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 'urban renewal'

Quality of life in high-density apartments varies. Here are 6 ways to improve it

May 29th, 2020 · No Comments · Cities, Guest appearance, Housing, Housing conditions, Public space, Strata, urban renewal, Wellbeing

By Hazel Easthope, UNSW; Laura Crommelin, UNSW; Laurence Troy, University of Sydney, and Megan Nethercote, RMIT University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. We’re building a lot of apartments in Australia. High-density precincts are being developed across our major cities. But these buildings and neighbourhoods […]

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Australia can, and must, build the post-pandemic recovery with more social housing

May 22nd, 2020 · No Comments · Affordability, Government, Guest appearance, Housing, Housing supply, Pandemic, urban renewal

By Bill Randolph, City Futures Research Centre, and Wendy Hayhurst, Community Housing Industry Association. Originally published on John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations. The Australian Treasurer has acknowledged that boosting infrastructure spend would be a good way to kickstart our country’s recovery from the current pandemic. What follows is a reasoned case for that infrastructure spend […]

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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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Reassembling the City: urban renewal and collective property sales

March 9th, 2020 · No Comments · Cities, Construction, Housing, Housing supply, International, Strata, Sydney, urban renewal

By Alistair Sisson, City Futures Research Centre. Cities are constantly being built, unbuilt and rebuilt, at an increasingly rapid rate. City-dwellers all over the world will be very familiar with the experience of seeing a row of houses or old apartment block transformed to something much taller, wider, and bulkier. But the process of assembling […]

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Those left to pick up the bill shut out of building crisis debate

July 24th, 2019 · No Comments · Cities, Construction, Government, Housing, Housing conditions, Law, Sydney, urban renewal

By Prof Bill Randolph, Director, City Futures Research Centre. This article was originally published by the Sydney Morning Herald. The news that the Australian Building Ministers Forum is now acting on the recommendations of the Shergold-Weir report into building defects is a welcome sign that at long last the failings of the development industry to […]

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Build to rent could shake up real estate but won’t take off without major tax changes

July 8th, 2019 · No Comments · Affordability, Construction, Economy, Government, Housing, Housing conditions, Housing supply, International, Law, Private rental, Sydney, urban renewal

By Hal Pawson, City Futures Research Centre. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. In the wake of slumping demand for apartment building, it’s little wonder the multi-unit housing industry has been eagerly eyeing a possible new residential product: “build-to-rent”. In fact, the latest figures show that […]

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Six lessons on how to make affordable housing funding work across Australia

February 14th, 2018 · No Comments · Construction, Finance, Government, Housing supply, urban renewal

New affordable housing development in Melbourne. Image: Ryan van den Nouwelant By Laurence Troy, Bill Randolph, Ryan van den Nouwelant and Vivienne Milligan, City Futures Research Centre. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. A suitable construction funding model is the critical missing ingredient needed to deliver more affordable housing in Australia. Aside from short-lived […]

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‘Affordable Rental Housing Targets’ – How do the Greater Sydney Commission proposals match up to US practices?

January 22nd, 2018 · No Comments · Construction, Government, Guest appearance, Housing, Housing supply, Sydney, urban renewal

By Richard Drdla, Richard Drdla Associates, Toronto, Canada. We asked Richard, an expert on planning for affordable housing in North America, for his views on the Greater Sydney Commission’s recent policy proposals for ‘affordable rental housing targets’ . Richard compares various aspects of the GSC proposals, as set out in its October 2017 ‘Information Note’, with the corresponding ‘inclusionary zoning’ (IZ) practices […]

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Visioning varieties of “mixed tenure” development  

December 1st, 2017 · No Comments · Construction, Housing, Strata, urban renewal

By Ryan van den Nouwelant and Hal Pawson, City Futures Research Centre. Originally published on The Fifth Estate. Mixed tenure – that is, mixing subsidised housing (social or affordable rental) with market housing – is an increasingly common feature of urban redevelopment. How best to do it, though, depends on what you are trying to […]

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Vanguarding Newcastle

November 23rd, 2017 · No Comments · Cities, Guest appearance, Public space, urban renewal

  By Dr Ori Gudes, Research Fellow, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW, Emily Davies O’Sullivan, Willana Urban, Newcastle, and Associate Professor M. Hank Haeusler, Computational Design, UNSW. Earlier this month 50 rising urban planners and leaders from cities across the globe converged in Newcastle, NSW, for Vanguard Australia. Organised by NextCityOrg, this was the first of […]

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