Blog
08 April 2020
COVID-19 has taken a devastating toll on humanity, and this is nothing to be celebrated. But as Australians stay at home and our streets fall quiet, let’s consider how wildlife might respond.
Blog
16 March 2020
The way our growing cities are planned and built is becoming ever more important in building healthy, liveable and sustainable communities.
Blog
26 February 2020
Trees often feature prominently when talking about solutions, but our research shows trees are being lost to big developments – about 2,000 within a decade in inner Melbourne.
Blog
24 February 2020
Here we provide various practical tips on things people can do in their own backyards and neighbourhoods to help some of the species hit hard by the fires.
Blog
18 February 2020
The more immediate need is to focus on improving conditions in our major cities. Our smaller towns matter, but we can’t neglect the urgent need to get better at doing the bigger ones right.
Blog
06 February 2020
This summer’s bushfires were not just devastating events in themselves. More broadly, they highlighted the immense vulnerability of the systems which make our contemporary lives possible.
Blog
27 January 2020
A key question facing us all after Australia’s unprecedented bushfires is how will we do reconstruction differently? We need to ensure our rebuilding and recovery efforts make us safer, protect our environment and improve our ability to cope with future disasters.
Blog
22 January 2020
Children and young people have been deeply impacted by the current bushfire crisis. Schools have been destroyed and thousands of houses have burnt down.
Blog
18 December 2019
The only Australian achievement on display at last week’s COP25 conference was “blue carbon”, paraded in three minor side events on including carbon stored in coastal ecosystems in national carbon reporting.
Blog
11 December 2019
Like the modernist plans of its time, the 1969 Melbourne Metropolitan Transportation Plan was bold in ambition. Major motorways have been built across the city as a result of the plan.
Blog
10 December 2019
On the 50th anniversary of the Melbourne Transportation Plan, we review the role of transport modelling as a planning tool. What are models now telling us about the future of Australian cities?
Blog
08 December 2019
The 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan was perhaps the most influential planning policy in the city’s history. Every freeway and major arterial road built since then, as well as many current freeway and tollway projects and proposals, stem from this plan.
Blog
22 November 2019
In the year since the Australian government created the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC), its bond aggregator, AHBA, has raised funds for affordable housing providers, allowing them to refinance loans under better conditions.
Blog
07 November 2019
In Australia, corporations such as Coles and Westpac and even some churches operate as legal entities entitled to most of the rights and responsibilities that individuals possess. Why don’t the Djab Wurrung sacred trees have legal standing?
Blog
06 November 2019
Australia was already one of the most urbanised nations by the end of the 19th century. Unlike European and North American countries, Australia’s pattern of settlement did not have a neat urban hierarchy. The gap between the large and small towns was huge.
Blog
05 November 2019
As environmental crises and the urgency to create ecological sustainability escalate, so does the importance of ecological economics
Blog
16 October 2019
This essay introduces the three frames, then shares some of the outcomes from the The Nature of Cities Summit Seed Session.
Blog
11 October 2019
We know walking more and increasing our levels of exercise are good for our health. But how can we walk more in our busy lives?
Blog
04 October 2019
With rising energy bills the new normal, we need to focus on improving Victoria’s housing stock to help householders adapt. New research in Moreland is exploring the barriers and opportunities householders face in improving their homes.
Blog
10 September 2019
We write to express our grave concern and disappointment about the Victorian Government’s plans to bulldoze the sacred trees of the Djab Wurrung people of Western Victoria in order to construct a new alignment of the Western Highway.
Blog
27 August 2019
A new report raises concerns that rising mortgage debt and falling home ownership rates in later life are undermining the role of home ownership in supporting retirees’ financial wellbeing.
Blog
23 August 2019
What kind of world do we live in when freeways are valued as of greater cultural significance than the practice of the oldest living culture in the world?
Blog
31 July 2019
Average daily commuting times across Australia also increased from about 49 minutes in 2002 to almost one hour in 2017 according to the latest Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA).
Blog
17 July 2019
Governments are looking to fast rail services to regional cities to relieve population pressures in major cities, but will subsidising metropolitan workers to live in cheaper regional towns have a positive economic effect?
