About 10% of empty dwellings on census night – 1.2% of all housing – were available for rental and vacancy rates have changed little in 35 years. Could governments be overreacting?
- Professor of Urban Planning, The University of Melbourne
In the second part of our review of what The Conversation experts have to say about housing, we focus on affordability, social housing and what government can do about a growing crisis.
Housing experts writing for The Conversation largely agree on the government policies that are causing negative distortions in the market and the wider economy. And supply is not the key concern.
The Turnbull government’s cities policy is the latest incarnation of ‘the-Commonwealth-knows-best’ approach, with little regard for whether urban issues are best resolved at the metropolitan level.
The role both state and federal governments play in Australia’s urban regions is often incompatible with effective metropolitan governance.
Representative and accountable metropolitan government is needed to lead metro-scale planning, infrastructure investment and services, and partnerships with the private sector and civil society.
When London won the Olympics, it was booming. The GFC changed everything. In 2008, Tessa Jowell, minister for the Olympics, said: “Had we known what we know now, would we have bid for the Olympics? Almost…
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