The State of Australian Cities Conference begins in Adelaide today. In major cities across the nation, there’s a stark contrast between lofty planning goals and the sprawling reality on the ground.
Reforming how drivers pay for the costs of their road use can help keep traffic flowing, which is just one of the potential benefits.
Holli/Shutterstock
Traffic congestion is the main cost that cars create when they use existing roads. Road use charges are a more efficient and fairer way to cover the cost and help ensure traffic flows.
A homeless man sleeping rough in the city. More and more older people will be homeless on current trends.
flickr
The rising number of older Australians is exposing the shortage of housing options and services to meet their needs, putting them at increasing risk of homelessness.
A trial of 1,400 drivers across Melbourne suggests time-of-use charges can be effective in easing traffic congestion.
AMPG/Shutterstock
A city-wide experiment suggests well-designed road use charges could ease congestion by encouraging people to drive at different times, take other routes or use other transport.
State premiers like Gladys Berejiklian need to have a much sharper policy focus on delivering social and affordable housing.
David Moir/AAP
Yet again the evidence shows supply is no cure-all for affordable housing. All levels of government in Australia need to concentrate on housing for low-income renters in particular.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff launch Sidewalk Toronto, a high-tech urban development project.
Mark Blinch/Reuters
Toronto has entered a joint venture with a Google sister company to create a high-tech urban development area. The goal is to ‘re-imagine cities from the internet up’ – Google’s internet, of course.
Highton Shopping Village in Geelong.
Leila Farahani
Low-density suburbs can cause social isolation that’s harmful for individual and community well-being. But research confirms we can plan neighbourhood centres so they become vibrant social hubs.
If more people live in the Adelaide Hills, they are more likely to be exposed to bushfires.
David Mariuz/AAP
What decisions can we make today to reduce the future risk of hazards like floods and fire? Particularly in a time of climate change, modelling various plausible futures helps us plan for uncertainty.
Connections between people and between people and places help create vibrant neighbourhoods with a sense of human identity and belonging.
Picture by Tommy Wong
So you’re having to room share to live in the city. What if you need more than a place to sleep? Well, now you can rent a living room by the minute. Welcome to the world of distributed living.
The Ballarat Road project in Maidstone and Footscray, Melbourne, will transform vacant land into housing for people at risk of homelessness.
Schored Architects
An innovative collaboration between government, a non-profit group and philanthropists has found a way to provide urgently needed housing on land that would otherwise be left vacant for years.
Movies from the “neo-noir” genre offer a darker and bleaker vision of the city, in stark contrast to the world of the TV sit-com.
Tan Zi Han/Shutterstock
Movies often portray the city as a dystopia, particularly in the ‘neo-noir’ genre, which explores postmodern themes. TV shows and ads present an altogether sunnier picture of life in the city.
Stony Creek drain: untidy and often slightly threatening, informal green space still has value for residents, which appropriate intervention can enhance.
Residents often have concerns about informal green space but some still use it. Work to enhance these areas should aim to resolve these concerns without destroying what residents do value.
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.
It’s now possible to experience virtual walks through nature – like this video, for example – but can that ever match the real thing?
Video screenshot, sounds from the core/YouTube
Faecal transplants and virtual nature are technological solutions to ‘nature deficit disorder’ from urban living. Such ‘quick fixes’ offer some benefits, but are no substitute for the real thing.
Including community members as participants and co-creators of the Dragon of Shandon is central to the festival’s success.
OpenLens.ie/Dragon of Shandon
Urban festivals built on community involvement can reinvigorate places and create a shared sense of place and purpose that lasts long after the event is over.
Lots of parking: the extraordinary amount of valuable land used to park cars in most cities could soon be freed up for other uses.
Antonio Gravante/Shutterstock
Cities around the world are starting to rethink the vast areas of land set aside for parking. The convergence of several trends likely will mean this space becomes available for other uses.
Maya Demetriou, 90, pictured after the court ruling that the minister did not properly consider a heritage listing recommendation, will be the last tenant left in the Sirius building.
Perry Duffin/AAP
All but a handful of the former public housing tenants are gone. But despite the government again rejecting the recommended heritage listing of the Sirius building, the fight to save it isn’t over.
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.
Two young boys in helmets, playing soldiers with toy guns (1908-1928).
State Library of South Australia (B 28519/136)