Digital communications could be a force for greater local democracy in urban planning and development, but many councils use the technologies in ways that mirror traditional consultation.
One of the entry points to San Roque, with a makeshift guard shelter on the left.
Kim Dovey
Besides battling the coronavirus pandemic, San Roque residents have long been locked in a bigger struggle for their very survival as a community in the face of home demolitions and relocations.
Apartments house one in ten Australians, including a higher share of low-income households than other housing types. A new study identifies why some high-density neighbourhoods work better than others.
Jack Mundey fought to preserve heritage sites all his life, including the Sirius Building in 2016.
Dean Lewins/AAP
Jack Mundey fought to save Australia’s urban and environmental heritage. An architect of green bans, his lifelong efforts empowered citizens to assert their right to keep the heritage of their city.
In reacting to the pandemic, architecture can reclaim its impact by conceding its loss of connection with public health, looking beyond Western thinking for its references.
Inner Melbourne alone has lost 2,000 street trees to major developments within a decade. Losing tree cover makes it even more difficult for our cities to cope with an increasingly tough climate.
Visitors to Dubai are drawn to its carefully created and recreated urban precincts, but placemaking in this city helps sugercoat the reality of autocratic rule.
A resident sits inside a styrofoam box as he wades through a flooded area in Jakarta in early January.
Mast Irham/EPA
Indonesia’s capital Jakarta will face escalating flood costs by 2050.
The Crown Casino rising over the Barangaroo precinct on Sydney Harbor was approved without a competitive tender or public planning assessments.
Paul Braven/AAP
Overseas, city-shaping mega-projects are generally overseen by local government, but in Australia state governments often step in and exclude council and community representatives from the process.
Scientists need your help to protect Australia’s insects and track their numbers.
Joe Castro/AAP
Insects are vital to sustaining life on Earth – and their numbers are falling fast. So consider ditching the fly spray and see what you can do to help.
Greater Dandenong Civic Centre was completed in 2014 with new council chambers, a library and Harmony Square.
Photo: Hayley Henderson
A major investment in renewing the urban centre of Dandenong is starting to pay dividends. But while research has found three keys to success, the benefits haven’t reached everyone.
Eastern-yellow robin. Some 60 per cent of the native birds of south-east mainland Australia have lost more than half of their natural habitat.
Graham Winterflood/Wikimedia Commons
Aside from their intrinsic value, common bird species might be one of the only ways we connect with nature in our everyday lives. But these opportunities are under threat.
Auckland Council’s upgrade plans highlight the importance of local Māori communities as part of the process.
from www.shutterstock.com
As part of an upgrade of Auckland’s city centre, the council promises to include local Māori communities and their histories. But without addressing inequalities, it is no more than a token gesture.
A 2012 photograph of the Sunrise Church of Christ in Buffalo’s East Side. The building has since been demolished.
AP Photo/David Duprey
In up-and-coming neighborhoods, old churches are often converted to apartments or offices. But what about the vacant or underused churches in areas that aren’t attractive to developers?
Looking back at Lviv’s Soviet past, there are clues about how to preserve history for everyone – not just the affluent.
The Bangladesh government wants Karail, an established community of 200,000 people in the capital Dhaka, to make way for development.
Laura Elizabeth Pohl/Bread for the World/flickr
A community of 200,000 in Dhaka faces eviction to make room for “development”. Is it time to rethink the concept, especially with a billion people now living in informal settlements worldwide?
Street life, Addis Ababa.
milosk50 / Shutterstock.
Development should not be pursued at the expense of the very people who helped to create value and meaning in the city.
Indonesia plans to relocate its capital from the sprawling city of Jakarta – and it isn’t the only country with plans to build whole new cities.
AsiaTravel/Shutterstock
Other countries are planning new cities using technological innovation to achieve more sustainable development. Such plans aren’t new for Australia, but existing city growth is the focus of attention.
Mandatory competitive design processes have transformed the Sydney CBD skyline.
Robert Freestone
For two decades, a competitive design process pioneered by Sydney City Council has been transforming the city skyline and, new research shows, raising standards as it goes.
PhD Candidate, School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania, and Senior Research Consultant, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney