News
17 January 2023
Climate change is going just as badly for cities as we have been warned it would. Extreme weather is increasingly common and severe globally. Australian cities have endured a number of recent disastrous events. It’ll get worse, too. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) factsheet outlining impacts on human settlements is a very sobering […]
News
11 December 2022
Brendan Wintle, The University of Melbourne; Martine Maron, The University of Queensland, and Sarah Bekessy, RMIT University The Albanese government has just released its long-awaited response to a scathing independent review of Australia’s environment protection law. The 2020 review ultimately found the laws were flawed, outdated and, without fundamental reform, would continue to see plants […]
News
06 December 2022
The Solomon Islands has been identified as one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, with informal settlements and the urban poor particularly sensitive to weather-related extreme events. A multi-disciplinary scientific team from RMIT University, led by Prof. Darryn McEvoy, is engaged in several projects that aim to increase the climate resilience of marginalised communities in the capital city, Honiara.
News
29 November 2022
New research reveals up to half of Melbourne’s on-street parking spaces could be converted into hectares of new green space, without a net loss of parking for the public.
News
18 November 2022
Marco Amati, RMIT University; Chris De Gruyter, RMIT University, and Salvador Rueda, Instituto de Arquitectura Avanzada de Cataluña (IAAC) For 185 years, Melbourne’s Hoddle Grid – the ordered layout of CBD streets and blocks designed in 1837 – has dictated the flow of people and vehicles in the city centre. But how well does the […]
News
15 November 2022
There are now 8 billion people in the world. Do we have enough food? What does this mean for nature? Are more humans a catastrophe for climate change?
News
20 September 2022
“Work” – broadly defined – is what allows society to function. Like other old certainties, it is under threat from climate change.
News
10 September 2022
Trivess Moore, RMIT University and Nicola Willand, RMIT University The required energy-efficiency rating of new housing in Australia will increase from 6 to 7 stars from October next year. Some claim this will greatly increase housing costs. But is this true? Costs for new home owners are the sum of three things: capital costs to […]
News
23 August 2022
This year the Centre for Urban Research, Urban Futures Enabling Capability Platforms and Social Change Enabling Capability Platform are presenting a number of events as part of Social Sciences Week. With online and in-person events, these sessions look at how social sciences help us make sense of an uncertain future. How to live in a […]
News
28 July 2022
Benjamin Cooke, RMIT University; Aidan Davison, University of Tasmania; Jamie Kirkpatrick, University of Tasmania, and Lilian Pearce, La Trobe University You would have heard Australia’s environment isn’t doing well. A grim story of “crisis and decline” was how Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek described the situation when she launched the State of the Environment Report last […]
News
08 July 2022
A new project led by the Centre’s Deputy Director Hannah Badland has just been awarded a VicHealth Impact Research Grant
News
24 June 2022
This year, Melbourne was the only Australian city to take a top-10 spot in the Economist Intelligence Unit liveable cities index, sharing tenth place with Osaka. But how meaningful are these rankings?
News
18 May 2022
The Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) last night awarded the Planning Research award to the Centre for Urban Research project “Measuring the health impacts of transport modelling” and the Transport Health Assessment Tool for Melbourne (THAT-Melbourne), led by Dr Lucy Gunn. The award recognises an outstanding achievement in planning research. PIA noted that the research was an “innovative […]
News
18 May 2022
The animals and plants at risk of extinction finally made it onto the political agenda last week, as Labor and the Greens launched biodiversity policies ahead of the federal election.
News
13 May 2022
A new series, part of the Global Healthy and Sustainable City-Indicators Collaboration and led by Distinguished Professor Billie-Giles Corti, has been published in The Lancet Global Health. The ‘Urban Design, Transport and Health Series 2’ assesses city planning policies and the urban design and transport features of 25 cities across Australasia, Asia, Europe, USA, Central […]
News
28 March 2022
As high global oil prices, spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, drive up the price of fuel and many other things too, there’s pressure on Australian politicians to offer some relief.
News
28 February 2022
Climatic trends, extreme conditions and sea level rise are already hitting many of Australia’s ecosystems, industries and cities hard.
News
25 February 2022
Interconnected systems are what keep cities functioning. But climate change can undo one part, and unravel the whole system.
News
30 January 2022
An Australian Research Council Discovery grant has been awarded to Professor Libby Porter and Dr David Kelly.
News
15 December 2021
Two projects out of the Centre for Urban Research were recognised at last week’s 2021 PIA Victoria Awards for Planning Excellence.
News
24 November 2021
Rachel Morgain, The University of Melbourne; Brendan Wintle, The University of Melbourne; Judy Bush, The University of Melbourne; Michael-Shawn Fletcher, The University of Melbourne, and Thami Croeser, RMIT University Originally published on The Conversation – 25 November 2021 Australia’s plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050 relies heavily on unproven technologies to sequester carbon from the […]
News
16 August 2021
Show us your photo of urban spaces near you where cities and nature collide and how it has benefitted your neighbourhood for a chance to win up to $500.
News
29 July 2021
Despite a host of disruptive new technologies entering Australia’s transport ecosystem, our planning, urban design, infrastructure and transport frameworks remain mired in a twentieth-century policy-making mindset.
News
23 July 2021
As cities around world transition to a low carbon future, how do we ensure our places and communities remain fair for all? Experts in Australia, Europe and the UK share their insights on how cities can approach a decarbonised future in an ethically informed way.
