New research finds almost a million Australians are living in poor or very poor-quality housing, with more than 100,000 in dwellings regarded as very poor or derelict.
A colorized 1937 photograph of a shantytown on the outskirts of Seattle.
photoretrofit/Reddit
Like Brazil’s favela dwellers, America’s working poor felt a sense of pride and community in their shantytowns – and desperately resisted the powerful interests that sought to demolish them.
On average, Gen Ys are $50,000 short of the deposit they expect they’ll need to buy their first home.
Lolostock from www.shutterstock.com
Without long-term solutions to the imbalance between incomes and house prices, Gen Ys face a lifetime of renting without the financial and emotional security of home ownership.
Before entering politics, Scott Morrison was employed to develop policy for the Property Council of Australia, which is now leading the charge against negative-gearing reform.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
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.
A key problem with working out the impacts of negative gearing is that we don’t know exactly which properties it affects or the status of their tenants.
AAP/Dan Peled
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.
Flaking lead paint in a home in Muncie, Indiana.
Shelly/Flickr
How did lead poisoning become a persistent threat in U.S. cities? Lead paint and slumlords played key roles, but so did postwar housing policies that trapped minorities in crumbling inner cities.
Housing affordability, especially in Sydney, is now a source of political protests and the NSW government has announced a funding scheme with the potential to ease the pressure.
AAP/Teresa Parker
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.
Housing developers want to make a profit by maximising land value, but this presents a problem for affordable housing.
AAP/Paul Miller
An increase in land supply is the usual solution put forward to solve the housing affordability crisis. What proponents of this argument fail to mention is that you need an industry prepared to deliver…
It worked for these people in Liverpool.
Housing People, Building Communities
British tax rules mean it makes more sense to knock a good house down than make changes which will sharply cut national emissions.
The slow pre-dawn commute on the M5 from western Sydney is more than a pain for these drivers: it comes at a high social and economic cost.
Dean Lewins/AAP
Our new analysis reveals nearly a third of full-time workers in Sydney commutes for more than 10 hours a week. Those workers are spending almost three full weeks a year just to get to and from work.
Mixed-income developments replace Chicago’s Cabrini-Green Homes: Old Town Village West townhouses rise in front of the last remaining towers (since demolished) in this 2009 photograph.
Lawrence Vale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) y Shomon Shamsuddin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
For decades, public housing stood as the most architecturally visible and politically stigmatized reminder of urban poverty in many American cities. Originally built to accommodate an upwardly mobile segment…
Higher density housing is being presented as the latest solution for affordable housing, but a more robust policy is required.
trevor.patt/Flickr
Ex-NSW Premier Nick Greiner has proposed that land value embedded in public housing estates be recycled to generate new social housing - by redeveloping the estates into higher density living. Greiner…
Australia needs look at inclusionary housing policies to boost the number of affordable housing options.
AAP/Joel Carrett
Australia’s residential house prices rank among the highest in the world, and an increasing number of aspiring home owners are finding themselves locked out of the property market. While low interest rates…
Professor; School of Economics, Finance and Property, and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University
Professor of Social Epidemiology and Director of the Centre of Research Excellence in Healthy Housing at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne