City Futures Blog

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

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Embedding Indigenous advice in government policy key to real change

September 8th, 2023 · No Comments · Government, Housing, Indigenous

By Hon Prof Vivienne Milligan, City Futures Research Centre. Originally published at Pearls and Irritations, John Menadure’s Public Policy Journal. In discussions of the upcoming referendum on establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, a question often raised is how will it make a difference? This has been difficult for advocates to address because instances […]

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Australian residential tenancies law reform: a new agenda for 2023 and beyond

August 1st, 2023 · No Comments · Tenancy

By Chris Martin. Originally published in ‘Reforming Residential Tenancies Acts’, a special issue of Parity magazine, by the Council to Homeless Persons. On 28 April 2023, Australian governments, meeting as the National Cabinet, agreed to develop a new law reform agenda to ‘strengthen renters’ rights across the country’. Housing ministers are now tasked with drafting […]

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Vertical schools are increasingly common. This is what students want in ‘high’ school design

June 22nd, 2023 · No Comments · Cities

By Fatemeh Aminpour, UNSW Sydney. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The traditional idea of a one-or-two-storey school, spread over a vast campus is no longer an option for some new schools. Population growth and a lack of land in urban areas mean some schools […]

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To deliver enough affordable housing and end homelessness, what must a national strategy do?

June 20th, 2023 · No Comments · Government, Housing

By Chris Martin. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The Albanese government came to office promising action on housing. Its A$10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund is now stuck in the Senate, with the Greens demanding more ambitious funding and reforms. The government is also […]

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A sustainable Australia depends on what happens in our cities – that’s why we need a national urban policy

June 5th, 2023 · No Comments · Cities

By Robert Freestone, UNSW Sydney; Bill Randolph, UNSW Sydney, and Wendy Steele, RMIT University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Australia has not had a national urban policy since the Rudd government. A troika of Liberal PMs followed. Tony Abbott wasn’t interested. Malcolm Turnbull didn’t […]

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The housing and homelessness crisis in NSW explained in 9 charts

March 20th, 2023 · No Comments · Uncategorized

By Hal Pawson, UNSW Sydney. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Whatever the result of the New South Wales election on March 25, rising housing stress is a problem the new state government will have to confront. Soaring rents and an extraordinary lack of rental […]

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Planning, regulation, the local state and the housing crisis in England

February 8th, 2023 · No Comments · Guest appearance, Housing

By Assoc Prof Ben Clifford, University College London. This post comes out of Assoc Prof Clifford’s September 2022 presentation in the City Futures Seminar Series. In England, as in Australia, the housing crisis, and its links to planning reform debates, has remained high on the political agenda for many years. Recent months have seen tensions […]

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How project marketers shape our cities

December 14th, 2022 · No Comments · Uncategorized

By Dr Rupa Ganguli, City Futures Research Centre. Originally published by The Fifth Estate. In NSW, the Opal and Mascot Towers defects scandals have galvanised a wide ranging response on the issue of quality in apartment building. Together with the tragic fire in London’s Grenfell Tower, the shine has most certainly come off the so-called […]

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Do tenancy reforms to protect renters cause landlords to exit the market? No, but maybe they should

November 29th, 2022 · No Comments · Housing, Law

By Chris Martin, UNSW Sydney; Milad Ghasri, UNSW Sydney; Sharon Parkinson, Swinburne University of Technology, and Zoe Goodall, Swinburne University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. More Australians are renting their housing longer than in the past. But they have relatively little legal […]

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What makes a great footpath? The answer is key to our happiness and wellbeing as we age

October 26th, 2022 · No Comments · Wellbeing

By Fatemeh Aminpour, UNSW Sydney. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. As people age, they often become less confident about walking. Fear of falling can limit the activity of older people, leading them to become isolated. So what, exactly, makes for a great footpath to […]

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