What if there was a middle option between retention and abolition that made negative gearing work better? There are multiple ways to improve accountability for this $8 billion-a-year tax concession.
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Articles on Cities & Policy
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Elevated rail to remove level crossings, done properly, has many benefits – and the alternatives are more disruptive and costly. But announcing projects with little consultation is asking for trouble.
By removing elected officials and installing a powerful command-and-control agency, the government’s approach to recovery has left many of the city’s people feeling disenfranchised and excluded.
Infrastructure Australia’s latest report is substantial but, critically, it fails to incorporate the transport thinking needed to develop more compact cities that work better for everyone.
State governments are now seeking to maximise the price of privatised assets by adding sale terms that restrict competition for the future private owners. That amounts to a hidden tax on consumers.
Tensions are mounting between the professional practices of government planners, processes of public participation and the private sector’s increasing role in shaping Australian cities.
The problem is there are already too many buyers willing to pay high prices, and negative gearing is designed to create more buyers willing to pay more.
We have come to see being digitally connected as part of the fabric of life in the city, but staying connected is a daily struggle for the marginalised and homeless.
Six years after Black Saturday, it’s worth remembering that heatwaves kill more people than bushfires do, so shade can be a life-saver. But tree cover and shade are not evenly distributed in cities.
Government policy has not, on the whole, failed. It has been a huge success insofar as protecting the opportunities for speculative investment and profit for homeowners and private landlords.
An experiment compared the experience of Anglo, Indian and Muslim Middle Eastern “renters” looking for housing. The differences in how they were treated were significant.
At the Habitat III summit in October, governments will agree an agenda to guide sustainable global urban development over the next 20 years. The rise of the ethical city is a key element of this.
Constant, complex changes in cities and mine sites are hard to monitor. Drawing on digital aerial photography, it’s now possible to track land-use and vegetation changes in areas as small as 10-20cm.
Japan’s ageing population is at the point that Australia is forecast to reach in 2056. The Japanese have had to develop new models of aged care in the community and we can learn a lot from them.
Had the Romans, Chinese and English of old seen our buildings, built around views that distract from the interior and our interior lives, they would not have been surprised by modern discontent.
Cities are aiming to increase their tree cover. But there will need to be more than trees to encourage wildlife to return.
On average, people won’t accept a commuting time of more than an hour. As cities grow ever bigger, new road projects can’t achieve this, yet policymakers still rely on modelling that defies evidence.
Cities have been called “orphans of public policy”, so Malcolm Turnbull’s decisive entry into the fray is remarkable. He has the credibility, nous and drive to deliver a national urban policy agenda.
Cities are complex systems. One visible artery of the city is traffic – the cluster of moving people and flowing goods – and that mobility is critical for a city’s life.
Community and housing industry leaders agreed a national guideline and a plan to provide basic access features in all new housing by 2020. But this voluntary approach is failing.
Top contributors
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Transport and Cities Program Director, Grattan Institute
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Professor of Housing Research and Policy, and Associate Director, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
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Head of Urbanism and Associate Professor of Urban Studies, School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney
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Senior Lecturer in Urban and Environmental Planning, Griffith University
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Associate Professor in Urban Planning, The University of Queensland
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Professor of Human Geography and Planning, University of Tasmania
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Professor of Urban Policy and Director, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University
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Associate Professor of Urban Planning, The University of Melbourne
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Neil G Sipe is a Friend of The Conversation.
Honorary Professor of Planning, The University of Queensland
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Housing Policy Researcher, Expert Advisor, Housing Assessment Resource Tools and Adjunct Professor, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
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Scientia Associate Professor, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
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Emeritus Professor, University of Sydney
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Adjunct professor, School of Media and Communications, RMIT University
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Professor of Sustainability, Curtin University
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Professor of Housing Research, University of Adelaide
