Rapid Urbanisation

As cities grow by 1.5 million people a week, how can we design cities differently to ensure we improve peoples' lives and wellbeing? 

How might we best plan and manage Indonesia’s rapid urbanisation in order to realise a more inclusive urban environment?

The Australian population is growing fastest in its urban centres – a trend seen around the globe and our biggest cities face a crisis of unaffordable housing, long commutes, with less access to green space, fresh air, schools, public transport and hospitals.

The release of a key Red Cross report at UNSW Sydney highlighted the risk to low-income communities in the Asia-Pacific.

Cable cars now grace many urban skylines, including some of the world’s most populous, congested and poorest cities. Perhaps it’s time for Australia to start looking skyward for solutions.

To be a smart city is to know what your people want and need. And smart city leaders make sure residents can tell them by using technology to maintain a constant two-way flow of information.

Urban planning requires a strategic approach to ensure our cities avoid being just concrete and glass and instead maintain adequate green space.

CityViz by UNSW's City Futures Research Centre is a new data visualisation and analytics initiative capitalising on our unique access to urban big data for Sydney.

With weather events like flash flooding becoming more frequent and extreme, how can cities make more room for water?

Could changing how we think about social housing to see it as essential infrastructure provide a pathway to increased investment?

Information from smart technology in public spaces could soon transform the way such areas are used and also managed.

As Australia faces sustained and accelerated population growth, it is worth revisiting the idea of new cities – providing we don't resort to a tired rerun of town and country planning policies from the past.