John Stanley, University of Sydney; Janet Stanley, The University of Melbourne, and Peter Brain, National Institute of Economic and Industry Research
State and local governments can’t do much about the rapid population growth in Melbourne, but they can take steps to reduce the costs of growing disparities between the outer suburbs and inner city.
About two-thirds of Australia’s strawberries are grown on the fringes of Melbourne and Brisbane.
Xavier La Canna/AAP
City fringe foodbowls supply much of our fresh produce and can increase climate resilience by making better use of wastewater and organic waste. A new roadmap outlines how to protect these foodbowls.
Australia’s sprawling cities present many challenges to sustainability, but planning innovations can help achieve at least half of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Nils Versemann/Shutterstock
Planning innovations around the world offer inspiration, but ultimately the innovations needed to make Australia’s sprawling cities more sustainable must be shaped by local conditions.
City fringe agriculture gives farmers unique access to direct markets and provides those living in cities the opportunity to connect with local growers.
Foodprint Melbourne
To improve access to locally grown food and help prevent disruptions to supply chains caused by climate change, we need to support farming on the fringes of cities.
Calgary beat out Vancouver on this year’s most livable city index issued by the Economist magazine.
Flickr
Vancouver lost out to Calgary as Canada’s most livable city this year. Why? Is it the high cost of housing or is it the city’s ‘neighbourhood first’ method that sometimes creates business instability?
Residents of Pandanad sit in a bus stop surrounded by flood waters, in Kerala, India.
Manjunath Kiran/AFP
Uncontrolled growth at the expense of the environment will severely exacerbate the impacts of climate change. As shown with tragic floods in India, our cities are not prepared for extreme events.
Garden roofs (like these in Chengdu, in China’s Sichuan province) need maintenance and community involvement.
from shutterstock.com
Dense, high buildings limit the space available for urban greenery. But imaginative projects that involve the community can ensure nature and the city go hand in hand.
Four major disruptions of urban transport are set to transform city life, but exactly how remains uncertain.
Taras Makarenko/Pexels
Self-driving, shared, electric vehicles and increasing urban density represent four disruptions that will transform city life. But a transport utopia isn’t a guaranteed outcome of their interactions.
Wildfire threatens a home near Possum Kingdom, Texas, April 19, 2011.
State Farm
Many countries around the world are vulnerable to wildfires, but a fire engineer warns that most are not spending enough on research into how fires spread and ways to reduce risks.
Without medium-density housing being built in the established suburbs – the ‘missing middle’ – the goals of more compact, sustainable and equitable cities won’t be achieved.
zstock/shutterstock
Residents of established middle suburbs are slowly coming round to the idea, but governments and the property sector lack the capacity to deliver compact cities that are acceptable to the community.
Campaigners in Perth are fighting the destruction of bushland for a new highway. They have two of three historically important factors on their side.
More than any other Australian city, Melbourne has led a 30-year turnaround in inner-city density (red indicates increases and blue decreases in density as persons per square kilometre).
Many factors have influenced population density change in Australian cities over the past 30 years. Melbourne has led the way in inner-city rebirth as a way to help manage future growth.
The continued preference for detached housing in new suburbs is driving Perth’s urban sprawl and means two-thirds of dwellings built over the next 15 years need to be on infill sites to meet the state’s target.
perthhdproductions/flickr
Government and industry need to demonstrate the benefits of well-designed higher-density housing. Rich residential display projects may be the ideal catalyst for creating smarter cities.
Suburban expansion on Perth’s fringe pushes into the SouthWest Ecoregion.
Richard Weller/Donna Broun
If Perth can preserve the rich biodiversity of its setting, it will become a model for sustainable city development that fully connects with the value of natural ecosystem services.
A colorized 1937 photograph of a shantytown on the outskirts of Seattle.
photoretrofit/Reddit
Like Brazil’s favela dwellers, America’s working poor felt a sense of pride and community in their shantytowns – and desperately resisted the powerful interests that sought to demolish them.
Banksia woodlands are home to thousands of plant species.
Rob Davis
The Banksia woodlands of the Swan Coastal Plain are home to thousands of species, many unique. But they are gradually being swallowed by Perth, one of the world’s most sprawling cities.
In the media, urban consolidation is often depicted as a threat to Australian suburban life. In reality, it’s a result of managed planning processes to ensure growing cities remain liveable.