Local Aboriginal Land Councils are some of the largest private landowners in NSW. Making it easier for them to develop their land will benefit Indigenous communities and the rest of the public.
The supreme court’s ruling that the Tate’s viewing gallery intrudes on nearby luxury flats suggests that the law is once again aligning with the rich and powerful.
The zoning policies that planners introduced to create vibrant and resilient mixed-use neighbourhoods have had the opposite effect, as services and residential developments crowd out light industry.
In 1989, Newcastle was hit by Australia’s deadliest earthquake, but high-rise development in the city’s CBD has continued nonetheless. Australia needs a consistent planning code for earthquake risk.
NSW is developing a comprehensive new planning policy with the goal of creating healthy places. A new study finds those people who work as placemakers want these goals embedded in laws and budgets.
The proportion of people actually living in tiny houses hasn’t been increasing but the movement has prompted debate about living smaller and more sustainably.
The Mary Cairncross Rainforest Discovery Centre respects and incorporates the local landscape.
Guymer Bailey/Scott Burrows/Norman Richards building design + interiors
The council, developers, architects and the local community got together to set the principles of what they consider good design in this fast-growing region.
As well as an infrastructure spending boost, governments are fast-tracking approvals. But these processes exist for a reason. If we get projects wrong, we live with the consequences for decades.
Distancing rules will make life very difficult for smaller bars, cafes and restaurants. Our streets can be modified quickly to help save an important part of the life of cities and their economies.
Long before a fire season that destroyed 3,500 homes, more than 100,000 Australians were homeless. If only we showed the same urgency and innovation in housing them as we did for bushfire victims.
Emergency services haven’t been able to protect people and properties against increasingly intense bushfires.
Scott Davis/AAP
Land-use planning should give more weight to the increasing risks of natural hazards like bushfires as the first step in reducing the impacts.
A koala mother and joey seeking refuge on a bulldozed log pile near Kin Kin in Queensland. Federal environment laws have failed to prevent widespread land clearing across Australia.
WWF Australia
Environment Minister Sussan Ley has announced a review of Australia’s nature laws. The poor state of our biodiversity shows we must do a better job of protecting the places we love.
When people weren’t asked about a proposed development in their area, they voiced their opposition.
Protect Taringa Facebook page
Good urban design and walkability boost local economic activity by increasing public activity, but cities need to pay more attention to the effects of microclimates on streets and public spaces.
Towering canyons of concrete and glass are an increasingly dominant feature of fast-growing cities like Melbourne.
ymgerman/Shutterstock
Planning controls in Melbourne were eased 20 years ago, with mixed results, and new limits are now in place. Will other cities that have eased height limits, like Adelaide, avoid the same mistakes?
Car parking is such a pervasive feature of our cities that we have become blind to how much space it takes up.
Shuang Li/Shutterstock
Australian cities have a glut of parking, even as politicians move to protect parking spaces or promise even more. There are better ways to keep congestion manageable and our cities liveable.
When most inner-city apartment residents don’t use cars to get around, you can expect public transport to feel the impacts of new developments.
Eric FIscher/Wikimedia
Traffic impact assessments required of major building developments mainly focus on the movement of cars, but these account for only 30-40% of trips by inner-city apartment dwellers.
Rob Stokes, pictured at the swearing in of the new ministry, is New South Wales’ first minister for planning and public spaces.
Joel Carrett/AAP
New South Wales now has a minister for public spaces, a nod to their importance to the life of a city. But not all is well with public spaces and some issues demand the minister’s attention.
Labor wants housing to be a federal election issue, but to solve the problems of recent decades Australian governments need to comprehensively rethink their approach.
Julian Smith/AAP
The problems with housing systems in Australia and similar countries run deep. Solutions depend on a fundamental rethink of our approach to housing and its central place in our lives and the economy.
Residents of the outer suburbs like the green spaces and sense of community, but lament the lack of access to transport and other services.
theskaman306/Shutterstock
Much of the growth in our cities is in the outer suburbs, now home to around 5 million people. And that creates problems like traffic that detract from the advantages residents see in living there.