The celebrated New York Highline is one of the world’s urban redesign success stories. Formerly an abandoned railway, it is now an elevated park running past, over and through the buildings of Manhattan…
Our cities may be booming, but what about our regions and suburbs?
Flickr/Takver
**A more sustainable Australia.* As the 2013 election campaign continues, we’ve asked academics to look at some of the long-term issues affecting Australia – the issues that will shape our future.* Australia’s…
The urban civilisation drawn to cities innovates and enriches. Even in Melbourne.
melburnian/Flickr
When Isaac Newton produced his Laws of Motion in 1687, it led to speculation that his new gravitational force could explain the social forces between people. Thinkers put forward various arguments for…
Britain’s woeful road infrastructure for cyclists is dragging us down.
Tim Ireland/PA
Making a city more bicycle-friendly is not simply a matter of painting a few lines and installing parking spaces. It requires cities to work with cyclists as participants in redesigning the city. Ensuring…
Welcome to the CBD. Take a look at all the glass masonry and asphalt. The streets are canyons. Apart from a tree in the footpath, or a Peregrine Falcon way overhead, there’s little nature to be seen. Nature…
We are all now used to an international standard of cooling comfort: 22 degrees celsius.
bondidwhat/Flickr
For the past few weeks, billboard posters across Doha have promoted the International Climate talks with the < 2°C logo - a reference to the ambition of maintaining average global temperatures less…
Even Los Angelenos are taking the train.
Thomas Hawk
There is a major rail revival around the world, including light rail, metro rail, heavy rail, and high speed rail. At the same time car use has peaked and is in decline in most cities. However transport…
Recycling is all very well, but how do we stop producing waste in the first place?
Yoav Lerman
The current state of worldwide urban development is depressing. We are not moving towards environmentally sustainable design and reduced consumption quickly enough. There have been dire warnings about…
Suburban development makes new homes for humans, but leaves koalas with nowhere to go.
Darryl Jones
It’s obviously feel-good, family-friendly marketing, but the brutal reality is those “Sugar Glider Road”, “Wallaby Close” and “Fairy Wren Circuit” street signs are almost certainly memorials for absent…
From the workplace to the workhome: architectural design should evolve to reflect the growing number of people taking part in home-based work.
seier + seier
Welcome to the Future of Work, a series from The Conversation that looks at the ongoing evolution of the workplace. Today, London Metropolitan University’s Frances Holliss looks at the growth of home-based…
Obesity can be seen as a carbon store on our waistlines originally sourced from coal mines and oil wells.
Bobcatnorth/Flickr
OBESE NATION: It’s time to admit it - Australia is becoming an obese nation. This series looks at how this has happened and more importantly, what we can do to stop the obesity epidemic. Today Anthony…