Elizabeth Taylor

School children walk along a quiet street in Nakano, Tokyo. Image: Rebecca Clements

August 3, 2022

Japan’s Old Enough and Australia’s Bluey remind us our kids are no longer ‘free range’ – but we can remake our neighbourhoods

Rebecca Clements, University of Sydney; Elizabeth Taylor, Monash University, and Hulya Gilbert, La Trobe University

Seeing Japanese parents send toddlers out on their own to do errands has shocked viewers. But not that long ago our neighbourhoods were also child-friendly, and we can make them so again.

Brent Toderian/Twitter

December 2, 2020

Why Australian cities need post‑COVID vision, not free parking

Rebecca Clements, University of Sydney; Elizabeth Taylor, Monash University, and Thami Croeser, RMIT University

Instead of free parking, our post-COVID CBDs need a big vision to become attractive destinations that aren’t car-friendly at the expense of being people-friendly.

Car parking is such a pervasive feature of our cities that we have become blind to how much space it takes up. Shuang Li/Shutterstock

May 16, 2019

Of all the problems our cities need to fix, lack of car parking isn’t one of them

Elizabeth Taylor, Monash University; Julianna Rozek, RMIT University; Rebecca Clements, The University of Melbourne, and Thami Croeser, RMIT University

Australian cities have a glut of parking, even as politicians move to protect parking spaces or promise even more. There are better ways to keep congestion manageable and our cities liveable.

A parking attendant strolls through a rooftop car park in Melbourne. Jay Miller/flickr

July 19, 2018

Empty car parks everywhere, but nowhere to park. How cities can do better

Elizabeth Taylor, RMIT University and Rebecca Clements, The University of Melbourne

There are thousands of empty parking spots in cities. So what can we do to make better use of this space?

Benjamen Gussen’s proposal for a ‘charter city’ in the Pilbara stimulated this imaginary depiction. Justin Bolleter

March 14, 2018

New cities? It’s an idea worth thinking about for Australia

Robert Freestone, UNSW ; Elizabeth Taylor, RMIT University, and Julian Bolleter, The University of Western Australia

Business-as-usual projections assume our four biggest cities must absorb three-quarters of Australia’s population growth over the next 30 years. Might new cities be a better way to deal with it?

All that land set aside for parking is also an opportunity to ask what the real value of parking space is. Tequast/Wikimedia Commons

January 28, 2018

The elephant in the planning scheme: how cities still work around the dominance of parking space

Elizabeth Taylor, RMIT University

Looking back through all Melbourne’s strategic plans from 1929 onwards, it becomes clear that the 20th-century legacy of car-centric planning and its focus on parking is still deeply entrenched.

Australian consumption of chicken and pork both now far outstrip beef, mutton and lamb. Ben Phillips/Flickr

June 9, 2017

Three charts on: Australia’s declining taste for beef and growing appetite for chicken

Elizabeth Taylor, RMIT University and Andrew Butt, La Trobe University

Total meat consumption per capita in Australia has been stable since the 1960s but the type of meat consumed has changed significantly. Chicken and pork both now far outstrip beef, mutton and lamb.

‘Chook farms ruin lives!’. Australians consume a lot of cheap chicken, but not all of them appreciate an intensive chicken factory as a neighbour. Marco Amati

March 7, 2016

Done like a chicken dinner: city fringes locked in battles over broiler farms

Elizabeth Taylor, RMIT University; Andrew Butt, La Trobe University, and Marco Amati, RMIT University

As consumption has soared and prices have fallen, the realities of industrial chicken farming often clash with the values of people who live on the urban fringes where broiler farms are sited.

The cover that trees provide transforms cities into much more hospitable places, especially in hot weather. AAP/Joe Castro

February 8, 2016

In a heatwave, the leafy suburbs are even more advantaged

Rachel Hughes, The University of Melbourne; Elizabeth Taylor, Monash University; Melanie Davern, RMIT University; Nicole Cook, University of Wollongong, and Stephen Livesley, The University of Melbourne

Six years after Black Saturday, it’s worth remembering that heatwaves kill more people than bushfires do, so shade can be a life-saver. But tree cover and shade are not evenly distributed in cities.

Community protests ensure urban planners pay attention to the politics of their work, while research evidence can more easily be neglected. AAP/Courtney Biggs

March 9, 2015

‘Not a lot of people read the stuff’: how planning defies good theory

Joe Hurley, RMIT University and Elizabeth Taylor, The University of Melbourne

Urban planners tend to be attuned to council and community politics. They are less well informed when it comes to applying the findings of research to improve the quality of their work.

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