Dallas Rogers speaks with Nicole Cook about how union 'green bans' in the 1970s stopped the redevelopment of working-class suburbs in Sydney.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian needs to shed the Treasury view of housing construction as a silver bullet and back former premier Mike Baird’s social and affordable housing program.
Nikki Short/AAP
The new NSW premier is right to identify housing affordability as a priority for the people and economy of Sydney. It’s not just housing supply that’s the problem – action is needed on many fronts.
Most of the major cemeteries in Australian cities, including Sydney’s Waverley Cemetery, date back to the 1800s.
Kate Ryan
Most big city cemeteries in Australia date back to the 1800s, so we need to consider our burial options before we reach the point when the number of deaths exceeds the available cemetery plots.
These units in suburban Parramatta were built as part of the 2009-12 national Social Housing Initiative.
Gethin Davison
Do affordable housing projects drive down property values? Does neighbours’ quality of life suffer? Case studies in Brisbane and Sydney suggest such fears aren’t justified.
The problem with the current rezoning approach is that it leads to huge windfall profits and developments aimed at the upper end of the market.
AAP
The community needs affordable housing and that requires meaningful targets for new developments. The only ones who will lose out are landholders who make windfall profits from rezoning.
Residents of Collaroy, NSW, got a painful lesson in the power of the ocean in June.
AAP Image/Dean Lewins
Many Australians live on the coast, but how much do we know about the risks? While average sea levels are relatively easy to gauge, the risk of flooding also depends on weather, landscape, and climate.
Some intangible elements of a city, such as people’s attachments to the ‘vibe’ of a place, are critical to understanding that city.
Kristina Kl./flickr
Researchers have found a disaster “hotspot” in northern New South Wales, where nearly half of the state’s most disadvantaged communities are found.
Premier Mike Baird (right) has been out promoting the Sydney Metro project, but has yet to explain how the benefits of massive public investment will be shared.
Stefanie Menezes/AAP
Who’ll profit from the value uplift arising from the huge investment of taxpayers’ funds in creating better-serviced, higher-density suburbs? And what will the changes mean for existing residents?
Sydney’s Kings Cross and CBD are safer as a result of the lockout measures, but it has come at a cost to the precincts’ ‘vibrancy’.
AAP/April Fonti
A review of Sydney’s lockout laws found the objective of reducing alcohol- and drug-related assaults and anti-social behaviour remain valid, and the measures introduced are achieving this.
The historical, social and moral reasons for retaining the Sirius Building for public housing are compelling, but the state government is focused on the money from its sale.
Jenny Noyes/Newzulu/AAP
The state is ignoring historical, social and moral reasons to keep public housing in Heritage areas of Sydney. Its sell-off will further divide the city between rich and poor and end a rich history.
Public protests forced a backdown on a proposed merger of university art schools, but their value to cities is still being underestimated.
Joel Carrett/AAP
Art schools are emerging globally as very powerful instruments of urban renewal. In a time of transformation, Sydney must learn to tap into the value of having multiple art colleges.
By persuading some drivers to travel a different route or at a different time, congestion charges can dramatically improve the flow of traffic.
AAP/Andrew Brownbill
Bigger cities increase wages, output and innovation, but also problems of congestion and pollution. Congestion charges can minimise these problems by dramatically improving traffic flows.
The White Bay Power Station is a prime harbourside redevelopment site.
Wikimedia Commons
The fact that the NSW government has stepped in to take back control of the White Bay redevelopment is actually an amazing story. One would hope this is a process of learning at work.
Damaged property in Sydney following recent wild weather.
AAP Image/David Moir
Heightening liquor regulation has for centuries been the immediate response of urban policymakers when confronted with people and behaviours deemed socially undesirable.
Coastal erosion caused by massive waves during the weekend’s East Coast Low.
AAP Image/David Moir
Eastern Australia’s massive storms will likely become rarer in a warmer world, but probably more intense.
The regulation of drinking has helped create precisely the violent, misogynistic and law-breaking culture that it was intended to control.
John Brack/Wikimedia Commons
Since the earliest days of British colonisation, authorities have sought to limit the problems associated with alcohol by licensing its sale and limiting the times and places where it is drunk.
Residents are concerned that a redevelopment of the historic Bondi Pavilion is designed to privatise public space.
AAP/Marilia Ogayar
The story of the Builders Labourers Federation campaigns that saved historic locations and green spaces in the 1970s still speaks to contemporary Australians’ concerns about urban development.
PhD Candidate, School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania, and Senior Research Consultant, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney