The standards we use today were designed to help avoid the overcrowded housing that blighted cities in the past. But severe overcrowding is again on the rise, so what needs to be done?
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Articles on Rental affordability
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Housing affordability is one of Australia’s great unsolved problems. Some households can make adjustments to cover high housing costs, but the ones deprived of essentials are under real stress.
If local government is to deliver affordable housing, state and federal governments must assist. Even councils as powerful and well resourced as the City of Sydney cannot do it by themselves.
The Australian government has at last taken the lead in affordable housing policy with a package of measures that should attract institutional investors hungry for low-risk returns.
Unaffordable housing and homelessness are burning issues. Policymaking has suffered from a critical lack of data and expert input since the National Housing Supply Council was axed in 2013.
A modest rebalancing of federal tax policy toward build-to-rent housing could fill affordable housing funding gaps. Australian funds are already investing in such a scheme in the US.
Why can't the state fund an ongoing program of upgrading, replacing and building public housing? On the evidence to date, private developers aren't doing a better job of it.
Private renters' security of tenure in Australia has less legal protection than in other countries with high private rental rates. A new study reveals mixed responses to this state of uncertainty.
Almost nowhere in our capital cities can low-income households – and those on average incomes in Sydney – afford the median rent. Mapping rental vulnerability finds it in regional areas too.
In a market already tilted in favour of landlords, these apps could further push up prices.
Who is entitled to the increase in value created by planning approvals, new infrastructure, population growth or urban development? For John Stuart Mill, the answer would have been the community.
Owning a home has deep cultural and economic connotations. A home owner is a member of a street, a community. They are a successful adult human. They own a piece of the pie, the dream.
Only a small proportion of housing is affordable for low-income earners, while people on Newstart or Youth Allowance don't have any affordable options at all.
In the second part of our review of what The Conversation experts have to say about housing, we focus on affordability, social housing and what government can do about a growing crisis.
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?
With tenancy laws under review, a ruling that landlords must maintain residential premises in good repair even if dilapidated is hailed as a 'landmark' decision. That tells us reform is needed.
A decent national housing policy is not just about the million or so Australians who are in housing need, marginal housing or homeless. In reality, all the housing sectors are connected.
Some common misapprehensions remain about who needs affordable housing and how those needs might be met.
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.
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.
Top contributors
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Associate Director - City Futures - Urban Policy and Strategy, City Futures Research Centre, Housing Policy and Practice, UNSW
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Alan Morris is a Friend of The Conversation.
Research Professor, University of Technology Sydney
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Senior Lecturer in Economy and Society, Department of Sociology, Macquarie University
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Professor of Urban Policy and Director, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University
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Research Fellow, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW
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Associate Professor, Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology
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Professor of Urban Planning, University of Melbourne
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Professor of Urban Planning, University of Melbourne
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Future Fellow, University of Melbourne
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Professor, Curtin Law School, Curtin University
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Honorary Associate Professor, RMIT University
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Visiting Senior Fellow - City Futures Research Centre, Housing Policy and Practice, UNSW
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Deputy Pro Vice Chancellor, Research & Innovation; Director of UNGC Cities Programme; Professor, RMIT University
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Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Adelaide
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Associate Professor, Centre for Health Equity, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne
