Category Archives: Urban planning

The ‘active transport’ ideas from around the world that could make Australians healthier and our cities cleaner

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Policies such as cash payouts for bicycle commuters have knock-on effects including reduced pollution and better physical and mental health

It’s time for a major rethink of transport in Australia, experts say – and, while some new ideas may meet resistance, “these are not ideas from radical left Scandinavian pot-smoking greenies”, Prof Matt Burke says.

Policies lumped together as “active transport” include proposals to offer rebates for people who ditch their cars for public transport, or cash payouts for people who cycle to work.

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Australia’s cities are losing their colourful and melodious birds. We need to bring back this natural joy | Andres Felipe Suarez-Castro and Rachel Oh for the Conversation

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Our study links urbanisation, particularly the increase in built infrastructure and the loss of green space, to a decline in the bird communities we find most attractive

The birds that fill our mornings with songs and our parks and gardens with colour are disappearing from our cities, our new study has found.

We examined 82 bird species across 42 landscape types in Brisbane. The range of landscapes encompassed parks, bushland reserves, and industrial and residential areas.

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Reported plan to move Rosehill racecourse to endangered bell frog habitat surprises conservationists

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Horse racing industry insiders said to be pushing for Sydney track to be relocated to former brickpit in Olympic Park – a sanctuary to an unlikely urban survivor

Conservations have expressed surprise at reported plans to move Sydney’s Rosehill racecourse to a historic brickpit at Olympic Park, which is home to a colony of endangered green and golden bell frogs.

The plan has reportedly been devised by racing bosses, alongside the deal between the Australian Turf Club and the New South Wales government to redevelop the famous track into new housing, as well as two additional metro stations.

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Australian cities hollow out as younger families move out and inner suburbs get older

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Many families move to afford a freestanding house, but higher density living could save them money, experts say

Sydney could become a “city with no grandchildren”, the New South Wales Productivity Commission has warned, but analysis of census data shows similar trends in most big capital cities.

Australian cities are being hollowed out as younger families are priced out, leaving many inner ring suburbs getting older.

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Sydney turns over a new leaf and says goodbye to much-maligned plane trees

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Trees once described as ‘about as much use to our wildlife as concrete posts’ to gradually be phased out in favour of more drought-tolerant plants

The City of Sydney has said it will gradually phase out the use of plane trees across the streets of the city.

Plane trees, which account for almost 10% of the street and park trees across the whole City of Sydney but are the dominant species in some areas, have had their fair share of critics over the years.

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Car-free days: new push to open up Sydney’s high streets and let festival culture prosper

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Exclusive: The Committee for Sydney wants the city to follow the lead of New York, Jakarta, Mexico City and Bogotá

High streets in Sydney should declare recurring car-free days when pedestrians and cyclists can roam freely and local shops and restaurants can sprawl out to allow a street festival culture to flourish, an influential thinktank says.

The Committee for Sydney and the Sydney festival executive director, Chris Tooher, are appealing to the New South Wales government and councils to mimic cities such as New York, Jakarta, Mexico City and Bogotá in making so-called open street days established events, such as every Sunday.

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Chief of NSW’s largest council wants developer tax to build swimming pools and libraries

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Blacktown’s Kerry Robinson warns rates would need to rise by 40% to pay for community facilities for more than 250,000 expected new residents

The chief executive of New South Wales’ largest council is calling for a new tax on developers to pay for social infrastructure such as swimming pools, warning the alternative would be to raise rates in urban fringe communities by 40%.

The Blacktown city council chief executive officer, Kerry Robinson, said his council had “no funding source” for libraries or community meeting places to accommodate the more than 250,000 people who are expected to move into the sprawling local government area in western Sydney over the next two decades.

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