Whether it’s pressures of space or a warmer climate, which is affecting Melbourne’s elms, urban greening must respond to the challenges of 21st-century urban living.
Joe Castro/AAP
Greening cities that are becoming denser is a major challenge. City-dwellers’ health benefits from both well-designed green spaces and urban density, so we must manage the tensions between them.
Diverse bushland and wetlands in urban areas contribute to the health and wellbeing of all residents.
Author provided
Urban bushland has health benefits beyond being a great place to go for a walk. Planners need to consider these when making decisions about the future of our cities.
Must we become passive observers to the destruction of one of Melbourne’s most culturally diverse and socially rich suburbs?
Smart cities are usually optimised like a business for speed and efficiency. Placemaking can slow down cities to improve health and wellbeing and promote more democratic engagement of citizens.
More than 6,000 passengers have travelled on the RAC’s driverless electric shuttle bus during a recent trial in South Perth.
AAP/RAC
There are very few approaches that examine all aspects of the complexity of urban design and development. Ergonomics, human factors and sociotechnical systems methods offer a way forward.
While many urban design guidelines include ambience as a required ‘city quality’, few provide ways to achieve it.
Ayrcan/flickr
Ambience is a result of a whole range of processes and physical objects. We can use a systems approach to examine and describe what needs to be done to achieve such a subjective quality in a street.
Both Donald Trump and his political opponents are on board the global infrastructure bandwagon.
Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
The trillions of dollars spent on infrastructure demands democratic transparency and accountability. This applies to both the investment and to the effects on cities, societies and the environment.
Informed citizens are essential to support good planning and infrastructure decisions. Marginalising urban planning gets us nowhere.
from www.shutterstock.com
Urban planners have been blamed for a lot of things, including higher housing costs. But the solution is to refine the process, not sideline the good planning that makes cities safe and liveable.
How does a city shape women’s feelings of safety?
Pamela Salen, XYX Lab, Monash University 2017
In recent years, anti-terrorism defences have become more subtle. That might be about to change.
The uncertainties about the new Badgerys Creek airport in Western Sydney are raising many questions that only good governance can resolve.
from www.shutterstock.com
Building a second Sydney airport will be a demanding engineering project. But the real challenge will be one of governance needed to choreograph the mix of old and new city that will surround it.
To meet the needs of lower-income households, housing should be both affordable and located near public transport and other services.
Graeme Bartlett/Wikimedia
Victoria has been lagging behind other states in developing an affordable housing strategy. Now that one has been released, how well does it meet the needs of households on lower incomes?
Design deficiencies that contribute to conflict in public spaces often start at the edges.
Redesigning spaces of conflict starts with creating life on the edges. Geelong offers contrasting examples of city centre spaces: one with problems inherent in its design and a nearby one that works.
Illustration titled, “If you want to get rid of mosquitos, drain the swamp that breeds them.” (1909)
Library of Congress
Understanding what makes a neighbourhood street a good place to live for adults with intellectual disability can help create places that are good for everyone.
Apartments near the greenbelt in Vienna are more expensive than otherwise similar apartments in that city.
Max Pixel
The health impacts of urban and regional planning are undisputed. So why did the NSW government adopt and then discard health objectives as part of state planning legislation?
A polarising election issue in Western Australia, the Roe 8 project illustrates the need for better and more democratic decision-making.
Gregory Roberts/AAP
One reason Perth’s Roe 8 project is the subject of passionate protests is that it’s a case of a government asserting power over people rather than exercising power with local communities.
The scene of the fatal crash at Essendon Airport, where authorities allowed extensive development between the runways and surrounding housing.
Joe Castro/AAP
Airport operators enjoy the privileged position in Australian planning law of being able to decide their own futures. Their exemption from state planning rules threatens orderly planning and safety.