Review of historic stock routes may put rare stretches of native plants and animals at risk
Australia's iconic stock routes are now public land, used for everything from conservation to recreation. A government review may change that.
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Retrofitted cities are forcing residents to live with planning failures – we’re due for a rethink
Planners wish to correct past errors by increasing densities, discouraging car dependency and mixing land uses. But imposing imported strategies on Australian cities is producing unhappy results.
Pace of renewable energy shift leaves city planners struggling to keep up
Traditional urban planning is being stretched by the pace at which renewable energy systems are being installed. New codes and guidelines are needed to manage emerging conflicts over land use.
Farming the suburbs – why can’t we grow food wherever we want?
Urban residents are increasingly keen to farm verges, parks, rooftops and backyards, but planning rules sometimes stand in the way.
Brisbane’s Cross River Rail will feed the centre at the expense of people in the suburbs
The rail project may well help get more commuters into the CBD, but offers few benefits for the parts of the broader metro area where most population growth is occurring.
The needs of the land and the needs of the people can’t be separated
The ecological needs of the land need to be considered together with the social and political needs of its people.
Five-yearly environmental stocktake highlights the conflict between economy and nature
The State of the Environment 2016 report shows that the main drivers of environmental change in Australia are land-use change, habitat destruction, invasive species and climate change.
Housing the dead: what happens when a city runs out of space?
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.
Can ‘climate corridors’ help species adapt to warming world?
Animals and plants will need escape hatches to move to cooler climes as the planet warms, but few parts of the U.S. have the natural habitat available for these migrations.
Can nature advocates save threatened Boundary Waters wilderness – again?
Almost 100 years ago, the foundations to preserve the Boundary Waters in Minnesota for recreation were put in place. Now residents are debating whether to allow a mine in its headwaters.
Election 2016: the issues in non-metropolitan Australia
What are the issues facing rural and regional Australia? The challenges are many and varied – and only some have made the national political agenda – but these areas deserve better than neglect.
Can we feed the world and stop deforestation? Depends what’s for dinner
Widespread adoption of a largely meat-free diet could feed the world and leave our forests intact.
Done like a chicken dinner: city fringes locked in battles over broiler farms
As consumption has soared and prices have fallen, the realities of industrial chicken farming often clash with the values of people who live on the urban fringes where broiler farms are sited.
Urban sprawl is threatening Sydney’s foodbowl
Farms on Sydney's fringes supply 20% of the city's food. That could drop by more than half if urban sprawl isn't kept in check.
Australian Infrastructure Plan has some way to go to give our cities what they need
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.
An uneasy marriage: planners, public and the market struggle to work well together
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 planner’s new best friend: we can now track land-use changes on a scale of centimetres
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.
Top contributors
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Adjunct Professor, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, The Business School, University of Sydney
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Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney
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Adjunct professor, University of Western Australia
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Senior Lecturer in Built Environment, UNSW
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Professor, The Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University
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Dallas Rogers is a Friend of The Conversation.
Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney
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Associate Professor of Environmental Planning, Griffith University
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Research Fellow, University of Sydney
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Senior Research Consultant, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney
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Vice Chancellor's Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, RMIT University
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Director, The Cairns Institute, James Cook University
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Researcher in Conservation Decision Science and Land Use, University of Victoria
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Professor Bob Scholes is a Systems Ecologist at the Global Change Institute (GCI), University of the Witwatersrand
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Research fellow, Australian National University
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Marco Amati is a Friend of The Conversation.
Associate Professor of International Planning, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University
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