City Futures Blog

News and research in housing and urban policy, from Australia’s leading urban policy research centre.

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Entries Tagged as 'Economy'

Australia’s high house prices damage economic productivity, financial stability and equity

June 25th, 2021 · No Comments · Economy, Housing

By Duncan Maclennan, Hal Pawson and Bill Randolph. Originally published at Pearls and Irritations – John Menadue’s Public Policy Journal. Recent discussion has highlighted how rising house prices are rationing growing numbers of younger Australians into rental housing and lifestyle choices falling short of aspirations. Now there are warnings that future falling homeownership rates across most age cohorts could […]

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Rising house prices putting at risk the economic stability of the nation

March 11th, 2021 · No Comments · Affordability, Economy, Guest appearance

By Duncan Maclennan, Jinqiao Long, Hal Pawson, Bill Randolph, Fatemeh Aminpour and Chris Leishman. Originally published (and headlined) by John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations. Image credit – Unsplash. Housing unaffordability is causing real economic damage that governments must treat more seriously. Put simply, rising mortgage debt poses risks for national economic stability, while current housing policies […]

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Social housing was one hell of a missed budget opportunity, but there’s time

October 8th, 2020 · No Comments · Economy, Government, Housing, Uncategorized

By Hal Pawson. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Tonight Labor will deliver its alternative budget and promise that if it was in government it would be investing A$500 million in fast-tracking repairs to social housing, and urging state governments to match it dollar for […]

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After COVID, we’ll need a rethink to repair Australia’s housing system and the economy

September 11th, 2020 · No Comments · Affordability, Cities, Economy, Government, Guest appearance, Housing, Productivity

By Hal Pawson, UNSW; Bill Randolph, UNSW; Chris Leishman, University of Adelaide; and Duncan Maclennan, University of Glasgow. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. A new report from the New South Wales Productivity Commission (NSWPC) announces that “[higher] housing costs […] impose broader economic costs”. […]

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Why the COVID Commission must back social housing stimulus

June 3rd, 2020 · No Comments · Climate change, Construction, Economy, Government, Housing supply, Pandemic, Sustainability

By Hal Pawson, City Futures Research Centre. The Prime Minister’s COVID Commission is supposed to be advising government on how to ‘facilitate the fastest possible recovery of lives and livelihoods’ after the pandemic. Yet it’s main focus appears to be the promotion of a fossil-fuelled medium-term industrial strategy tailored to mining interests. Advocacy for a […]

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Coronavirus lays bare 5 big housing system flaws to be fixed

May 12th, 2020 · No Comments · Affordability, Construction, Economy, Government, Guest appearance, Housing, Housing supply, Pandemic, Tenancy, urban renewal

By Hal Pawson, City Futures Research Centre UNSW, and Peter Mares, Monash University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Australians had become used to walking past rough sleepers. Policymakers too, seemed unmoved by the people huddled in doorways or sheltering in parks under plastic sheets. […]

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Why City Futures backs social housing stimulus plan

May 5th, 2020 · No Comments · Economy, Government, Housing supply, Pandemic

By Bill Randolph, Director, City Futures Research Centre With Australia’s economy taking a record-breaking pandemic hit, governments now face the huge challenge of reviving employment as the health crisis subsides. It’s widely agreed that a stimulus spending program should be a central plank of the recovery plan.   Construction is an obvious stimulus target, since, […]

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City Dashboards in a time of COVID-19

April 28th, 2020 · No Comments · Cities, Data, Demographics, Economy, Housing, Pandemic, Wellbeing

By Chris Pettit, City Futures Research Centre. In an era of digitisation and smart cities we have seen the rise of city dashboards. These dashboards provide important information in the forms of graphs, charts and maps and hold the promise of better management and planning our cities. There is also an expectation that dashboards will […]

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Rents can and should be reduced or suspended for the coronavirus pandemic

April 8th, 2020 · No Comments · Affordability, Economy, Government, Housing, Law, Tenancy, Uncategorized

By Chris Martin, City Futures Research Centre. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The National Cabinet announced a moratorium on evictions just over a week ago in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As government ministers and commentators have tried to make clear, it’s intended only […]

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Why housing evictions must be suspended to defend us against coronavirus

March 23rd, 2020 · No Comments · Economy, Government, Guest appearance, Housing, Law, Money, Pandemic, Wellbeing

Antonio Guillem/Shutterstock By Sophia Maalsen, University of Sydney; Chris Martin, UNSW; Dallas Rogers, University of Sydney, and Emma Power, Western Sydney University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The COVID-19 pandemic is a double crisis affecting public health and the economy. And both aspects are playing […]

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