Wall Street landlords are living the American Dream – but what about their tenants?
#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.
Soaring heating costs mean many vulnerable Australians endure cold houses and the associated risks to their health.
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The idea of a hot and sunny land is so baked into our thinking about Australia that we’ve failed to design and build houses that protect us from the cold.
Between 1982 and 2013, the share of home owners among 25-34 year olds shrunk the most, by over 20%.
David Crosling/AAP
Between 1982 and 2013, the share of home owners among 25-34 year olds shrunk, by more than 20%. On the other hand, the share of home owners among those aged 65+ years has risen slightly.
‘Build to rent’ means developers build housing with the intent of retaining the building and renting it out to lower-income families.
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A modest rebalancing of federal tax policy toward build-to-rent housing could fill affordable housing funding gaps. Australian funds are already investing in such a scheme in the US.
Green space, easily accessible to everyone no matter what their income, should be a priority in designing high-density residential areas.
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Being crowded into poor-quality high-density units harms residents’ health, but design features that are known to promote wellbeing can make a big difference to the lives of low-income households.
Bank lending standards need to be more consistent to avoid borrowers shopping around to find the lender that offers them the highest loan amount.
Paul Miller/AAP
It’s not likely the Australian appetite for property will change but this means we need to hedge our bets against any risks by improving diversification and the way banks finance mortgages.
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.
Highly skilled foreign workers (and the investment that follows them) are drawn to Australia because of the lifestyle.
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As innovative and business-friendly as Australia has become in its short history, what makes Australia stand out to international workers is its quality of life.
The homeless camp in Martin Place, Sydney, is an uncomfortable reminder of a deeper systemic crisis.
Brendan Esposito/AAP
With some tinkering, a federal tax credit that encourages developers to create new units that low-income Americans can afford to rent might yield other benefits.
A National Guardsman stands at a Detroit intersection during the summer riots of 1967.
AP Photo/David Stephenson
Fifty years ago, Jeffrey Horner watched news broadcasts of the riots that erupted just miles from his home. But he was worlds apart from the racial tensions that had been festering for decades.
Forty years on, there is still resistance to mixing with the ‘sort of people’ who were segregated in social housing tower blocks.
David Jackmanson/flickr
Even where communities are mixed, many inner-city families go to extraordinary financial and geographic lengths to ensure their children do not go to school with children from ‘the flats’.
Declining home ownership among young people has implications for their long-term financial wellbeing and indeed for the retirement income system.
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
One in seven Australian households is in a state of housing need. A shortfall in social housing supply means some are locked out of the market and others pay much more for rent than they can afford.
The typical residential property investor is on average 42 years old; male and 72% are married.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Individual households in Australia, on average, own 83% of all investment dwellings rented to private tenants or resold. They are people who usually have another main source of income.
Add up all the neglected costs of downsizing and retirees have good reason to be wary of making the move.
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Retirees are often urged to downsize to free up suburban properties for the next generation and for higher-density development. What’s being ignored is the costs of moving into a unit or apartment.
A woman walks through a market in Luanda, Angola. People who live in Africa’s cities rely heavily on the informal sector.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
Most African cities are expensive, informal and non-industrial. This has produced unique socioeconomic and environmental risks that must be carefully considered in policy development.
The Sirius building and the Heritage Act are both products of a significant part of Sydney’s history: the Green Bans movement.
Dean Lewins/AAP
Social housing can certainly have heritage significance. Over more than 100 years, it has been shaped by contemporary architectural and political ideas, sometimes in an exemplary way.
Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle explains the revised Queen Victoria Market redevelopment, flanked by Planning Minister Richard Wynne and Premier Daniel Andrews.
Joe Castro/AAP
Mixing public and private housing in urban renewal projects can be a contentious business. But public good and optimal use of public resources, not developer interests, should guide such decisions.
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