Perth’s new apartment market recorded its strongest quarter of sales since Q4 2021, with 412 apartments sold in Q1 2026 and a record quarterly sold value of $537 million, according to Urbis’ latest Apartment Essentials results.

Urbis said the March quarter result reflects strong, highly product‑specific demand across both ends of the market, from more attainable projects delivering at scale, through to premium stock being absorbed by equity‑rich downsizers.&nbsp;

David Cresp, Partner at Urbis, said the key story in Perth is not demand, it is the market’s ability to convert demand into delivered housing.&nbsp;

“This is the strongest sales quarter since Q4 2021, and it reinforces that demand in Perth is real and it’s local,” David Cresp said. “But the task now is delivery, turning that demand into projects that can actually be built and completed.”&nbsp;

[smartcode_project:default project_id=110291 project_image_fid=302785]

<h2>Affordable product leads, premium demand remains resilient</h2>

Sales in Q1 were led by more affordable projects, with The Boulevard (SKS Group) recording 115 sales in the quarter, the presentation noting this is only the second time a single project has surpassed 100 quarterly sales. The project was able to offer more affordable housing product right next to a train station.&nbsp;

Palmyra West (Finbar) also delivered strong results with 28 sales in Q1, following 84 sales in Q4, with an average price of under $800,000, underscoring depth of demand for well‑located, attainable new stock.&nbsp;

At the premium end, Urbis said downsizer demand is continuing, with the results highlighting Romeo (Applecross, Finbar) recording 75 sales and reaching almost 50% sold in one quarter.

Jual (Shenton Park, Celsius Property) also posted a strong quarter with 28 sales, reaching 39% sold in one quarter.

Urbis noted that Perth apartment demand is not speculative, not investor‑led, and not uniform, describing it as localised, often equity‑driven and highly product‑specific, a pattern reflected in the polarisation between strong “attainable” performers and premium downsizer product.&nbsp;

[smartcode_project:default project_id=148957 project_image_fid=364102]

<h2>Prices underpinned by costs, and the delivery risk is growing</h2>

Urbis said pricing pressure is cost not demand‑driven: construction costs and delivery risk are now a central constraint, with the results noting build costs remain elevated and volatile, and that energy, fuel and labour uncertainty weigh on feasibility.

David Cresp said a growing challenge for private Build‑to‑Sell developers is simply securing a builder in the current environment.

“Developers are really feeling the pressure from a building market that was operating at capacity and securing a builder is challenging,” David Cresp said, adding that even where a builder can be secured, “trying to get to the price that makes the development financially viable is incredibly challenging in the current market.”&nbsp;

Urbis’ broader WA commentary also notes that industry remains at or above capacity with lot and housing creation, and that many builders are limiting new sales to manage stretched workforces and fixed‑price contract pressures, conditions that flow directly into apartment feasibility and delivery timing.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=108869 project_image_fid=317905]

<h2>Supply: improving later, but still constrained, and Perth lags eastern benchmarks</h2>

While near‑term supply remains constrained, Urbis’ forecast shows completions lifting “Supply is forecast to be back above 1,500 apartments per annum for the first time since 2019”, with 1,775 completions forecast for 2026, and volumes remaining above that level over the following years.&nbsp;

Looking further ahead, completions are forecast to reach 2,500 in 2028, with the report noting 32% of that total is social/affordable, reflecting the role of government‑supported delivery in rebuilding the pipeline.&nbsp;

However, Urbis said Perth remains behind comparable markets on pipeline scale. In a national comparison of projects under construction, the report shows under construction Perth Build‑to‑Sell (BTS) at 3,446 apartments versus the Gold Coast at 7,922. Mr Cresp said “The challenge for Perth is how to we grow the delivery pipeline”.

Urbis’ conclusion is that Perth’s market is increasingly defined by product discipline and delivery certainty, with the research identifying “delivery certainty is key” and calling out builder risk and procurement models as core success factors, alongside “timing and staging”.&nbsp;

Joel Robinson

Perth apartment sales hit strongest pace since late 2021 as builder capacity tightens

<a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developers/sammut-developments">Sammut Group</a> has secured development approval for its latest Brisbane apartment project, marking the Sydney developer’s next step in expanding its Queensland pipeline following the success of its debut Gold Coast development, Coast.

The approved project at <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-apartments/44-glen-road-toowong-qld-4066">44 Glen Road, </a><a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developments/toowong-qld-4066">Toowong</a> will deliver a 15-storey riverfront apartment building with 42 residences, significantly increasing the scale of the site’s previous approval for a smaller luxury scheme. Designed by Bureau^proberts, the development will comprise a mix of predominantly four-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments positioned to maximise Brisbane River and city views.

Sammut Director Julian Sammut said the group had been actively searching Brisbane for several years before identifying Toowong as the right fit.

“Brisbane was the right step for Sammut,” Sammut said.

“With the success of Coast we thought we should definitely look to do more in Queensland alone. We then pushed up to look at Brisbane. We've been looking for I'd say two to three years actually and it was hard to find the right location.”

<img alt="Sammut makes Brisbane apartment play" data-entity-type="" data-entity-uuid="" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/f_auto,c_limit,w_1440,q_75/https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/field/image/Screenshot%202025-12-23%20at%203.27.14%E2%80%AFPM.png?VersionId=dYAVIL7qdcGA8ojvkslSrLjczXFejSSx" />

Sammut said suburbs including New Farm and Teneriffe were considered before the group ultimately focused on Toowong due to its strong downsizer demographic and limited supply of developable riverfront land.

The site was acquired off-market after what Sammut described as a lengthy negotiation and planning process, with the developer pursuing an uplift to the original approval.

“We are DA approved now which is very exciting,” Sammut said.

“We've had our change approval come through and we've obviously doubled the height, 15 storeys plus rooftop. We've got 42 amazing apartments that are going to be coming to market soon.”

<img alt="Sammut makes Brisbane apartment play" data-entity-type="" data-entity-uuid="" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/c_scale,w_580,dpr_2.0,q_auto:good/https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202025-12-23%20at%203.27.26%E2%80%AFPM.png?VersionId=ohkRkY0dIZlqdfME2EZePsCQavRiBadE" />

Bureau^proberts said the design responds to Toowong’s evolving urban character, balancing contemporary apartment living with the area’s established residential identity.

“A place where traditional Queensland living has taken place for centuries; Toowong is seeing a shift of contemporary influence, commercial and retail hubs mixed with well-considered residential offerings – all the while maintaining its character and charm,” the architect noted in planning documents submitted to Brisbane City Council.

The architecture practice said the project’s form was shaped by its riverfront setting, flood considerations, neighbouring building scales, and view corridors.

“They said the mix of four and two-bedroom apartments capture the ‘fundamental qualities of Queenslander living,’ translated into the context of a contemporary subtropical building.”

The development sits just off Coronation Drive within walking distance of Toowong’s retail precinct and the upgraded Regatta ferry terminal, while also benefiting from proximity to the incoming green bridge connection to West End. Sammut said the accessibility and amenity offering were central to the site’s appeal.

The approval adds to growing residential activity along the Toowong riverfront, joining nearby projects including Consolidated Properties’ Monarch Residences and Spyre Group’s ARC Residences.

Sammut secures approval for debut Brisbane apartment development in Toowong

Developer Lanevick is heading back into Sydney’s apartment market after focusing more heavily on the luxury townhouse and terrace sector in recent years.

Lanevick, founded and directed by Steve Maroun, is expecting to receive approval in the coming months for a new apartment development in Gladesville, with the aim to launch it to the market later this year.

The 51-apartment project, designed by Studio Johnston, will comprise a mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments positioned toward the Hunters Hill downsizer market.

“Traditionally it’s been difficult for people in that market to downsize because there just hasn’t been the right product available,” Maroun said.

“We’re targeting buyers who might have 30 to 40 per cent of their house value sitting in the bank after downsizing.

“They still want good spacious entertaining areas, they still want quality design, but they also want flexibility and the ability to enjoy life a bit more after working hard for a long time.”

The project sits near Boronia Park and within close proximity to the Parramatta River foreshore, an area Maroun says offers more of a Hunters Hill lifestyle than a traditional apartment precinct.

“From a lifestyle perspective, it’s really more Hunters Hill than Gladesville,” Maroun said. “You’re close to the foreshore, close to parklands, and still connected back into the village precinct.”

From level four and above, apartments will capture water views&nbsp;toward Sydney Harbour. Communal amenity will include rooftop entertaining areas, wellness spaces, and a gym tailored toward owner-occupier buyers.

“We’ve really designed these apartments around that buyer coming from the Hunters Hill LGA and what they’re actually looking for in their next chapter.”

The proposed development has also been designed to respond to the changing character of the broader Gladesville town centre, where a growing number of mixed-use and residential proposals are expected to emerge over the coming years.

“Gladesville presented a rare opportunity to deliver a genuinely design-led residential project within an evolving lifestyle precinct, just moments from the growing Gladesville town centre, and we’ve approached the project with a strong focus on architecture, liveability and long-term community value,” Maroun said.

Maroun said Lanevick saw a first-mover advantage within the precinct as planning controls continue to evolve to accommodate greater housing density.

“We think there’s a real opportunity there that hasn’t really been serviced properly yet,” he said.

“There’s going to be a broader evolution of the whole Gladesville village precinct over time, particularly with more activation and mixed-use outcomes.”

The Venus Street proposal will include a commercial and retail component at ground level designed to contribute to that evolving streetscape activation.

“A big part of the thinking was how do you activate that area properly and create more vibrancy and amenity, which is what Hunters Hill has been looking for,” Maroun said.

Lanevick’s focus since 2020 has largely been on smaller-scale luxury townhouse and terrace developments. The developer recently completed Royale Randwick, also designed by Studio Johnston, where prices reached $3.65 million. The project was featured in the UDIA NSW 2026 Professional Development Prospectus and was also named a finalist for Development of the Year.

&nbsp;

Lanevick to cater for Hunters Hill downsizers with new Gladesville apartment development

Property developer One Living, backed by former Macquarie banker turned investment manager Chris Green’s investment firm, has unveiled plans to bring more institutional capital into housing to help address the national supply crisis.

The New York-based investor has focused his firm, GreenPoint Partners, on addressing the supply shortage hitting middle market housing in Australia.

It is backing the new One Living business to develop more than 1000 units along the eastern seaboard. The new firm is starting with a development on Mona Vale Road, on the border of Mona Vale and Pymble, in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, with around 140 apartments planned. They are eyeing off more sites across the city.

With cost pressures rising in the industry, One Living’s model is to be a vertically integrated developer-builder, so it can respond directly to the housing gap by removing the cost inefficiencies embedded in traditional residential delivery.

“We are building a platform designed to operate at scale and starting in a market where there’s a clear need for quality, attainable housing,” One Living joint managing director Joseph Scuderi said.

“It’s that missing middle – it’s that attainable end of housing… that’s what most Australians invest into and what Australians can actually afford.”

<img alt="Mona Vale" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="798dfa93-4941-4db6-a696-31e9dc18e81c" src="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202026-05-28%20at%202.31.50%E2%80%AFPM.png?VersionId=mKBqi5C_DmeiXS.AtJkcR8LQIxqCqmFi" />

GreenPoint Partners brings years of experience assembling and scaling real estate operating businesses across major markets. And Green sees a big opportunity in Australia.

“For its size, sophistication and importance to the community, Australia’s living sector has remained largely under-institutionalised, which represents significant opportunity,” Green said. “GreenPoint identified that gap, assembled the right team, and is backing One Living to build a platform that is aligned to market needs.”

Green said being a builder-developer would give the company the capacity and flexibility it required to deliver reasonably-priced homes.

“We want it to be at that attainable level; not super high end luxury but at that attainable level,” he said.

<img alt="Mona Vale" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="74a5344a-4b26-4d4a-ada3-056b1220be77" src="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202026-05-28%20at%202.32.15%E2%80%AFPM.png?VersionId=vY8hXHO4reBMdO8ZXMWCNtGZJofUPQ3j" />

&nbsp;

One Living will undertake a component of affordable housing in its schemes, which it will own and operate, and it could also run build-to-rent on some sites.

Green praised local policy settings.

“The NSW government is being very supportive, strategic and pragmatic in terms of how do we generate more supply of housing,” he said. “We think it’s actually positive for development and the bit that’s been lacking at that attainable level is that it’s lots of relatively small private developers, whereas we want to create an institutional platform.”

One Living is also&nbsp;looking at high-density projects and could take on more institutional funding in the future.

“The way we will be able to achieve economies of scale is through size,” Green added.

One Living enters Sydney's new apartment market with Northern Beaches site acquisition

It's been several years since there's been an opportunity to buy a brand new townhome in Melbourne's coastal suburb of Mordialloc. Even apartment developments in recent times have been few and far between in the area.

Local developer LDS Property identified the gap in new housing, securing a site on White Street, directly opposite&nbsp;Woodlands Golf Club Mordialloc. They've recently launched&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-townhouses/wm-residences-mordialloc-102-white-street-mordialloc-vic-3195">WM Residences</a>, just 13 townhouses which they have already started building.

Projects by Buxton Director Heath Thompson, who is selling WM Residences, says the townhouses x that perfect middle ground be

"Mordialloc residents have had limited options to downsize within the suburb, often forcing them to look elsewhere despite long-standing ties to the area," Thompson says.

"With very little comparable new supply coming to market, projects like WM Residences are well placed, particularly as buyers look to capitalise on current conditions amid constrained supply."

[smartcode_project:default project_id=134646 project_image_fid=6109]

The development, designed by regarded architecture firm&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/architects/ewert-leaf">Ewert Leaf</a>,&nbsp;adopts a deliberately restrained architectural approach, focusing on simplicity, durability and liveability rather than overt design gestures.

The boutique scale is central to the offering. With only 13 three-bedroom residences, each home is configured to prioritise functional layouts and everyday use, supported by private terraces and secure two-car garages.

Ewert Leaf’s design response leans into a calm, neutral material palette. Interiors are defined by oak flooring, white walls and soft finishes, creating a consistent and understated backdrop. The approach avoids trend-driven detailing in favour of longevity, with an emphasis on natural light and spatial clarity.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=134646 project_image_fid=6110]

Beyond aesthetics, the homes are designed to meet contemporary performance expectations. Each residence targets a minimum 6-star energy rating, incorporating double glazing, comprehensive insulation and all-electric Bosch appliances.

The project’s location supports a walkable coastal lifestyle, sitting within close proximity to Mordialloc’s foreshore, Main Street retail strip and the train station. Local cafés and dining venues, including Suburbia Deli and Hendriks Café, are within a short walk, reinforcing the area’s established neighbourhood character.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=134646 project_image_fid=6116]

While <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developments/mordialloc-vic-3195">Mordialloc</a> is often defined by its beach and pier, the project taps into other areas of day to day living, offering easy access to local food, casual dining and transport, rather than positioning itself purely as a lifestyle retreat.

WM Residences reflects a continued trend across Melbourne’s coastal suburbs towards smaller-scale, design-led townhouse developments, particularly on infill sites where proximity to amenity is already established.

With construction commenced prior to its market entry, the project aligns with a growing preference among buyers for developments with visible progress and defined delivery timeframes.

[smartcode_project_cta:default project_id=134646]

WM Residences fills gap in Mordialloc townhouse market

The Conversation

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By Chris Hale, University of Melbourne.

Public transport has a problem with money. Campaigners often argue that mass transit is a public good in its own right, and hence should be very cheap or even free.

Mainstream media and even many self-proclaimed supporters of public transport run <a href="http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/outrage-over-brisbane-transport-fare-hike/story-e6frfmd9-1226234890104">emotional stories</a> about fare increases, while governments offer “giveaway” fare policies that severely restrict transport revenue.

Trains and buses are widely derided as “lower-class” forms of transport, despite being one of society’s most important enablers for economic development and social engagement.

Together, these lines of thinking add up to a severe lack of funding for transport in Australian cities – both in terms of infrastructure investment and operating revenues.

Spending on public transport is routinely delayed, while <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/billions-spent-on-roads-in-8220hideously-inefficient8221-way-20140722-zvqcg">urban roads are given priority</a>. Meanwhile, the fluster over fares means that operators aren’t receiving the funds they need to deliver a good service.

Until we face up to these issues, the struggle to provide better public transport will be an uphill battle.

<h2>Learn from the successes</h2>

What do the world’s best mass transit networks have in common? They have fare structures that let them recover <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/http://www.worldtransitresearch.info/research/4353">a large proportion</a> (typically 75% or more) of their operating costs.

Designing a smart transport policy means accepting that there are limits to what governments can provide. So it’s best to use any available subsidy wisely. We should increasingly look to passengers to cover much of the cost of the transit services that benefit them directly.

We tend to think about fares in an illogical way. Australian <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/translink-fare-hike-to-make-brisbane-australias-most-expensive-20140103-30910">media reports bemoaning expensive fares</a> routinely cite the cost per trip, when they should quote the cost per kilometre.

For example, the much-maligned trip from the Gold Coast to Brisbane covers up to 80 km and costs A$14. Contrast that with the UK, where travelling the 71 km from London to Milton Keynes will cost you at least £18.50 (A$33.50).

I would suggest that Britain’s fares demonstrate a more realistic understanding of the limited resources available for funding rail travel.

<h2>Huge subsidies</h2>

In Australia, residents of outer suburban areas receive large subsidies for trips that would be rightly regarded as regional journeys overseas. Meanwhile, most passengers in Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne who travel short hops of just a few kilometres get little or no subsidy.

This unbalanced approach distorts our ability to provide better services. There is little relationship between the price of tickets and the cost per kilometre of transporting those passengers.

At this point the argument becomes tangled. Self-proclaimed supporters of transit bang the table and shout that outer suburban travellers need to be given perks to stop them defecting to their cars.

But why should someone living in Broadmeadows, 16 km north of central Melbourne, receive less subsidy than someone from Frankston, 41 km southeast of the CBD? Distance from the CBD is not a proxy for disadvantage, nor for deservedness of subsidy.

Disadvantage should primarily be addressed through concession fare offerings and workable transit access, not by a crude system of frittering public resources on cheaper fares for long distances.

<h2>The real picture</h2>

It would be much better to attempt to devise a fare structure based on equality of subsidy, which reflects the reality of how much it costs to provide these services.

These are complex questions. Successful transport networks overseas treat them as such, but our state politicians continue to play <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/queensland-budget-2014-bus-train-and-ferry-fares-to-increase-less-than-expected-20140603-zrwlj">immature games with ticket prices</a>.

Recent examples include the move towards <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/melbourne-commuters-to-see-public-transport-fares-slashed-under-napthine-plan/story-fni0fit3-1226864736211">“free” CBD travel in Melbourne</a>, where it is far from clear that a majority of users want free travel anyway.

The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal has <a href="http://www.ipart.nsw.gov.au/Home/Industries/Transport/Reviews/CityRail/Review_of_fares_for_CityRail_services_from_January_2013/23_Apr_2012_-_Released_Issues_Paper/Issues_Paper_-_Review_of_fares_for_CityRail_services_from_January_2013">recommended</a> that Sydney’s train network should be paid for by passengers – largely white-collar workers who want good service rather than cheaper fares – instead of by <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/minister-says-no-rail-fare-rise-without-upgrades-20120423-1xhh1">the wider public</a>.

But still the policy discussion focuses exclusively on “affordability”, while state governments bemoan their inability to fund transport upgrades. This shows a pretty poor grasp of basic infrastructure economics.

If we took a better approach to transport funding, we could deliver new projects much faster and more affordably. Analysis shows that asking the beneficiaries to pay for new services (“value capture”, to use the policy jargon) can cover <a href="http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/BuildingandPlanning/FutureGrowth/ExternalProjects/Pages/MetroProjectRailLink.aspx">25-50% of project costs</a>

Rather than throw A$9-11 billion at a single rail project in Melbourne, why not use value capture to deliver an entire suite of generational rail upgrades?

This approach has worked in mega-suites such as London’s <a href="http://www.crossrail.co.uk">Crossrail</a>. In Los Angeles' <a href="http://media.metro.net/projects_studies/30-10_highway/images/10-2085_ntc_3010_initiative_map.pdf">“30-10” initiative</a>, what was previously seen as 30 years' worth of transport infrastructure will be delivered in around a decade.

Melbourne could do a “30-12” and deliver <a href="http://ptv.vic.gov.au/assets/PTV/PTV%20docs/Melbourne-Metro/MM1-Patronage-Business-Case-Dec-2010.pdf">Metro One</a>, the <a href="http://ptv.vic.gov.au/assets/PTV/PTV%20docs/Melbourne-Airport/Melbourne-Airport-Rail-Link-Study-Overview.pdf">airport link</a>, and the <a href="http://ptv.vic.gov.au/projects/rail-projects/rowville-rail-feasibility-study">Rowville</a> and <a href="http://www.doncasterrailstudy.com">Doncaster</a> rail projects in a 10-12 year program, from that same A$10 billion consolidated revenue base - with the help of alternative funding approaches.

But this can only happen if we adopt the attitude to funding seen in many places overseas, and crucially, only if there is a genuine interest to see these rails programs realised.

This is where the real difficulty starts. As a specialist observer of transit projects and their funding, I believe that institutional roadblocks are our biggest problem in Australia.

If our leaders among government, the public service, and the transport industry didn’t actually want better mass transit, then fudging around on fare structures and capital funding options would be a really effective way to delay progress.

Conversely, if better transit is the biggest game in town, it’s time we got serious about it. To fix and expand our rail systems we need to get fares right and we need to diversify the funding mix - because there’s just no other way to get where we want to go.<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/27745/count.gif" width="1">

Chris Hale operates his own consulting business and this article is his last as an academic at the University of Melbourne. He has recently contracted to Melbourne City Council on the issue of transit funding, and in years past also contracted to the Cross River Rail and Sydney Metro projects on the same topic. He currently receives no research funding on this topic, but between 2009 and 2011 was the recipient of grants for research into mass transit funding from the Australian CRC for Rail Innovation. Chris has been the recipient of substantial in-kind support (such as access to data and availability of senior staff time) over many years on this topic from MTR of Hong Kong. 

This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="http://theconversation.com/public-transport-has-been-let-down-by-our-reluctance-to-pay-for-it-27745">original article</a>.

Lead image credit: <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.flickr.com/photos/rykneethling/4542422773" target="_blank">Flickr</a> CC BY-SA 2.0
</body></html>

theconversation

Public transport has been let down by our reluctance to pay for it

<html><body>
By <a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/corinne-mulley-106">Corinne Mulley</a>, University of Sydney.

News of a new bus route will most likely be greeted with indifferent silence, but lobbying for a new train line can keep thousands of potential commuters busy for years on end. It seems that everyone loves rail!

In Australian cities, the answer to the question “how do we improve public transport?” is almost invariably, “with a rail project”. But why? Because, say supporters, rail will make it easier for commuters to get into the city to get to work.

This focus is misdirected for a number of reasons. First, it doesn’t make sense to decide on a mode of transport without having a serious discussion about how many people travel and where to.

We need separate figures on how many people want to make these trips now and how many are likely to want to make these trips in the future. Then we can think about mode.

Second, to focus on the CBD does not make sense. Increasingly, jobs are being decentralized because most governments have a land use policy which is building a hierarchy of centres within cities.

Third, a focus on the CBD when the CBD accounts for only a small proportion of jobs overall does not seem to be for the greater good.

In Sydney and Melbourne, approximately 10% of metropolitan employment is in the CBD; it’s over 20% in Paris and over 15% in Singapore.

Moreover, public transport has to do more than get people to jobs (although commuting is very important) - these other trips are not necessarily to or from the CBD.

In systems predicated on travel to the CBD it is often difficult to get from one side of town to the other.

In Sydney, for example, even where the best transport links exist it is difficult to go by public transport from the Inner West to the Eastern suburbs without changing and without it taking a long time.

In fact, these type of journeys often compete badly with the private car on travel time and on cost - public transport fares (especially when there is no integrated fare system) being much more than the running costs of a car.

To improve this situation, the first step is to consider where services now go, where people go, and where they would like to go.

If public transport links the places people want to go - where they go to work, shop, go to the doctor or take the kids to child care - public transport investment can start to shape urban growth as we build along transport routes.

Improvements which make it easier for more people to get where they want to go on public transport are the projects which we need to implement. These projects improve the lives of existing passengers as well as helping to get people out of their cars.

So how do you choose the right mode to get this job done? Public transport passengers want frequent, reliable and quick journeys. Rail services are perceived to do well on each of these characteristics because rail services usually have their own right of way, separated from other traffic.

Passengers think that modes that share the road with cars and freight - modes like trams and buses - will be delayed and slowed by other traffic, so they prefer trains.

But to prefer trains on this principle does not make sense: road-based buses can be given their own right of way, protected from other traffic.

They can be as fast or faster than commuter based rail - as demonstrated by the implementation of Bus Rapid Transit systems around the world of which the TransMilenio in Bogota is an excellent example.

A second argument is that the rail can carry more passengers than buses. This is not true.

In an urban context, light rail on its own right of way can have a service capacity of between 5,000 and just over 20,000 passengers per hour in one direction.

Brisbane’s South East Busway carries 15,000 passengers per hour, Bogata’s TransMelenio’s Bus Rapid Transit carries 45,000 passengers per hour.

No-one talks about how much cheaper road-based systems are. US evidence points to infrastructure cost for dedicated buses being approximately one third of light rail costs.

This means that for a fixed amount of money, you can have three times as much bus dedicated road space as rail. For many cities this could lead to transformational change. And in terms of running costs, rail might be cheaper in some cases but it is important to compare like with like.

As for emission costs, it all depends on the type of propulsion in use. Electric rail vehicles are cleaner than diesel buses but not significantly cleaner than electric buses. And no electric propulsion is clean if the electricity production is ‘dirty’.

Rail is often seen as being more permanent and leading to economic development benefits.

If permanence is what increases land value and provides greater economic development, then fixed infrastructure road-based bus systems, such as BRT, can provide this too (and the academic literature is beginning to show this is true).

So when might rail be sensible over a bus based system? If the existing network is wholly rail then building new connections to this system might be justified, rather than starting with a new technology for a link. But this is rare.

Most of the arguments in favour of rail stem from cultural differences.

Passengers often perceive buses are for poorer people and this influences how the community feels about buses. More time and money spent solving the cultural differences would be an effective way of ensuring that our public transport systems are improved with value for money enhancements and not by rail links imagined to be what the customer wants.

All this might come over as a lobby for the bus. It is not. It is a plea to consider carefully what the problem is and the most appropriate, cost effective solution.

There is little point to building a new rail link unless it significantly adds to travel opportunities or satisfies the travelling needs of passengers now or in the future.<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/45/count.gif" width="1">

Corinne Mulley does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> in April 2011. Read the <a href="http://theconversation.com/getting-public-transport-right-means-less-emphasis-on-rail-45">original article</a>.
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Getting public transport right means less emphasis on rail

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By <a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/robert-nelson-5122">Robert Nelson</a>, Monash University.

With technology changing the landscape of higher education, The Conversation is running a series “Re-imagining the Campus” on the future of campus learning. Here, Robert Nelson suggests university campus designs are not conducive to conversation and outdoor academic socialising.

<hr>
Universities are committed to gardening. Students and academics throughout the English-speaking world concur: we want more green and less wall, more grassy space and less concrete. The desire is reflected in what we see: lots of porosity in leafy beds and lawn, balanced by secluded bowers and intimate nooks.

Since the 19th century, universities in the English-speaking world have been designed without a street or piazza in mind. The idea was for each building to sit on its own grounds, irrespective of how little land was available, in imitation of a palace or monastery surrounded by fields and garden. The university was to be a world apart – a cerebral haven – without the throng of a city but rather an otherworldly calm.

This withdrawal from a surrounding community was facilitated during the expansion of universities in the second half of the 20th century. Land in the outer suburbs was cheap. The tradition of university as park was honoured and crowned with its logical extension: car parks, which discreetly surround the campus behind visual barriers of shrub.

<figure class="align-centre zoomable"><a href="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/39602/area14mp/zg29rbx7-1390350266.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/39602/width668/zg29rbx7-1390350266.jpg"></a>

<figcaption>Monash University in Clayton has a extensive amount of flora and fauna around its large campus. Monash University</figcaption></figure><h2>What’s wrong with lots of green?</h2>

While there’s nothing wrong with nature as such, the pressure on open spaces to become “green” is difficult to manage and to reconcile with the throng of conversational bodies. Each corner of our campuses seems determined to become a garden, to the point that the contemporary campus is mostly a set of discrete buildings surrounded by garden and connected by paths.

The tragedy of this trend, which has enjoyed unquestioned growth for a century, is that the resulting spaces have no power to symbolise a community coming together for conversation. Internationally, the progressive gardenisation of academic space has denied the presence of a concourse or piazza and has weakened the relationship between architecture and surrounding space. <a href="http://youtu.be/INS316tgCoM">Examples</a> can be found on any campus near you, where visual and pedestrian access to buildings is restricted, and so, too, is the amount of space suitable for walking on. It is almost as if a building is so disgraceful that it has to be hidden; and people potentially milling around have to be moved along. Even when spaces were originally designed in sympathy with human assembly, they are often reinterpreted with gardens to lessen the likelihood.

Because contemporary campus design discourages human assembly, it discourages conversation, which is the soul of socialised learning. We can learn anywhere: in a lounge-room chair, in the local library or on the kitchen table. If there’s any point in having a physical campus it is to socialise one’s developing knowledge, which is <a href="https://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-sp01/le-sp01bennett.cfm">learning through conversation</a>. Outdoor space can be a powerful symbol of gathering for such purposes, but the opportunity is largely passed up in favour of gardening.

<h2>Campus design should reflect universities' aims</h2>

The trend in contemporary education is to unburden classes of content, which could be transmitted online, and to open up the university experience to more conversation, where students develop and practise their learning with peers and tutors. While the academic trend is toward conversation, campus design turns its back on conversation.

The qualities that symbolise community and facilitate conversation have been cultivated in towns for hundreds of years. They are, above all, the concourse and the courtyard, two features that are either unrecognised by architects or annihilated by landscape architects. Some, although few, universities have courtyards but the way that they’ve been interpreted kills their purpose. They’ve been gardenised into social passivity.

Central to this unsociable layout is a major aesthetic institution, long hallowed in English-speaking countries, the lawn or campus green. Irrespective of size, lawns fail to express a sense of community and seldom facilitate the congress of people. The aesthetic usually takes precedence over its possible use as an area of congregation. Often little strings and fences, elevated beds and changes of level and other features are contrived to keep people off the grass.

The truly community-friendly vegetation is the tree. Compatible with foot traffic and pavement, sight lines, gatherings and processional space, the welcome shady tree also has genuinely eco-friendly properties, because it simultaneously produces oxygen and archives carbon. However, trees are seldom exploited for their urbanistic sympathies but are planted scenographically as a simulacrum of nature, as if part of the bush or park rather than pavement.

As the university campus increasingly shuns urbanism, the consequence is a downgrading of outdoor verbal exchange, because people move busily along paths rather than hang out in courtyards.

For misguided aesthetic reasons larded with weak ecological sentimentality, contemporary university landscaping demotes conversation, which is the reason many people come to campus in the first place. Following <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/http://www.planning.org.au/documents/item/3512">structurally misanthropic</a> trends in architecture and town planning, university design displaces people from its conversational heart.

Robert Nelson receives funding from the OLT.

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Read other articles in this series <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/reimagining-the-campus">here.</a><img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/21514/count.gif" width="1">

This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="http://theconversation.com/gardening-against-learning-how-campus-design-kills-conversation-21514">original article</a>.

Lead image credit: <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.flickr.com/photos/linghansnow/4608305540" target="_blank">flickr</a>, CC BY-SA.
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Gardening against learning: how campus design kills conversation

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By <a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/carolyn-whitzman-9944">Carolyn Whitzman</a>, University of Melbourne.

Three shocking incidents, in which three children and one adult died, have dominated the news in Melbourne earlier this year. On Easter Sunday, Indiana and Savannah Mihayo were murdered in their grandparents' home in Watsonia. In April, Fiona Warzywoda was murdered on a busy Sunshine shopping street in front of her son. And in February, Luke Batty was murdered on a cricket field in Mornington.

These tragedies have three things in common. First, the alleged murderers appear to be men who were intimate partners or fathers of the victims. Second, the killings grabbed public attention at least in part because two of the incidents happened in public, instead of the “privacy” of someone’s home, and all involved children. Third, the families lived in outer suburban “struggle towns”.

These murders have once again thrust the often hidden issue of domestic violence to the fore. In Australia, intimate partner violence is the <a href="http://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/Programs-and-Projects/Freedom-from-violence/Intimate-Partner-Violence.aspx">biggest health risk to women aged 15 to 44</a>. In the first national survey of violence against women in Australia, <a href="http://www.adfvc.unsw.edu.au/PDF%20files/Statistics_final.pdf">almost one in four women</a> who had ever been married or in a de facto relationship experienced violence at some time in that relationship. Of women who had experienced partner violence since the age of 15, 36% per cent <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2011-2012/DVAustralia#_Toc309798379">reported violence during pregnancy</a>; 18% experienced domestic violence for the first time while pregnant.

If strangers committed this violence, the public and politicians would probably be demanding tougher sentencing, tighter parole, more police, more CCTV. But it would be far too costly to “lock up and throw away the key” every man who has ever threatened his wife and children – that would be hundreds of thousands of men across Australia. It would also be unrealistic to deny every father with a history of violence any access to their children.

<h2>Risks rise in outer areas</h2>

Unlike the stereotype of criminal violence being concentrated in the big bad central city, rural areas and outer suburbs have <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2011-2012/DVAustralia#_Toc309798384">higher rates of domestic violence</a> in every Australian state. Luke Batty was murdered in an urban fringe area with <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/rural-families-at-greater-risk-of-domestic-violence/2006/05/21/1148150124452?page=2">one of the highest police-reported rates of domestic violence</a> in Victoria. Other <a href="http://www.whittleseacommunityfutures.org.au/media/FV%20Fact%20Sheet%201%20-%20Taking%20Action%20on%20Family%20Violence%20FINAL.pdf">urban fringe areas such as Whittlesea</a> in Melbourne’s northern suburbs record much higher rates than other parts of the city.

<figure class="align-right"><img alt="" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/46792/width237/xg8pmwgy-1398141300.jpg"><figcaption>Many outer suburbs lack refuges for victims of domestic violence.
Tony Phillips/AAP</figcaption></figure>Outer suburbs concentrate three types of risk. Women who are pregnant or have young children are most at risk from male partners and often find it most difficult to escape violence. While housing stress is no excuse for violence, it does exacerbate family tensions and lack of affordable housing makes it more difficult for women to get away from abusers.

And outer suburbs are critically <a href="http://www.pilch.org.au/Assets/Files/Dividing%20Walls.pdf">lacking in the kinds of social support services</a> – health, legal, emergency shelters, family counselling – that might make a life-and-death difference.

Yet, according to several recent reports, federal funding for these services – housing in particular – <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-30/kevin-andrews-homeless-funding-extended-115m/5354654">has been cut</a>. Federal funding under a homelessness prevention initiative (most homeless women are victims of violence) <a href="http://whwest.org.au/west-womens-services-risk-without-funds/">was due to run out in June</a>.

A recent report on unmet needs of women who are homeless as a result of domestic violence identified <a href="http://www.pilch.org.au/Assets/Files/Dividing%20Walls.pdf">legal aid shortages in many places</a>, including Mornington. Funding for <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/domestic-violence-victoria-calls-for-funds-20140417-36uw8">risk assessment panels</a>, which might help identify the most concerning cases of men committing domestic violence, is also uncertain.

<h2>Good urban planning saves lives</h2>

According to <a href="http://www.nwph.net/nwpho/Publications/Protecting%20People%20Promoting%20Health%20Web.pdf">international research</a>, wrap-around services for women and children at risk of violence from the men in their lives, and for men seeking help for their violence problems, can save lives.

If local schools and health services identify violence and risks of further violence; if legal aid, specialised court services and counselling (including the capacity for supervised visits with children) can be provided conveniently and compassionately; if emergency housing and housing assistance allow women who have pressed charges to stay at home with additional security or move to a secure location without overly disrupting their children’s lives, then there is a better chance that domestic violence will not lead to further tragedy.

At present, we are allowing very high rates of growth in outer suburbs, without the critical infrastructure people need to live healthy and safe lives. Schools, health and social services, and emergency housing need to be provided, just as much as water, sewers, roads and rubbish collection.

In residential areas that are already service-rich, more affordable housing needs to be provided so that poorly serviced outer suburbs are not the only choice for young families. Co-ordination of service planning with land use and transport planning has never been more necessary.

While these measures are not “quick-fix” solutions to a complex and deep-set health and social problem, they are needed in the long term to prevent unnecessary death and suffering.<img alt="The Conversation" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/25811/count.gif" style="height:1px; width:1px">

Carolyn Whitzman has received funding from the Australian Research Council on preventing violence through integrated local planning.

This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="http://theconversation.com/better-urban-planning-can-reduce-the-tragedies-of-domestic-violence-25811">original article</a>.

Lead image credit: <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Berwick,_Victoria#mediaviewer/File:Berwick_August_2007.JPG" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>
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Better urban planning can reduce the tragedies of domestic violence

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By <a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/peter-newman-1858">Peter Newman</a>, Curtin University; <a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/garry-glazebrook-14190">Garry Glazebrook</a>, University of Technology, Sydney, and <a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/jeff-kenworthy-15708">Jeff Kenworthy</a>, Curtin University

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 planning, especially in major Australian cities, continues to plan for expansion of road capacity and cannot understand this rail fetish. Why is there a reversal in the historic transport patterns?

<h2>The global rail revival</h2>

In Europe, 65 cities built new or expanded light rail systems between 1980 and 2007; 160 European cities have light rail. Metro rail systems have also been added or are under construction in many of the larger European cities. Europe has also rapidly expanded its network of high speed intercity rail lines.

In Asia, with little rail tradition, the trend is even more obvious. Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Manila, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Seoul and others have added rail, including metros, monorails and light rail systems. India is building metros in 14 cities; China in 82. China has also built the world’s largest high speed rail network in the last 15 years.

Perhaps the biggest surprise has been the growth of rail in the Middle East where cheap oil meant the car was king. Doha is building extensive rail. In Saudi Arabia, bidding is underway for Riyadh’s metro network. In Dubai, a 108 km metro with 39 stations and an integrated light rail and bus system is largely completed. A metro is planned for Kuwait.

The trend is also very obvious in the US, Canada and Australia where car-dependent cities, once only considered suitable for suburban bus transit, are now <a href="/news">seeing a rail-based future</a>.

The number of light rail systems in the US has grown from 15 in 1995 to 29 currently. Light rail is emerging as the mass-transit core in medium size but relatively low density cities such as Portland (Oregon, USA) Edmonton (Alberta, Canada) and the Gold Coast (Queensland, Australia). In larger and higher density cities such as San Francisco, Toronto or Sydney, light rail is emerging as a secondary system to support heavy rail and metro.

<figure><img alt="" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/17438/width668/vn94bqgj-1352420365.jpg"><figcaption>Rail is spreading all across Asia and the Middle East. Nadir Hashmi</figcaption></figure>Light rail is emerging in small cities - there are now 118 cities with less than 150,000 people who have adopted light rail.

<h2>Out of cars, on to transit</h2>

Transit patronage in the US is now 23% higher than in 1993, and growing faster than car usage. The growth has been particularly strong since about 2003, and has continued since 2008.

All of the growth in patronage since 1993 has been on rail-based modes. Rail modes have increased their shares of total patronage, particularly heavy rail (from about 25% to 35% of the total); bus share has significantly declined from 65% to 50%. The patronage on light rail has increase rapidly from a relatively small base of 168 million to 481 million over the same period.

Public transport patronage is <a href="http://www.eco-logica.co.uk/pdf/wtpp17.2.pdf">growing faster than car usage</a> in virtually every major city in Australia, and car usage per capita is now falling in many cities.

The highest growth is in the suburban rail systems in Perth, suburban and light rail growth in Melbourne and suburban rail and bus use in Brisbane.

<h2>What is behind these trends in urban rail?</h2>

The 100-year growth of automobile use in cities appears to have <a href="http://www.eco-logica.co.uk/pdf/wtpp18.4.pdf">plateaued and then declined</a> across the world’s developed cities. In the US, in the age group from 16 to 34, <a href="http://www.uspirg.org/reports/usp/transportation-and-new-generation">car use decreased 23%</a> between 2001 and 2009. Transit use went up 100%, walking 37% and biking 122%.

These are remarkable numbers and suggest a much deeper transition is happening than simple supply and demand based on previous elasticities.

<figure><img alt="" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/17433/width668/5q34wn9d-1352419699.jpg"><figcaption>Perth residents are piling on to rail like never before. Kelvin Tan</figcaption></figure>Car use in developed cities changed in 2004 when oil reached $US80/barrel and dropped significantly when it went to $140 in 2008. Though Australian cities were buffered from much of the GFC, a significant decline in car use per capita has continued from 2004 to the present. Those Australian cities that provided new rail infrastructure grew substantially in transit patronage; those that did not remained static.

Such data suggest that fuel prices and availability of rail are likely to be part of the mix of explanations.

But <a href="/">urban</a> structure, urban culture and urban economy may provide further explanations.

<h2>Urban structural limits</h2>

After years of traffic speeds increasing, all the world’s cities have now plateaued or declined.

European cities have calmed traffic, built cycle-ways and transit and backed away from large freeways. Average traffic speeds have stopped growing. The cities of Asia and the Middle East have also hit the wall on their average traffic speeds.

Most projections of car use suggest that major global growth in car use will occur in the emerging cities of China and India and the Middle East, though data is hard to obtain. But the urban fabric of dense Asian cities is such that little space for car use exists. The remarkable growth in urban rail in China and India suggests that these cities may have hit the wall much sooner than occurred in European cities and certainly far sooner than American cities.

The cities of America and Australia grew mostly in the era when cities were built for automobiles; they are about five times less dense than European cities. Space for car use is much more available. Car ownership and car use grew to a much higher level but is now plateauing and declining. They have reached a limit on the growth of freeways and other urban space (such as parking) for cars, so average traffic speeds have plateaued or reduced.

The urban structure or fabric of the city has prevented any further growth in car use. The only way forward seems to be with alternative transport, especially urban rail.

<figure><img alt="" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/17435/width668/wsdxg24h-1352420022.jpg"><figcaption>Younger people want to live in places where they can walk and cycle, not drive. Frans de Wit</figcaption></figure><h2>Urban cultural and economic change</h2>

As car-use declined, the biggest change in the economy has been the digital transformation and the consequent knowledge/service economy. It has been a concentrating force in terms of city structure and fabric. The knowledge economy and digital jobs are focused in city centres where creative synergies between people occur. Old CBDs have been transformed back into functional walking cities. Those that do it best have <a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/6370.htm">attracted the most capital and young talent</a>.

Young people want to reduce car use and switch to alternative transport. On transit or walking, young people are already connected by their smart technology phones and tablets; these are illegal to use while driving. The mobile phone is a <a href="http://www.uspirg.org/reports/usp/transportation-and-new-generation">far more important device than a car</a> for younger people. Baby-boomers gained freedom and connection with a car. Gen Ys don’t need one.

Younger people are also moving to the parts of cities where walking or transit dominate, because these have the kind of urban experience and culture <a href="http://www.creativeclass.com/rfcgdb/articles/new%20urban%20news.pdf">they aspire to</a>. They feed the market that enables the rail revival and city centre renewal to continue.

Urban structural limits and cultural and economic change feed the move to rail. If a city doesn’t provide rail infrastructure, it can easily miss out on this important social and economic change. The biggest threat is if car dependent cities do not recognise that the golden age of the car is over.<img alt="The Conversation" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/10377/count.gif" style="height:1px; width:1px">

Garry Glazebrook is a member of UITP (International Union of Public Transport), Australasian Division.

Jeff Kenworthy does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> in December 2012. Read the <a href="http://theconversation.com/all-aboard-the-growth-of-global-rail-and-our-future-cities-10377">original article</a>.

Lead image credit: <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.flickr.com/photos/s13n1/10416420066" target="_blank">Flickr</a>, CC BY-SA
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All aboard: the growth of global rail and our future cities

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By <a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/tan-yigitcanlar-119434">Tan Yigitcanlar</a>, Queensland University of Technology
Bringing together knowledge and innovation has become an increasingly important consideration for urban planners as they grapple with the expansion of a knowledge economy and its implications for economic competitiveness.
Inspired by Silicon Valley, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2012.11.005">knowledge-based urban development</a> has become a widespread goal since the 1970s. Fostering precincts that concentrate on “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2013.814621">knowledge generation and innovation</a>” has become a priority for many cities all across the globe.
Beyond Silicon Valley, other global successful examples of urban knowledge precincts include Silicon Alley in New York, Silicon Roundabout in London, Orestad in Copenhagen, Brainport in Eindhoven, and one-north in Singapore.
In Australia, the Australian Technology Park in Sydney, Parkville Knowledge Precinct in Melbourne, and Kelvin Grove Urban Village in Brisbane are certainly emerging urban knowledge precincts.
<figure class="align-centre"><img alt="" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/48819/width668/hnwryr8h-1400466498.jpg"><figcaption>Sydney’s Australian Technology Park is spread across 14 hectares. Threthny/Flickr, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" rel="nofollow">CC BY-NC-SA</a> </figcaption></figure>Some Australian cities <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2014.03.032">perform well compared to global knowledge cities</a>. Where Sydney and Melbourne enjoy the top-tier position with Boston, San Francisco, Helsinki, Toronto, and Vancouver, Brisbane follows them behind in the second-tier group with Birmingham and Manchester.
Nonetheless, even Sydney as a “global city”, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2008.01.001">Melbourne as a “knowledge city”</a>, and <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02690940802197358">Brisbane as an emerging “world city”</a> have not yet fully utilised their potential to build successful urban knowledge precincts.
And besides <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2010.512163">Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane</a>, there is limited knowledge-based urban development practice in other Australian cities.
<figure class="align-centre"><img alt="" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/48831/width668/4qmtz74p-1400470629.jpg"><figcaption>The Orestad precinct in Copenhagen includes housing. Wojtek Gurak/Flickr, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/" rel="nofollow">CC BY-NC</a> </figcaption></figure><h2>
	Why confine innovation to a precinct?</h2>
<a href="http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=356227700529143;res=IELHSS">A recent study</a> that explores overseas and Australian urban knowledge precincts argues knowledge generated from these centres of excellence or islands of innovation should diffuse to the rest of the city.
<figure class="align-centre"><img alt="" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/48820/width668/9pyxfvph-1400466562.jpg"><figcaption>Precincts like London’s Silicon Roundabout bring people together in multiple venues. Alper Cugan/Flickr, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" rel="nofollow">CC BY</a> </figcaption></figure>Cafes, restaurants, cultural, sports and entertainment venues, and outdoor activities also bring together like-minded knowledge workers and provide an opportunity for exchange of their tacit knowledge.
In other words, the proximity of knowledge industries to each other means they don’t act only in isolation, but are at the centre of the whole network of innovation that runs through the city.
“<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13673270810902902">Urban knowledge precincts</a>” often have two general objectives. The first is to play an incubator role nurturing the development and growth of new, small, high-technology firms, facilitating the transfer of university know-how to tenant companies, encouraging faculty-based spin-offs, and stimulating innovative products and processes.
The second objective is to act as a catalyst for regional economic development that promotes economic growth and contributes to the development of the city as a “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2014.02.005">knowledge city</a>”.
<figure class="align-right"><img alt="" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/48822/width237/7rgnwq5t-1400466648.jpg"><figcaption>Singapore’s one-north is a 200 hectare research and business park. We_like_it/Flickr, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/" rel="nofollow">CC BY-NC-ND</a> </figcaption></figure>While world-class infrastructure and networks provide the pull factor for investment, urban vibrancy does the same for talent. These precincts are formed either organically like Silicon Valley or planned such as <a href="http://www.edb.gov.sg/content/edb/en/why-singapore/ready-to-invest/setting-up/business-location/one-north">Singapore One-North</a>.
In either case, the most successful precincts generate a spill over effect to the rest of the city or region. A good example for this is the<a href="http://www.22barcelona.com/index.php?lang=en">22@Barcelona</a> precinct, which brought together the rich cultural heritage of Barcelona and local and international talent and investment to form a knowledge generation atmosphere at the redeveloped old industrial area located adjacent to the Olympic Village.
<h2>
	More work required</h2>
<figure class="align-left"><img alt="" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/48824/width237/fyhp267b-1400467231.jpg"><figcaption>22@Barcelona is one of Europe’s largest urban regeneration projects. kodakhrome/Flickr, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/" rel="nofollow">CC BY-NC-ND</a> </figcaption></figure>For over three decades, Australian governments have been half-hearted in attempts to diversify the economy by aiming for a move towards knowledge economy. Partnerships that bring together public, private and academic sectors are required.
<a href="http://www.kgurbanvillage.com.au">Kelvin Grove Urban Village</a> is one such partnership involving the Queensland University of Technology, Queensland Department of Housing, and Creative Enterprise Australia. The idea is to have a vibrant village atmosphere where living, working, playing and learning are integrated, with “creativity” at the centre.
Although these three-way partnerships are an ideal method for developing knowledge precincts, in most cases public sector leadership and initiatives are needed to encourage the private sector.
Policymakers need to consider the increasing competition from other cities to attract investment and talent. A sustainable competitive strategy will require the private sector, academia and public to work together.<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/24290/count.gif" width="1">
Tan Yigitcanlar does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="http://theconversation.com/valleys-alleys-and-roundabouts-innovating-beyond-a-precinct-24290">original article</a>.
Lead image credit: Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0
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Valleys, alleys and roundabouts: innovating beyond a precinct

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By <a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/scott-mcquire-125252">Scott McQuire</a>, University of Melbourne.

If you’re in Melbourne or Sydney over the next couple of weeks, you can enjoy the nightly transformation of some familiar urban landmarks. How should we understand this growing global enthusiasm for spectacular urban illumination?

Tonight in Sydney, the Opera House will again become an urban canvas for <a href="http://www.vividsydney.com/events/lighting-of-the-sails/">Lighting The Sails</a>, now an established part of the annual <a href="http://www.vividsydney.com/">Vivid</a> festival (May 23-June 1). Instead of reflecting the harbour’s ambient light, the sails will be shrink-wrapped with a large-scale video projection created by <a href="http://59productions.co.uk/">59 Productions</a>, the team responsible for the video design of the London 2012 Olympic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4As0e4de-rI">Opening Ceremony</a>.

<figure><a class="colorbox colorbox-insert-image" href="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/pictures/article-images/photo-11_2.jpg" rel="gallery-all" title="Flinders Street Station at White Night Melbourne 2014 - image © Michael Smith"><img alt="" class="image-article-full-width-580px" height="368" src="/sites/urbanmelbourne.info/files/styles/article_full_width_580px/public/pictures/article-images/photo-11_2.jpg?itok=w467FTrx" title="Flinders Street Station at White Night Melbourne 2014 - image © Michael Smith" width="580"></a>

<figcaption>White Night Melbourne, February 2014.Michael Smith</figcaption></figure>In Melbourne in June, a new interactive light-based installation <a href="http://www.fedsquare.com/events/radiant-lines-by-asif-khan/">Radiant Lines</a> by renowned London-based light artist <a href="http://www.asif-khan.com/">Asif Khan</a> will open in Federation Square as part of its long-running <a href="http://www.fedsquare.com/events/the-light-in-winter/program/">Light in Winter</a> festival.

Radiant Lines is a sculpture comprising 40 rings of raw aluminium suspended in space and illuminated by hundreds of LED lights pulsing in a rhythm that mimics bioluminescence. As visitors approach, they are able to trigger new patterns that immerse them.

Urban illumination projects of this kind are increasingly popular, not only for festivals such as Vivid, Light in Winter, <a href="http://enlightencanberra.com.au/">Enlighten</a> in Canberra and various “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Night_festivals">White Nights</a>” around the world, but for all kinds of transformations of urban space — both temporary and permanent.

New forms of public and commercial lighting, large-scale projection, urban screens and media facades have profoundly transformed the look and ambiance of cities around the world. In Hong Kong, the city’s skyscrapers even perform <a href="http://www.tourism.gov.hk/symphony/english/details/details">a nightly choreography of light</a>.

<figure><a class="colorbox colorbox-insert-image" href="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/pictures/article-images/hk_light_show_anita_ritenour_flickr_cc_by_sa_20.jpg" rel="gallery-all" title="Hong Kong Light Show, image source Flickr."><img alt="" class="image-article-full-width-580px" height="381" src="/sites/urbanmelbourne.info/files/styles/article_full_width_580px/public/pictures/article-images/hk_light_show_anita_ritenour_flickr_cc_by_sa_20.jpg?itok=fRu24hLb" title="Hong Kong Light Show, image source Flickr." width="580"></a>

<figcaption>Symphony of Lights, Hong Kong. Flickr, Anita Ritenour</figcaption></figure><h2>A short history of lighting cities</h2>

While much urban lighting has a functional dimension, there is a long history of lighting cities for spectacle and pleasure. Gas-lit Paris was proclaimed the world’s first “city of light” in the 1820s. From the 1870s, World’s Fairs regularly showcased new developments in electric lighting, paving the way for the twentieth century “electropolis”, as cities such as Chicago, Berlin and New York came to be defined by the intensity of their illumination.

The “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eHfWwSIjuI">bright lights, big city</a>” of which Jimmy Reed sang in the 1950s became a dominant image of the modern city, establishing a new rhetoric of urban space in which lighting for productivity and security was overtaken by lighting for spectacle, mood and advertising.

<figure><a class="colorbox" href="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/49198/area14mp/4dvvfwyw-1400722612.jpg" rel="gallery-all" title="Source: Curtis Perry"><img alt="" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/49198/width668/4dvvfwyw-1400722612.jpg"></a>

<figcaption>Curtis Perry</figcaption></figure>For a century, urban lighting depended on incandescent bulbs and various fluorescent tubes, such as the neon tube that became synonymous with advertising from the 1920s.

The current explosion of urban illumination projects has been sparked by a range of new technologies, including the maturation of digital projection systems, light-emitting diode (LED) video screens and LED lighting from the mid-90s.

The capacity to computer program LED lights down to the individual pixel means that lighting designers can create complex sequences and rhythms, such as the light narrative designed by Bruce Ramus, former lighting designer for rock luminaries U2, that plays on the LED skin wrapping Melbourne’s AAMI Park stadium.

Bringing computer-aided design together with high-precision large-scale digital projection has also created the distinctive new art form of projection mapping. Projection mapping enables real structures, such as the curvaceous Sydney Opera House, to be transformed into a screen on which images can play without distortion.

<figure><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="343" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/o5ZvCv7yUKk?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" width="100%"></iframe>

<figcaption>URBANSCREEN lighting the Sydney Opera House, 2012.</figcaption></figure>Precise integration of mutable light with material structures can result in astonishing contemporary retakes on the old son et lumière show, as solid buildings seem to come alive through virtuoso combinations of light and shadow. For Lighting the Sails in 2012, German company <a href="http://www.urbanscreen.com/">URBANSCREEN</a> took the sails metaphor of Utzon’s famous structure literally, using projection mapping to make them appear to undulate and ripple.

<h2>Public space debate</h2>

New lighting technologies inevitably raise new questions about access and control over public space. The complexity and cost of large-scale projection mapping means it requires the deep pockets of large festivals. But it is also becoming an increasingly common promotional tool for high profile commercial events.

<figure><a class="colorbox colorbox-insert-image" href="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/pictures/article-images/vivid_sydney_flickr_pavel_cc_by_sa_20.jpg" rel="gallery-all" title="Sydney Opera House at Vivid Sydney 2011 - image source Flickr"><img alt="" class="image-article-full-width-580px" height="387" src="/sites/urbanmelbourne.info/files/styles/article_full_width_580px/public/pictures/article-images/vivid_sydney_flickr_pavel_cc_by_sa_20.jpg?itok=uCsLyaQi" title="Sydney Opera House at Vivid Sydney 2011 - image source Flickr" width="580"></a>

<figcaption>Sydney Opera house at Vivid Sydney 2011 <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.flickr.com/photos/blueriotriver/5794841347" target="_blank">Flickr, Pavel</a></figcaption></figure>Lighting the modern city has always had a strong commercial bias, and has been a key factor in tilting the contemporary city towards becoming a “brandscape”, a spectacle that is consumed rather than inhabited in other ways. However, new technologies can carry other possibilities for public communication.

<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6E8V_Re8UyU" width="100%"></iframe>

The Helix Tree installation (video above) that <a href="http://www.ramus.com.au/">Bruce Ramus</a> designed for Light in Winter in 2013 lit up in response to people singing. Light became a medium for congregation and collective public participation.

There are also myriad examples of “unauthorised” illumination projects around the world, variously termed digital graffiti, photon bombing and mobile guerrilla projection.

During the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon in 2011 artists projected “99%” and “Occupy Together” right across the front of buildings such as City Hall. And predating Lighting the Sails was the memorable guerrilla projection in 2006 of the “We are all boat people” logo on to the Opera House sails.

More than ever before, lighting has become integral to debate over public space.<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/26449/count.gif" width="1">

Scott McQuire was part of an ARC linkage project, Large-screens and the transnational public sphere 2009-2013, in which Fed Square P/L was one of three industry partners.

This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="http://theconversation.com/let-there-be-light-behind-the-trend-of-illuminating-cities-for-art-26449">original article</a>.
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Let there be light: behind the trend of illuminating cities for art

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By <a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/brendan-gleeson-9823" target="_blank">Brendan Gleeson</a>, University of Melbourne.
The old German saying <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtluft_macht_frei">Stadt Luft Macht Frei</a> (“urban air makes you free”) is the defining injunction of modernity. Modern western cities were launched as the vessels of liberation from a human era darkened by power and enchantment.
The link between the urban and the urge for emancipation goes back to much earlier times. And to other parts of the globe, what we know today as the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. In its primordial, post-Neolithic forms the city was the expression of that most basic freedom, from natural necessity, from subsistence and endless toil. City walls protected, and thus freed, their populations from wilder human compulsions, for acquisition, dominance – for war.
Later, in Classical Antiquity (the ancient Greek and Roman eras), the city expressed a deepening political imagination and a strengthening instinct for collective expression and development, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Res_publica">res publica</a>. New cultural flows followed the courses of urbanisation. In <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm">Marx and Engels'</a> memorable words, cities “rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life".
The city was the escape raft from a life of servitude and grubbing. Modernisation has, however, failed miserably on many accounts and in many quarters.
For the German sociologist <a href="http://www.ulrichbeck.net-build.net/">Ulrich Beck</a> and his colleague <a href="http://www.gsi.uni-muenchen.de/personen/professoren/grande/">Edgar Grande</a>, globalised modernity hums with <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470670590.wbeog113/abstract">urban disenchantment</a>, especially amongst “those for whom cosmopolitanism is not a lifestyle choice, but the tragic involuntary condition of the refugee or otherwise dispossessed”.
The “wild impulses” of market expansion, political ambition, and cultural aspiration have driven an ever urbanised modernity towards the precipices of risk, uncertainty and self-doubt. Second modernity is nothing less than “a historically new, entangled Modernity which threatens its own foundations.”
<h2>
	Disasters show cities are vulnerable</h2>
The city, a powerful beacon of hope and opportunity through modernisation, is now indissolubly linked to natural risk and human endangerment. Urban sustainability researchers Mike Hodson and Simon Marvin of the University of Salford <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/http://www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk/html/0335237304">highlight</a> the “dual and ambivalent role of the city, as both a victim and cause of global ecological change."
A series of natural and human catastrophes in recent years have underlined the vulnerability of cities to sudden endangerment. The sources of urban crisis are both endogenous and exogenous – a tsunami or flood being an instance of the former; a resource system failure (water, power) representing the latter.
The 2011 tsunami that devastated Japan’s highly urbanised coast exemplified how endangerment can unfold in a series of catalysing exogenous (tsunami inundation) and endogenous (nuclear plant failure) shocks that drive human threats to precarious scales – especially when potentially lethal technological systems are disrupted. Global warming will vastly increase the tempo and power of these natural furies.
Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans, mythically loved city in the world’s richest nation, descended into anarchy — no less than a time of civic terror. The internal fragility of western modernity is tested further by enemies that wage their war from within. Second modernity is countered by Islamist (and other) counter-modernities that use cities as terrifying stages to attack Western assertion.
<h2>
	Cities in the Anthropocene</h2>
The urban age defines what some scientists now call the <a href="https://theconversation.com/human-global-domination-began-with-fire-not-factories-or-farms-20317">Anthropocene</a> – an epoch dominated in its latter stages by modern <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheism">Prometheanism</a>.
The Slovenian cultural critic <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jun/26/slavoj-zizek-living-end-times">Slavoj Žižek</a> rejects the naturalism inherent in many scientific renderings of the Anthropocene; viz., the idea that “because humans constitute a particular kind of species they can, in the process of dominating other species, acquire the status of a geologic force."
He counters that “this shift from Pleistocene to Anthropocene is entirely due to the explosive development of capitalism and its impact.“ It is the universal threat to existence that now binds humanity for the first time as a "species”, not the potency that generated the crisis.
Beck and Grande offer: “When a world order collapses, that’s the moment when self-reflection should begin.” Reflexivity is taken as birth cry of the second modernity. And yet, this compelling injunction of the time echoes wordlessly in a post-political age. No common cause, or new dispensation, has emerged to arrest epochal decline or to assay global threat.
It seems evident that rapid, epochal global change is not conducive to human deliberation about “common dangers”. At least not to now. Where are the stirrings of the “natality” that the influential political theorist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt">Hannah Arendt</a> has <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_Condition_(book">promised us</a>? What stands against the tide of endangerment? It is surely collective will that must arrest the slide to disaster. In the face of power and its many arrogations, the human right to a good destiny must be reasserted.
<h2>
	But cities our only hope</h2>
The city, the new human heartland, is where this battle for human renewal must be joined. It can and must be won. The consequences of loss are unthinkable, indeed as yet unknowable. The city air must once again nurture the cause of human realisation. To restore human prospect, Homo urbanis must dismantle its own work, the material and ideological apparatuses of Promethean modernity.
They must be held to account through critical scientific interrogation and brought to heel by politics. Where to begin? So much of contemporary modernity seems like dangerously flailing pieces of machinery, uncoupled to wild play by a disintegrating industrialism.
The collapsing natural order surely points to first priority, a political economy that is hard wired for growth. It is a death machine that endangers Homo urbanis and all that depends upon us.
This article is an adapted extract from <a href="http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415816120/">The Urban Condition</a> by Brendan Gleeson.<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/26292/count.gif" width="1">
Brendan Gleeson receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="http://theconversation.com/cities-are-failing-to-cope-with-global-challenges-26292">original article</a>.
Lead image credit: <a href="http://chrisriedy.me/" target="_blank">chrisriedy.me</a>
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Cities are failing to cope with global challenges

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By <a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/andrew-lynch-7000">Andrew Lynch</a>.
The Commission of Audit has not flinched from making a <a href="http://www.ncoa.gov.au/">tranche of bold recommendations</a> to the Abbott government, but nothing in its report trumps the call for the Commonwealth to withdraw from areas that were once essentially state responsibilities, including education and health.
This would be nothing less than a major recalibration of Australia’s federal system, reversing decades of steady centralisation. The attractions of such a course are obvious, with the costs and inefficiencies of government duplication and overlap having long been well documented.
But we have seen the dawn of a “new federalism” fail to rise several times before. There are two reasons to be sceptical about the Commonwealth going along with the reforms necessary to realise the Commission of Audit’s vision.
First, there is the matter of money. Australia’s distorted federalism has come about through the Commonwealth gradually expanding its tax base to the diminution of that of the states. The states have become increasingly dependent on Commonwealth funding grants to meet their responsibilities.
The Commission of Audit reports that “around one-quarter of the Commonwealth budget” goes towards funding the states. This amounts to about 40% of state revenue and almost half of the money granted to the States is tied, meaning they come with conditions set by the federal government.
The Commission of Audit recognises that if real power in key policy areas – expensive ones at that – is to devolve back to the states then the Commonwealth needs to free up the states' taxing potential. It recommends the states get a cut of the income tax levied in their respective economies.
Since the Commonwealth takeover of income tax in 1942, Malcolm Fraser has been the only prime minister who offered the states a chance to reclaim some of this ground – although they saw political dangers in the model proposed. When Bob Hawke appeared to get too close to fiscal reform of federalism, it gave Paul Keating the opportunity to topple him as party leader. History suggests the Commonwealth is very comfortable with its financial dominance.
This is largely due to the second factor that prompts scepticism: the contemporary political culture in Canberra. Federal parliamentarians have long ceased to show any regard for the constitutional division of power when they see a potential for gaining some electoral capital.
While Labor has traditionally been no friend of Australia’s federal system, an interventionist approach now pervades the political spectrum. John Howard ended his prime ministership pleading the case of “aspirational nationalism” in order to save a hospital from closure in Tasmania. In his book <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.mup.com.au/items/120931">Battlelines</a>, Tony Abbott essentially argued for constitutional amendment so that the Commonwealth might overrule State governments on any issue as the wish took it.
There is a greater likelihood of positive reaction to the Commission of Audit’s broad call for a culture of “competitive federalism” among the states themselves. This echoes the stance of the current crop of state premiers, such as Queensland’s Campbell Newman, who have been frustrated by the smothering effects of the Commonwealth agenda dressed up as “co-operation” at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).
The institutional architecture to ensure that competition will lead to innovation and best practice across the states and to overall national benefit already exists in the form of the COAG Reform Council (the CRC). As a result of the <a href="http://www.federalfinancialrelations.gov.au/content/intergovernmental_agreements.aspx">2008 Intergovernmental Agreement on Federal Financial Relations</a>, the CRC monitors and reports on the performance of states in meeting mutually agreed national targets. The data produced illuminates which states are leading the pack in any “competition” between them.
The commission has, however, highlighted the swift derailing of the aspirations of the 2008 agreement. This was due to the Commonwealth being unable to refrain from policy intrusion into state affairs through the habitual making of new tied grants to the states. The commission’s recommendation that these be reduced in line with opening up income tax revenue to the states makes a great deal of sense.
But, as a consequence, the Commission of Audit calls for the abolition of the CRC, saying the reduced work that would be required after rationalising Commonwealth-state agreements could be performed by the Productivity Commission. It is a shame that the CRC is in the firing line because the Labor government that designed the federal compact of 2008 managed to sabotage its own achievement.
Although the CRC’s agenda is seen as the result of Kevin Rudd’s push for “co-operative federalism”, it is not responsible for the negative consequences of centralisation and administrative complexity. These stemmed from the way the Commonwealth went on to conduct federal relations.
There is a strong argument to retain the CRC with its direct experience in benchmarking state performance. Achieving the reinvigoration of federal-state power-sharing in Australia is an ambitious goal. A body dedicated to evaluating the results of federal reform would seem worth keeping.<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/26176/count.gif" width="1">
Andrew Lynch has received funding from the Australian Research Council for research on constitutional law and federal reform.
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="http://theconversation.com/will-the-commission-of-audit-lead-to-another-new-federalism-26176">original article</a>.
Lead image credit: <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.flickr.com/photos/39551170@N02/8215959691" target="_blank">Flickr</a>, CC BY-SA 2.0
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Will the Commission of Audit lead to another 'new federalism'?

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By <a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/crystal-legacy-18412">Crystal Legacy</a>, RMIT University and <a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/daniela-minicucci-120520">Daniela Minicucci</a>, RMIT University.
Australia does not have a national cities policy. But in committing funding to transport infrastructure, the federal government is significantly shaping Australian cities. Local government and community-based groups are left vying to have their say from within local communities.
<h2>
	Who is dictating urban policy?</h2>
<a href="http://strategies.planning.nsw.gov.au/MetropolitanStrategyforSydney.aspx">New South Wales</a> and <a href="http://www.planmelbourne.vic.gov.au/Plan-Melbourne">Victoria</a> each released metropolitan strategies in 2013. Both strategies contained big-ticket transport infrastructure projects.
Currently, however, federal government policy is shaping Australian cities over and above these metropolitan strategies. As the player with the deepest pockets, the Commonwealth has immense sway over urban policy.
The <a href="http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/infrastructure/pab/files/Our_Cities_National_Urban_Policy_Paper_2011.pdf">urban policy and planning priorities</a> set out by the previous federal government have changed considerably with the dissolution of the <a href="http://www.planning.org.au/news/major-cities-unit-closed">Major Cities Unit</a>. The unit was responsible for coordinated capital city planning and infrastructure advice across governments.
The election in 2013 of a new federal government, committed to funding road infrastructure over urban rail, helped elevate state-level commitments to build the <a href="http://www.linkingmelbourne.vic.gov.au/east-west-link/project-overview">East West Link</a> in Melbourne and <a href="http://www.westconnex.com.au/about/index">WestConnex</a> in Sydney above large urban rail projects.
Community groups and local government are campaigning against these road projects. These campaigns have exposed a disconnect between a federal government that holds most of the power over the public purse, the states that bear responsibility for infrastructure delivery and metropolitan planning, and the public’s expectation that they will have a say on transport decisions.
<h2>
	Not just another NIMBY campaign</h2>
Understanding the significance of transport investments, not least the use of public funds to finance <a href="http://www.pm.gov.au/media/2014-03-14/interview-jon-faine-abc-774-melbourne">one piece of infrastructure above another</a>, community-based groups have been spurred into action.
In Victoria, the debate between proponents of the 4.5 kilometre cross-city East West freeway tunnel and community groups urging greater investment in public transport starkly illustrates the divide between government investment in infrastructure and local expectations of urban policy.
Community groups and other active citizens are mounting a strong case in hearings before <a href="http://www.dpcd.vic.gov.au/planning/panelsandcommittees/current/east-west-link-eastern-section-project-assessment-committee">the panel</a> advising the Victorian government on the East West Link. These proceedings are providing a prominent platform for debate on city-defining transport projects.
Beyond the walls of the hearing, though, community groups are also seeking to influence the debate on metropolitan transport.
Many campaigns have wielded the power of social media to air concerns and disseminate information. Other groups have organised public meetings and panel discussions to share expertise and guide thinking on alternative transport options.
<h2>
	Policy has electoral consequences</h2>
Victorians are engaging with transport issues and connecting the dots to urban policy. This is evident in savvy policy-focused campaigns, community-based gatherings to express solidarity and the proliferation of solution-seeking debates in social media.
Such efforts are creating dynamic spaces for groups to challenge a project shrouded by political rhetoric and evasion. Most importantly, community efforts are widening the debate over Victoria’s transport possibilities.
Set on shaping the urban policy debate, some recently formed community-based groups, alongside other long-standing advocates for public transport, have created platforms for Victorians to engage politically with decisions on the state’s direction.
The former Brumby Labor government’s <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/labors-loss-is-explained-by-the-rail-politic-20101129-18dwp">public transport policy failure</a> is widely regarded as a decisive factor in its defeat in 2010. Community campaigns could indeed influence the Victorian election in November.
There may also be implications at the national level. Policies on cities, productivity and infrastructure are expected to feature in the next federal election.
<h2>
	Public demands a say</h2>
While the federal government holds money for big infrastructure and states set the urban policy agenda, community groups are finding ways to interject. In Victoria, this includes the recent creation of the <a href="http://www.futuremelbournenetwork.org/">Future Melbourne Network</a>.
It is increasingly hard to deny citizens involvement in the urban and transport governance of Australian cities. For months, dozens of community groups have fervently organised their offensives.
As the East West Link panel hearing enters its <a href="http://www.linkingmelbourne.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/5465/Version-4-of-East-West-Link-Timetable-180314-2.pdf">sixth week</a> and community groups and individuals present their case, they aim to reclaim a place for the public in discussions that determine urban policy and transport priorities.
Many Victorians have taken up the cause to change the course of transport decision-making. Some are more compelled than ever to have a dialogue on projects that will shape the future of the city. Will state and federal leaders tune in to the public conversation?<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/24634/count.gif" width="1">
Crystal Legacy receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is affiliated with the Future Melbourne Network.
Daniela Minicucci does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="http://theconversation.com/without-a-national-cities-policy-who-joins-all-the-planning-dots-24634">original article</a>.
Lead image credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonyabbott/13840969114/in/photostream/" target="_blank">flickr</a>
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Developments

New apartments

New townhouses

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