Housing
A win for diversity in Prahran
The last remaining seat in the recent Victorian State election has finally been decided, almost two weeks after polling day. The lower house seat of Prahran in the inner south-east of Melbourne has been claimed by the Greens, after a...
How dense is high density?
The bare mention of the word “density” in relation to how Australian cities are changing is inevitably provocative. After all, the post war period of suburban development has been characterised by low density...
Is Sydney ready for a 'big' future?
Recently Michael Koziol, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, argued that Melbourne has planned better for growth than Sydney.
Melbourne’s growth remains ‘fringe-focused’
‘Plan Melbourne’ carries through a commitment to containing urban sprawl, but as we show in our recent ebook , growth will remain focused in the outer suburbs over the foreseeable future. So as Melbourne pushes...
Population Density – just how much room do you need?
Look at any list of population density by country, and you’ll be sure to find Australia pretty close to the bottom. Often called the “island continent”, Australia, as a country, has a population density of just...
Designing homes for an ageing population
In recent blogs I have looked at the rising numbers and proportion of older people in the New Zealand population. Most Councils I work with are well aware that the type of houses built in the next decade will...
Vacant dwellings in rural areas
It might surprise some people that about one in ten dwellings in Australia are vacant on Census night. What’s more, as we’ve blogged previously, there are distinct spatial patterns to vacant dwellings, with the...
Share of urban development in greenfield versus established areas
We recently had an enquiry from a client in Cardinia regarding the share of development in Melbourne in greenfield versus established areas. Scott and I have spent some time and we have crunched the numbers for...
The end of urban infill?
While much attention is focussed on the very rapid rates of growth on our urban fringes, the amount of infill development in established areas is often overlooked. In some parts of our cities, infill...
Melbourne’s Inner City Development Spike – Challenges for forecasting
We’ve all read about it. A glut/oversupply/huge peak of apartments coming through in Melbourne. Is it happening? Where is it happening?
A look at high density housing in Sydney
One of the more visual aspects of urban and regional change in recent years has been the growth in construction of high rise apartments in the inner suburbs of Australian cities, particularly the CBD and...
Are empty nesters moving to inner city apartments? - update
In 2011, I wrote about inner city high density housing, and the idea that empty nesters were moving in there. The article concluded that while there were a few empty nesters downsizing into inner city tower...
Household composition and population forecasting
How we occupy households is a little considered aspect of how populations at small areas grow and change. We’ve already looked at vacant dwellings, but what about those dwellings that are occupied? The...
Census 2011 – s-s-s-single bedrooms? No – Australians want more and more!
I’m probably showing my age by paraphrasing Noosha Fox’s hit song from the 1970s, but it’s what came to mind when I thought about how the number of bedrooms in Australian homes and how they’ve changed over the...
Census 2011 – what’s happening with vacant dwellings in coastal areas?
Vacant dwellings are an important component of the dwelling stock and they exist for a number of reasons. This includes turnover of tenancy, renovation, or perhaps the most well known – the holiday or second...
Australian 2011 Census - Expanding household size | .id blog
Household size (that is, the average number of people counted in the Census in private dwellings in Australia) has been declining for the last 100 years. In 1911, the average household size for Australia was...
Census 2011 – the where and how of vacant dwellings
While many people get excited about the population characteristics revealed by Census data, many forget that it is a Census of Population AND Housing. The type, structure and composition of dwellings and...
Can housing diversity be achieved in new growth areas?
I recently wrote a blog where I made the point that the largest group attracted to greenfield developments in growth areas were younger families with parents typically aged 20-34 years. This prompted queries...
Families on the Fringe – Affordability or Cycle?
On 17/10/2011, The Age reported, in what seems to be an ongoing series on housing (un)affordability, that families can no longer afford to purchase housing in the inner city. See the article “Housing Costs...
Why do we need all this space?
Australian houses are getting bigger. In fact, despite falling average household size during the same period, the average Australian new home is over 40% bigger than those built just 25 years ago. This problem...
House sales are down, so are people moving house less often?
The Land Values Research Group, an economic blog which looks at things like monetary policy, taxation and housing investment, recently published an interesting article, which said that dwelling turnover rate is...
