The business of metropolitan planning is not the natural game of state governments. The Victorian government tries but cannot manage metropolitan Melbourne.
Of 2,646 hectares of public land being prepared for sale in Victoria, 24 sites are suitable for building high-quality public housing in places of high need. Why isn’t the land being used for this?
The rise of global cities, metropolises that dominate their states, is exposing Australia’s lack of metropolitan governments. It’s time to restart the evolution of our states after a century on hold.
Only the inner suburbs of Melbourne and other capital cities meet the 20-minute neighbourhood test. But we could transform the other suburbs for much less than the cost of current transport projects.
The neighbourhoods of Paris, Barcelona and Amsterdam with densities 3-5 times those of Melbourne and Sydney offer an insight into how we could transform our cities for the better.
Millions of Australians are struggling with unaffordable housing. It’s a systemic problem that’s been decades in the making, and only concerted system-wide reforms will fix it.
Cities around the world are struggling to manage their mountains of waste. We can use the Internet of Things for smart waste systems that collect, sort, reuse and recycle most of what is thrown out.
Public protests eventually forced the scrapping of some proposed freeways in 1973. Today, we have another round of projects and people are protesting again, with good reason. Government should listen.
While called a transportation plan,
it was heavily skewed towards roads. We need the type of city-shaping thinking that underpinned the plan, but today’s plans must match 21st-century priorities.
Australia’s capital cities have collectively lost 30% of their stored water over the last six years. But this loss is not evenly distributed across the country.
The new payphones have Wi-Fi, mobile charging and transport information. But city councils are concerned they’re digital billboards for Telstra, which could cost billions in lost productivity.
It’s time to tackle the shortage of public housing head-on, rather than skirt around the problem. Public housing is the single most cost-effective way to turn around the rise in homelessness.
The Spanish city is remaking urban neighbourhoods by limiting through traffic in superblocks that give priority to pedestrians and street activities, not cars.
Alan Morris, University of Technology Sydney; Hal Pawson, UNSW Sydney; Kath Hulse, Swinburne University of Technology, dan Violet Xia, University of Technology Sydney
While politicians ignore calls to raise Newstart, alarming levels of financial stress among private renters, particularly in low-rent outer suburbs, show why current welfare payments are too low.
A program aimed at getting people home safely has cost A$300 million but has had little impact, aside from increased intoxication in CBD venues. Rates of assaults and road crashes are much the same.