Outside the capital cities and the coastal fringes, the towns and people of rural and regional Australia have had to be inventive to get through the tough times.
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.
With the addition of minarets, Hagia Sophia was converted from a Christian basilica to an Islamic mosque.
Candace Richards
Adaptive reuse and recycling of heritage architecture may be all the rage, but are not new. Making new buildings from old has a long history in the ancient world.
Interior of the ‘Great Hall’ at the old Fyansford Paper Mills.
Photographer: Donna Squire
The people of Geelong are connecting with their industrial past as the city undergoes a community-led creative transformation.
The increasing proportion of children living in housing-related poverty confronts us with the question: what will we do about it?
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Many children are living in low-income families that struggle to pay the rent to keep a roof over their heads. Unaffordable housing is fuelling childhood poverty, so where is the policy response?
New technology and real-time data are breaking down the old transport system silos.
Jakub Kaminski/EPA
Roads versus public transport: for decades, these have been the battle lines in debates over transport in our cities. But a revolution in mobility is under way that will transform our thinking.
Cities today are flooded with light and we seldom think of its harmful impacts on the natural world.
Jim Young/Reuters
Urban greening programs need to consider the harmful impacts of artificial lighting on ecosystems. Fortunately, we can do a lot to create more biosensitive lighting.
Blockchain looms as the second generation of the internet by transforming it from an internet of information to an internet of value.
Sergey Nivens from www.shutterstock.com
Only about 5% of Australians live in the tropics, but it is not a mysterious or unopened land of limitless untapped potential. The ambition of northern development dates back to the 19th century.
The growing numbers of pensioners in private rental accommodation use much of their income to pay for housing.
Alan Porritt/AAP
For the increasing proportion of people living in private rental accommodation who can expect to be dependent on the age pension, the prospects of financial and housing insecurity are grim.
The Turnbull government’s focus seems to be largely on infrastructure projects that drive economic growth.
AAP/Lukas Coch
One year on, the Turnbull government is touting the economic benefits of an infrastructure agenda that neglects the other important functions of transport projects.
The rapid growth of Melbourne is threatening the very liveability that makes it attractive to so many people.
Francisco Anzola/flickr
The increasing global focus on essential services and public space as a key combination for successful city-making is relevant to fast-growing Australian cities too.
Meeting the challenges of informal settlements, such as this one in Caracas, Venezuela, calls for integrated approaches that cut across urban scales and disciplines.
Hesam Kamalipour
Hesam Kamalipour, The University of Melbourne; Alexei Trundle, The University of Melbourne; André Stephan, The University of Melbourne; Hayley Henderson, The University of Melbourne, dan Melanie Lowe, The University of Melbourne
Informal settlements are often undocumented or hidden on official maps, but they house about a billion people worldwide. Their existence demands a more sophisticated approach to urban development.
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 draft regional plan, ShapingSEQ, released by Queensland Deputy Premier Jackie Trad, has been influenced by ‘stakeholders’ rather than representative community input.
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The draft plan for Southeast Queensland largely takes a ‘provide land for the predicted demand’ approach, which assumes regional planning is a type of technical process best left to the experts.
Think of all the resources needed to transform Shenzhen, a fishing town 35 years ago, into a megacity of more than 10 million people.
Wikimedia Commons
André Stephan, The University of Melbourne; Alexei Trundle, The University of Melbourne; Dave Kendal, The University of Melbourne; Hayley Henderson, The University of Melbourne; Hesam Kamalipour, The University of Melbourne, dan Melanie Lowe, The University of Melbourne
Our cities need to become much more efficient not just to conserve precious resources but to improve the economy, wellbeing and resilience to environmental change and disasters.
For as long as the government avoids rigorous, transparent processes, there is no reason to expect any real discipline in how it spends infrastructure dollars.
AAP/Julian Smith
Greater Geelong’s ‘Our Future’ is a process of involving industry professionals and the community in the development of a long-term vision for Victoria’s second-biggest city.
The stereotype of a dependent generation who won’t leave home overlooks the many reasons adult family members choose to live together in the one house.
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