The vitality that defines central Melbourne today did not emerge overnight. Rather than being born of one grand vision, it’s the result of many astute, incremental changes that revitalised the city.
Will structures like the Gangneung Ice Arena be worth the investment once the games wrap up?
AP Photo/Felipe Dana
Developers will now be responsible for dealing with noise issues from nearby music venues – but it will take real community activism to prevent closures.
Thousands of co-housing projects in cities around the world have shown how people can get together to create diverse homes that suit them and their community – this one is in Portland, Oregon.
Kevin Turner/flickr
City residents all around the world are getting together to create housing tailored to their needs and budgets, instead of being developed for maximum profit.
Ségou in Mali has successfully developed its urban cultural economy in ways that’s inclusive, sustainable and context-sensitive.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff launch Sidewalk Toronto, a high-tech urban development project.
Mark Blinch/Reuters
Toronto has entered a joint venture with a Google sister company to create a high-tech urban development area. The goal is to ‘re-imagine cities from the internet up’ – Google’s internet, of course.
Cars are submerged on a flooded road in the Sydney suburb of Marrickville in 2012.
Alex Holver/NixPages
A massive residential development in a flood-prone inner-city suburb sounds like a recipe for disaster. But good urban design can deliver higher density and reduce the flood risk.
Riders on San Francisco’s Muni light rail system.
David Lytle
Junfeng Jiao, The University of Texas at Austin; Juan Miró, The University of Texas at Austin y Nicole McGrath, The University of Texas at Austin
Millions of Americans rely on public transit to get to school, work or stores, but many can’t get the service they need. ‘Uberizing’ transit by offering more options on demand could fill the gaps.
In explaining the causes of wildfires, the media and policymakers typically point to environmental factors, but that’s not the whole story.
AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez
The media and policymakers often say a ‘perfect storm’ of environmental factors cause wildfires but that ignores the role of irresponsible urban planning and development in raising fire risks.
For suburbs like fast-growing Tarneit in the Wyndham area, ‘hard’ infrastructure gets priority, leaving ‘soft’ social infrastructure to catch up later.
Chris Brown/flickr
Traditionally, new communities first get hard infrastructure – schools, hospitals, transport – and ‘soft’ social infrastructure comes later. Liveability and public health suffer as a result.
An expert in urban leadership reports from the UN General Assembly’s high-level conference.
#WeLiveHere2017 aims to turn inanimate buildings into metaphorical sentient structures, with ‘mood lights’ expressing the feelings of Matavai and Turanga Tower residents about their neighbourhood’s redevelopment.
Nic Walker courtesy of #WeLiveHere2017
Residents of two high-rise public housing blocks are being given ‘mood lights’ to express how they feel based on their experience of the process of redeveloping their neighbourhood.
At first glance, old industrial sites, like this one in Carrington Street, don’t look like much. But they provide vital spaces for creative precincts to flourish.
Paul Jones
A new project documents who uses urban industrial lands slated for redevelopment. It reveals a vibrant but largely hidden sector at the interface between creative industries and small manufacturing.
Two people walk down a flooded section of Interstate 610 in Houston in floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey on Sunday, Aug. 27, 2017.
AP Photo/David J. Phillip
As Hurricane Harvey shows, flooding can happen wherever large storms stall and dumps lots of rain. A new study finds that development is increasing in flood zones inland, where people may not think they are at risk.
Much of what is being built is straightforward ‘investor grade product’ – flats built to attract the burgeoning investment market.
Bill Randolph
The inexorable logic of the market will create suburban concentrations of lower-income households on a scale hitherto only experienced in the legacy inner-city high-rise public housing estates.
Residents of high-density housing might value features such as balconies, but when roads get busy this increases exposure to pollution.
Adam J.W.C./Wikipedia
Many new housing developments are being built along busy roads and rail lines, but lack design features that would reduce occupants’ exposure to harmful traffic pollution.
PhD Candidate, School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania, and Senior Research Consultant, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney