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cities
Essays & reportage
If you want to fix America, fix Detroit
Don Watson
25 September 2024
Once a symbol of greatness, the city’s uneven decline mirrors the national malaise
Essays & reportage
People-watching in Port Moresby
Gordon Peake
14 September 2024
Our correspondent reacquaints himself with the PNG capital, a place getting a lot more attention these days
National affairs
Hot air versus clean air
Lesley Russell
12 April 2024
Despite worrying evidence, the direct health effects of car-boosted air pollution barely figured in the debate over Labor’s vehicle efficiency standard
Essays & reportage
Olympic origins
Jock Given
20 March 2024
Queensland premier Steven Miles is learning an old lesson about sporting venues: sometimes it is best to love the ones you have
Essays & reportage
A rainy day in Hobart
Anne-Marie Condé
1 December 2023
Where did all that water go?
National affairs
Can we build them?
Peter Mares
13 October 2023
The federal government has set a target of 1.2 million new homes in five years. Discussions at the National Housing Conference revealed the scale of the challenge
Essays & reportage
The elusive quest for decent homes
Peter Mares
1 March 2023
Not-for-profit associations are taking over as providers of affordable rental housing. What can Australia learn from Britain, where the trend is well advanced?
Correspondents
Not enough houses?
Peter Mares
22 January 2023
Britain’s housing crisis has lessons for Australia
Books & arts
Why the rush?
Sarah Barns
21 January 2023
A new book about urban mobility invites us to think differently about our streets: who do they belong to, what are they for, who gets to decide?
Correspondents
The plutocratic city
Peter Mares
16 December 2022
How London’s “haves” and “have yachts” are reshaping the city
Books & arts
Building nothing is not an option
Peter Mares
28 November 2022
An urban sociologist probes the strengths and weaknesses of the “yes in my backyard” movement
Essays & reportage
Re-creation and regret
Richard Johnstone
3 November 2022
While Melburnians watch
The Lost City of Melbourne
, Sydneysiders debate Barangaroo
Essays & reportage
“If we care for Country, it will care for us”
Sarah Barns
17 August 2021
What happens when the idea of Country is integrated into how Australian cities are planned?
National affairs
Jackhammer nation
Sarah Barns
12 March 2021
Australia has invested heavily in a construction-fuelled recovery, but at what cost?
Essays & reportage
What would it really take to supercharge social housing?
Peter Mares
29 September 2020
With governments unwilling to fix taxes or borrow, perhaps even Ronald Reagan has something to teach us
Essays & reportage
The end of the city? No, not quite
Sarah Barns
16 September 2020
All of a sudden, proximity to the city may no longer be a critical driver of innovation and job creation
Books & arts
What difference can a healthy building make?
Sarah Barns
13 July 2020
Covid-19 has supercharged concerns about how workplaces — and work patterns — are undermining good health
Books & arts
When the market is the policy, housing fails
Peter Mares
25 May 2020
Books
| Three housing researchers plot the way out of Australia’s affordability crisis
Essays & reportage
Making space
Sarah Barns
30 March 2020
What does the coronavirus mean for Australian cities?
Essays & reportage
Capital of the west
Robert Milliken
6 February 2020
Migration is helping make drought-stricken Dubbo a dynamic regional city
Essays & reportage
You, me, data and the city
Sarah Barns
18 December 2019
Is the data-rich city taking on a life of its own? And can Hugh Stretton’s
Ideas for Australian Cities
help us navigate its hazards?
Essays & reportage
“Density has to be likeable”
Leanne Hodyl
1 November 2019
High-rise housing has many benefits and quite a few shortcomings. The challenge is to shift the balance towards likeability
National affairs
The problem with HILDA
Henry Sherrell
2 August 2019
There’s a risk that Australia’s leading social survey could become stuck in time
Essays & reportage
A city in search of its centre
Tom Greenwell
31 July 2019
The purists are lamenting while the boosters (and bashers) cheer, but Canberra’s transformation may be more inspired than either camp acknowledges
Podcasts
Time to rethink the Great Australian Dream
Peter Clarke, Wendy Stone and Peter Mares
30 April 2019
Election 2019
| The central goals of housing policy have been lost in debates about tax breaks for landlords
Books & arts
The making of an Australian suburb
Chris Cunneen
22 March 2019
Books
| Sydney’s Paddington was shaped by topography and “builders of modest means”
Essays & reportage
Australia’s great urban experiment
Diana Bagnall
14 March 2019
When is an airport not just an airport? Western Sydneysiders are in the process of finding out
Books & arts
Why houses cost too much
Brendan Coates
11 February 2019
Books
| A blind spot among economists has helped price housing out of reach
National affairs
Migration by numbers
Peter Mares
5 November 2018
What is going on inside Australia’s immigration program? New government figures tell only part of the story
Books & arts
Going back to where we came from
Susan Lever
5 October 2018
Do Sydney’s theatre audiences yearn for the city of old?
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