For more than a decade, Melbourne has had the fastest-growing population of any Australian capital city. It is expanding outward while also growing upward through vast new high-rise developments in the inner suburbs. With an estimated 1.6 million additional homes needed by 2050, planners and policymakers need to address current and emerging issues of amenity, function, productive capacity and social cohesion today. Planning Melbourne reflects on planning since the post-war era, but focuses in...

It is now impossible to understand major North American cities without considering the seemingly never-ending and ever-growing sprawl of their surrounding suburbs. In The Shape of the Suburbs, activist, urban affairs columnist, and former Toronto mayor John Sewell examines the relationship between the development of suburbs, water and sewage systems, highways, and the decision-making of Toronto-area governments to show how the suburbs spread, and how they have in turn shaped the c...

This hard-hitting but fair assessment of Nova Scotia and the Maritimes will shock and surprise many Maritimers who have been conditioned to think that the east coast of Canada is one of the most livable regions in the country. Author Peter Moreira, a native Maritimer who returned home after working overseas for more than a decade, offers a straightforward analysis of why the region has fallen so far behind the rest of the country in terms of most economic and social indicators. Backwater i...

Transport is key to our daily lives. The transport system is essential to ensure the movement of people and goods, and most of us will use the roads or public transport every day. Vast sums are tied up in it and are spent on trying to resolve the problems of congestion and delays. And yet it is a most neglected field of politics. Britain has never had a coherent transport policy. Transport ministers are regarded as minnows compared with their ‘big beast’ colleagues in other ministries. Suc...

The need for effective public transport is greater than ever in the 21st century. With countries like China and India moving towards mass-automobility, we face the prospects of an environmental and urban health disaster unless alternatives are found. It is time to move beyond the automobile age. But while public transport has worked well in the dense cores of some big cities, the problem is that most residents of developed countries now live in dispersed suburbs and smaller cities and town...

Co-operatives, owned and controlled by the people who use their services, represent a radically different way of running the businesses of the world, a strategy that is engaging the active commitment and creativity of more and more people world-wide. This book explores the co-operative way of doing business across a wide spectrum of activities and needs, ranging from basic needs for food, water, housing, finance, jobs, health care and transportation, to needs for entertaining leisure activ...

A lively, engaging and counterintuitive exploration of success stories from across the globe, and what Michelle Obama referred to as ‘the flimsy difference between success and failure’.In this lively and counterintuitive exploration of success stories from across the globe, award-winning journalist Hamish McRae takes the reader on a fascinating journey in pursuit of the flimsy difference between triumph and failure. Why do some initiatives take off while others flounder? How have s...

This book has one central theme: how, in the United Kingdom, can we create better cities and towns in which to live and work and play? What can we learn from other countries, especially our near neighbours in Europe? And, in turn, can we provide lessons for other countries facing similar dilemmas?Urban Britain is not functioning as it should. Social inequalities and regional disparities show little sign of going away. Efforts to generate growth, and spread it to the poorer areas of...

Planning Australia provides a comprehensive introduction to the major issues and activities that constitute urban and regional planning in Australia today. Incorporating contemporary theory and practice, it contextualises planning in terms of its theoretical, ideological and professional foundations. The book adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the subject, underpinned by the principles of sustainability and social equity. It canvasses the history of the discipline, its relationship to...

The poor standard of current housing, and the inability of too many people on low incomes to access decent housing, is causing a cascade of problems that are avoidable.Housing affordability. Unhealthy homes. Wealth inequality. Environmental sustainability. Social mobility. The state of New Zealand housing is central to many major issues confronting this country. In this wide-ranging BWB Text, leading international housing researcher Philippa Howden-Chapman reveals how New Zealand has lost ...

The world order is changing, incrementally but remorselessly, as wealth and power move beyond the industrialised West to the emerging economies in Asia and Latin America. As a Foreign Office Minister, Jeremy Browne witnessed this global revolution at first hand. Having seen for himself the extraordinary scale and pace of economic development in China, India and elsewhere, Browne's message is stark: the race to secure a favourable position in the new world order would be hard enough in the ...

Across the developed world, global engagement has become a major political fault line. Some say that trade, investment, and immigration are threats rather than opportunities. Global uncertainty, rising inequality, and populism present real challenges to globalists. Choosing Openness argues that Australia’s past prosperity has flowed from engaging with the world. An open Australia requires stronger advocacy and smarter policies.From 1914 to 1945, the world turned inwards, a...