Australia

Planning and land use regulations are being blamed for Australia's high home prices, and also for the fact that four of its major cities are in a list of the 25 most unaffordable cities. Some feel planners are not planning with the people in mind.

A innovative program for gifted children in Australia is giving students a chance to learn the basics of town planning.

The state government's plan to build new housing to accommodate anticipated population growth is being pushed over the heads of local officials who contend they had little say in the growth targets.

A recent study on childhood development in compact cities calls on planners to consider the needs of children when making plans to avoid not giving children enough places to play. Children's motor skills are negatively affected, making them clumsy.

Government planners rejected plans for light-rail and have proposed a downtown transit mall with bus only lanes.

As a record-breaking drought leaves Melbourne dry, the government is considering imposing broad restrictions on water use. Water storage levels are now less than 43% and are expected to drop below 30% by March.

As certain agricultural markets are globalizing, many small farming communities from South Dakota to Mississippi to Australia are facing a strong decline in population that shows little sign of rebounding.

A new bill passed by the Australian Parliament appears at first to offer protection to environmentally sensitive lands is actually little more than a carbon-trading system for land that helps development on sensitive lands overstep environmental review.

An urban planning professor in Australia has joined a push to make the country's major cities more child-friendly.

An Australian housing industry body has made the claim that people who can't afford to buy their own homes are contributing to the lack of affordable housing.

Making cities and urban places more child-friendly was the subject of a recent planning conference in Sydney, Australia. Attendees highlighted some of the ways poor planning can negatively affect childhood development.

An editorial from a building industry leader criticizes the Australian government's simplistic thinking on increasing the production of affordable housing.

Artists in Melbourne, Australia, have been evicted as the city seeks to turn their studios into condos. The city likes the artist culture, but the artists cannot provide the higher rents the gentrifying city requires.

Australian urban planning critics are casting planning as the 'villain' in destroying the rapid suburbanization that has fueled a home-ownership dream. But this is a dangerous view, writes urban management professor Brendan Gleeson.

Prime Minister John Howard says that a lack of residentially zoned land is to blame for Australia's growing affordable housing shortage.

Wendell Cox has diagnosed what he sees as Sydney, Australia's most crippling problem: not enough freeways. Australian developers have taken in America's most vocal supporter of sprawl, who is pushing for more drivability in Sydney.

Plan would offer businesses a financial incentive to cut emissions.

The ills that affect our cities can be cured with more sustainable urban planning, says one Australian public health practitioner.

Poll shows that Australians disapprove of the Federal Government's response to increases in gas prices and interest rates.

Suburban growth patterns are among a host of factors considered detrimental to public health in several recent stories featured in the Australian media.