Before the pandemic, our cities had a simple plan: let population growth drive economic activity. But the world is changing and the perpetual growth mindset has to change with it.
Australia’s big cities have grown rapidly and strains are showing. Yet the state of the urban environment has been rated good and stable due to local and state responses to these challenges.
Singapore’s Surbana Jurong prepared master plan 2040 for the Rwandan capital, Kigali.
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The ‘exodus’ from capital cities amounts to 0.06% of their populations – similar to recent years – and people are still moving to the cities. What’s missing is growth driven by international migrants.
Australia lacks a coherent national approach to planning where settlement and growth happens. It’s time to take stock of our cities and regions and work together to improve outcomes across the nation.
Endless growth is not a sustainable option for fast-growing Australian cities like Melbourne.
Nils Versemann/Shutterstock
The demands on land and resources from our fast-growing cities are unsustainable, as are the wastes they produce. Yet still our leaders act as if unlimited growth is possible.
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.
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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.
Looking out from Ontong Java settlement at the mouth of the Mataniko River, Honiara.
Alexei Trundle (2017)
Pacific island nations are often framed as remote atolls facing rising seas and cyclones. But their cities are growing fast, so are efforts to help the most climate-vulnerable people hitting the mark?
The Morrison government’s packaging of a bundle of roads spending as “urban congestion” measures is an acknowledgement that transport planning has been inadequate.
Dean Lewins/AAP
The focus on roads reflects the fact that this infrastructure program lags well behind the growth of our biggest cities, resulting in less-than-ideal transport patterns.
The Morrison government’s population plan looks to reduce the concentration of growth in the big cities and to raise the benefit-cost ratio of population change more broadly.
Andrew Taylor/AAP
Population growth has pros and cons, and the Morrison government’s plan is less about a change in immigration numbers than about increasing the benefits and minimising the costs.
Melbourne is a favourite destination for migrants from overseas and elsewhere in Australia.
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Capital city populations are growing twice as fast as the rest of Australia, because of the employment and business opportunities and lifestyle on offer to both new migrants and long-term residents.
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.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called for a rethink of the ‘top-down’ approach to immigration in Australia, allowing states and territories more input.
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Urban growth has had much less impact on commuting distances and times than media reports would suggest. The explanations include jobs being widely dispersed and residents’ adaptable decision-making.
The big global cities might be engines of growth but are also where the deepest troughs of poverty and injustice are found.
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The largest cities in Australia and the US are both the richest and the most likely to push out low-income earners. Having cities of all sizes will increase people’s choices of where to live and work.
Historic investments in green open space along the Yarra created a legacy of liveability in Melbourne.
Ispas Vlad/Shutterstock
Australian cities are experiencing the third big wave of growth in their history. The response in the past was planning and investment in green infrastructure, and it’s time to do the same again.
Benjamen Gussen’s proposal for a ‘charter city’ in the Pilbara stimulated this imaginary depiction.
Justin Bolleter
Business-as-usual projections assume our four biggest cities must absorb three-quarters of Australia’s population growth over the next 30 years. Might new cities be a better way to deal with it?
Ruth and Maurie Crow with a plan of their linear city.
Image courtesy of SEARCH Foundation
Ruth and Maurie Crow were early advocates of the compact city. They also warned 50 years ago that a clear justice intent was needed to shape cities for their citizens rather than vested interests.
The Thomson Dam, Melbourne’s largest water storage, dropped to only 16% of capacity in the last big drought.
Melbourne Water/flickr
Australian cities have turned to some very costly solutions when water is scarce. But as the world’s second-highest users of water per person, more efficient use and recycling are key.
At first glance, old industrial sites, like this one in Carrington Street, don’t look like much. But they provide vital spaces for creative precincts to flourish.
Paul Jones
A new project documents who uses urban industrial lands slated for redevelopment. It reveals a vibrant but largely hidden sector at the interface between creative industries and small manufacturing.