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 'Pandemic'

Does the 5km radius make sense? Analysing the NSW government COVID-19 response

August 18th, 2021 · No Comments · Data, Government, Pandemic, Sydney, Transport

By Nemanja Nikolic, Research Assistant and MPhil Candidate, City Futures Research Centre. In an attempt to control the spread of the virus, state governments have gradually introduced various spatial measures and limitations in local hot-spot areas across the country. The goal of such restrictions is targeted at reducing people’s mobility and avoiding potential spill-overs to […]

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A brief history of Australian residential tenancies law reform: from the nineteenth century to COVID-19

September 4th, 2020 · No Comments · Housing, Law, Pandemic, Private rental, Tenancy

By Chris Martin. Originally published in Parity, the journal of the Council to Homeless Persons. Australia is currently going through a period of unusual activity in residential tenancies law reform. New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT have recently concluded reviews and amended their legislation, and Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory are currently […]

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COVID-19 renter survey – invitation to participate

August 19th, 2020 · No Comments · Housing, Pandemic, Tenancy

Renting in Australia during the COVID-19 emergency? You’re invited to participate in a survey about COVID-19 rental negotiations, conducted by the City Futures Research Centre at UNSW Sydney. The survey is open to persons who Were living in a rented dwelling in Australia on 29 March 2020 (when the eviction moratorium was announced) Are aged […]

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Healthy built environments: reinforcing the critical role of local planning in times of challenge

June 10th, 2020 · No Comments · Pandemic, Wellbeing

By Susan Thompson, City Futures Research Centre. This article originally appeared in New Planner – the journal of the New South Wales planning profession – published by the Planning Institute of Australia. For more information, please visit: www.planning.org.au/news/new-planner-nsw 2020 had barely begun and Australia was in the midst of the worst bushfire season in living memory. Searing heat across the […]

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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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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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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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We must act on homelessness before COVID-19 winter

April 26th, 2020 · No Comments · homelessness, Housing, Pandemic

By Anne O’Brien and Hal Pawson The homeless need to be in housing before winter sets in and while the renewed spread of COVID-19 remains a threat. Without this, people could be dying without any support. And because rough sleepers often live in close proximity to each other, unable to keep clean or wash their […]

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