringes where broiler farms are sited.
Sydney’s farms on the urban fringe produce 10% of the city’s fresh vegetables.
Alpha/Flickr
Dana Cordell, University of Technology Sydney; Brent Jacobs, University of Technology Sydney et Laura Wynne, University of Technology Sydney
Farms on Sydney’s fringes supply 20% of the city’s food. That could drop by more than half if urban sprawl isn’t kept in check.
The report criticises the state’s failure to adequately integrate the planning of land use development and transport priorities, but falls into the same trap itself.
AAP/Melanie Foster
Infrastructure Australia’s latest report is substantial but, critically, it fails to incorporate the transport thinking needed to develop more compact cities that work better for everyone.
There are always tensions, and sometimes outright hostility, between urban planners, the public and private sector developers.
AAP/Newzulu/Peter Boyle
Tensions are mounting between the professional practices of government planners, processes of public participation and the private sector’s increasing role in shaping Australian cities.
The urban landscape is complex and ever-changing in cities such as Perth, but digital aerial photography can now monitor even the smallest changes.
Wikimedia Commons
Constant, complex changes in cities and mine sites are hard to monitor. Drawing on digital aerial photography, it’s now possible to track land-use and vegetation changes in areas as small as 10-20cm.