Designing urban neighbourhoods with connected streets supports walking and cycling. However, street-network sprawl is increasing globally due to urban growth via the suburbs and gated communities.
New housing in Wimborne, England.
mr chris kemp/Shutterstock
Australia lacks a coherent national approach to planning where settlement and growth happens. It’s time to take stock of our cities and regions and work together to improve outcomes across the nation.
If more people work from home and shop online, many commercial buildings won’t be needed any longer. What will be needed is affordable housing, and these buildings can be converted to meet this need.
Minneapolis, a city still split along racial lines.
Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Despite its progressive image, Minneapolis is one of the most segregated cities in the United States. That is by design not accident, argues an urban planning scholar.
The Mary Cairncross Rainforest Discovery Centre respects and incorporates the local landscape.
Guymer Bailey/Scott Burrows/Norman Richards building design + interiors
The council, developers, architects and the local community got together to set the principles of what they consider good design in this fast-growing region.
City streets were built to accommodate cars, but the COVID-19 pandemic has scrambled our transport needs. Many cities are moving to make streets more people-friendly and less car-centric.
The Gender Equality Act in Victoria creates an obligation to understand how gender affects needs and experiences, and to design, assess and manage public spaces so women feel safe in those places.
Philadelphia’s LOVE Park, featuring a sculpture by American artist Robert Indiana, shows how love can shape our cities and their futures.
(Shutterstock)
City dwellers love their homes but there are different types of love that shape how cities are viewed and how they work.
Situated on a plateau and surrounded by mountains, Mexico City – seen here in a haze on May 20, 2018 – is a ‘bowl’ that traps smog and dust.
AP Photo/Marco Ugarte
The Aztecs had a shining city on a lake, with canals, causeways and aqueducts – until the Spanish came. Mexico City is still suffering the consequences of their bad public health decisions.
Harvest Kitchen restaurant, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, making use of New York City’s new policy of opening streets to walking, biking and dining.
Ron Adar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
First trains, then cars and, now, COVID-19 have all spurred New York to reimagine how its scarce space should be used – and what residents need to survive.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. Plans are underway to give the city a facelift.
Getty Images
Abiy Ahmed has a vision to upgrade Ethiopia’s capital city but his ambitious megaprojects do not take the majority of Addis Ababa’s residents into account
Digital communications could be a force for greater local democracy in urban planning and development, but many councils use the technologies in ways that mirror traditional consultation.
New residents learn from and contribute to the character of a city.
(Shutterstock)
People moving to new cities build new connections and develop resources to meet their needs. But the pandemic has cut off access to the spaces and facilities that enable this.
As well as an infrastructure spending boost, governments are fast-tracking approvals. But these processes exist for a reason. If we get projects wrong, we live with the consequences for decades.
Do we really want to go back to daily commuting as the default way of working?
David Moir/AAP
The change in our behaviour in response to COVID-19 has created an opportunity to build on this moment and transform our local neighbourhoods into vibrant mixed-use centres of activity.
The business of metropolitan planning is not the natural game of state governments. The Victorian government tries but cannot manage metropolitan Melbourne.