Massachusetts is establishing the first US green bank dedicated to sustainable affordable housing. Three experts in climate finance explain why better housing can help rein in global warming.
Inner Sydney has near-zero population growth.
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Inner-city resistance to higher-density housing has diverted most of Sydney’s population growth, driven largely by non-white migrants, to the outer suburbs. The result is a racially divided city.
Landcorp’s White Gum Valley development is a sustainable housing project in WA.
Josh Byrne & Associates
A new report outlines a comprehensive strategy for Australia to reduce the carbon footprint of our homes while making them more comfortable and affordable.
The line between Atherton, Calif., (right) and its neighbor is obvious in property sizes.
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Small suburbs have a track record of blocking new housing. Two urban policy experts explain why that’s a problem and what metro areas could do about it.
The centralisation of planning power is exactly what Sydney doesn’t need. While not perfect, the commission broke the mould of top-down, siloed planning and broadened the focus across the whole city.
People in search of more affordable housing gravitate to the outer suburbs, but may then find higher transport costs erase the benefit of lower mortgage payments.
Concrete solutions are required to help those most excluded from the housing market: people experiencing homelessness.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lars Hagberg
The strategy’s core mission should be to ensure everyone in Australia has adequate housing. That requires 950,000 social and affordable rental dwellings to be built by 2041, dwarfing current targets.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford attends a conference in May 2023 in Etobicoke, Ont.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Tijana Martin
Doug Ford’s Ontario government is running up major long-term economic and environmental costs and liabilities, eroding the province’s capacity to deal with future challenges.
Canadian universities host thousands of international students, many of whom come from India. While all these students need housing, many face discrimination in the rental market.
The federal government isn’t doing enough to protect tenants or preserve existing affordable housing.
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Cities across Canada are rapidly losing affordable housing. Provincial and federal governments aren’t helping, so it’s up to cities to start taking action themselves.
Renters and property managers both have mutual responsibilities in times of financial crisis.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
In order for Canada to overcome the housing affordability crisis, individuals, families, the real estate industry and government all need to work together.
One in five young adults live in unaffordable housing and spend 30 per cent or more of their pre-tax income on housing costs.
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Young adults are among the groups most adversely affected by the housing crisis. Foreign-born young adults, in particular, are disproportionately more likely to live in unaffordable housing.
While all groups experienced increased housing vulnerability after the pandemic hit, only people of Asian descent continued to see their situations worsen in 2021 as the US spent trillions trying to soften the impact.
Despite a common belief that councils won’t approve tiny houses and modular and container homes, early findings from a national survey suggest planners are increasingly open to these housing options.
Three bills to go before parliament confirm the Albanese government is restoring the Commonwealth to a leadership role on housing issues. But there are still gaps in its approach.
When land is publicly owned, it can be used to build the kind of housing the market is unwilling, or unable, to build.
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In a housing crisis, publicly owned land should never be sold to private developers and should instead be used to build the kind of housing the market is unwilling and unable to build.
Professor; School of Economics, Finance and Property, and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University