Serious, interconnected risks are closing in on the globalised community, from climate change to anarchy. Are we heeding the warnings?
AAP/EPA/Daniel Deme
In that world of peripheral vision, essential for business, social and political leaders, it is surprising that the World Economic Forum’s report, Global Risks 2012 has not received greater publicity or…
In Victoria, only 10 out of 463 usable gigalitres of stormwater is used per year.
Chesapeake Bay Program
Over the past decade, Australians living in capital cities have dramatically reduced their consumption of water from centralised reservoir systems. This has been achieved through the installation of water…
Take the offer: sharing cuts waste and builds communities but we have our reasons for not always being comfortable with it
Flickr/Zervas
Sharing is a good thing right? We are told it is good for the environment by cutting waste and needless consumption; we encourage it in our children for their moral growth; we see it used in advertising…
A White Shark feeds on a whale carcass off a Perth metropolitan beach in 2009. This was happening before Homo Sapiens existed.
AAP/Channel10
The vast majority of Australians live in coastal cities. This means most of us have sharks as neighbours.
Living alongside sharks in metropolitan cities in Australia requires urban resilience. Unlike…
Bigger houses (on the left) - not smaller lots - are killing the Aussie backyard.
Tony Hall
Welcome to Safe as Houses, a series delving into a topic close to the heart of many Australians – property. This is not a series on where the market might be heading. Instead we aim to explore how we view…
To make roads flow better, we need traffic lights to be more efficient.
sinkdd
If you’ve ever been caught in a traffic jam – and who hasn’t? – you’ll know Australia’s urban road networks are fast approaching full capacity. With the holiday season not far away, traffic jams and road…
Sir Rod Eddington: unless the rail networks are right, Australia's cities won’t work properly.
Supplied
Welcome to In Conversation; an ongoing series in which leading academics interview prominent public figures.
In today’s instalment, Dr Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University, sits…
Is Australia going down the East Asian high-rise route?
eugene
How dense could we be? Very, if you follow much of the commentary in Australian debates about the way we should plan our cities.
High-rise residential developments have been springing up in all Australia…
South-east Queensland now has a 200km long city.
dazza17-DJ
Despite the emphasis in Australia on the “compact city” foreshadowed in every major strategic metropolitan plan such as the South East Queensland Regional Plan; there is a growing trend towards “colliding…
Sydney has a lot to learn when it comes to cycling culture.
Mikael Colville Andersen
By Emma Barnes, University of Technology, Sydney and Nicole Gardner, University of Technology, Sydney
CYCLING IN AUSTRALIA: There are many reasons cycling should be actively encouraged in our cities: increasing fuel prices, obesity levels and environmental concerns, just to name a few.
Yet in comparison…
Can we continue to grow while still protecting our natural heritage?
jayspost
When my children are my age they will be living in a country with an economy that’s three times larger, and a population that’s twice as large as today.
And, on current trends, my children will be living…
People are more likely to walk if they live in compact, pedestrian-friendly neighbourhoods with connected street networks.
Elsie esq./flickr
Non-communicable diseases – Billie Giles-Corti looks at how the built environment impacts the development of NCDs.
Never before in human history have so many people been able to be so sedentary in the…
In a changing climate, urban water planning needs to be more flexible.
Joe Castro/AAP
The National Water Commission released its Third Biennial Assessment of the 2004 National Water Initiative (NWI) in September.
The NWI is an agreement between all state and territory governments and federal…
How do you improve road safety? Simple: make it riskier.
La Citta Vita
In August, Liberal MP Peter Phelps delivered a passionate rant in the NSW Upper House in which he called traffic lights a “Bolshevist menace”. He argued that traffic lights are on par with state repression…
Alice Springs' many faces: the intervention, tourism, grog - and a housing crisis.
Each year for the last three years, I’ve taken a group of architecture students to Alice Springs for a 10-day urban design workshop.
I first found myself in this city during Desert Mob – the annual sale…
Choked: Lagos crumbles under the weight of its population
AAP/Pius Utomi Ekpei
We are entering an era of massive population transfer – a rural exodus of unprecedented proportions. In Asia and Africa farmers and peasants are being lured to mega-cities. This brings myriad benefits…
Building away from our cities could ease congestion in urban areas
AAP
Bashing planning has become a national sport, and in NSW, we’re the best at it. Stuck in traffic? Blame the planners. Housing stress? Planners are too slow and too stingy with land release.
In the perception…
