Improving the performance of nearly 11 million existing homes will make a much bigger difference to housing energy costs and emissions than an incoming 7-star energy standard for new homes.
In parts of Sydney, families occupy half the apartments and many value their convenient location. Yet, despite a surge in development, most apartments are one or two bedrooms and not family-friendly.
The housing crisis coupled with climate change could see more people living in the kinds of shanty towns and tent cities seen around the time of the Great Depression.
In any given town, community and neighbourhood there will be homeless children, sometimes as young as 10, who are surviving without the effective care and protection of parents or guardians.
Brisbane rents are up nearly 50% more than the national average and homelessness in Queensland is increasing at the fastest rate in the country. The state can take several steps to turn things around.
Low-income college students often face financial pressures and family obligations that their instructors cannot see.
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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.
The typical car is parked 95% of the time.
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As many cities grapple with the housing crisis, some places are rewriting regulations and finding creative ways to repurpose these hulking masses of concrete that suck up valuable real estate.
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.
Where people live can determine their station in life.
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A longtime critic of Atlanta’s BeltLine explains how the popular network of parks has increased inequality in the city and driven out lower-income residents.
Emissions from space heating and cooling in homes represent almost one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.
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A systematic review of thousands of studies around the world has found many aspects of our cities affect loneliness. But people’s relationship with their environment is complex and highly individual.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford talks to the media on a construction site in Brampton, Ont., in May 2022. Later in the year, the Ford government justified its adoption of sweeping housing legislation and the opening of parts of the Greater Toronto Area Greenbelt for development, stating that it was needed to address “the housing supply crisis.”
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Evidence suggests that Ontario neither had a shortage of pre-authorized housing starts to accommodate its growing population, nor did it have a shortage of designated land to build such homes.
A new act in Canada bans non-citizens, non-permanent residents and foreign commercial enterprises from buying Canadian residential properties.
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Since foreign owners only represent a tiny segment of the housing market, it’s unlikely that Canada’s new ban on foreign homebuyers will make homes more affordable for Canadians.
Neither NSW Labor nor the NSW Coalition is actually proposing to axe stamp duty. Neither are any of the other states or territories, apart from the ACT.
High home prices are boosting inheritances, meaning positions in society increasingly owe more to which family you’re born into than to talent or hard work. But there are solutions.
Homes that survived the Marshall Fire didn’t come through unscathed.
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Noxious smells and blowing ash initially made the homes unlivable. But even after their homes were cleaned, some residents still reported health effects months later.
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