Public housing renewal often aims for a 70:30 private-public mix of dwellings. Modelling shows applying this mix to Waterloo housing estate would cut the suburb’s social housing share from 30% to 17%.
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Whether in Melbourne or in Paris, African immigrants face social and cultural challenges, which public housing can either add to or help overcome.
Needs-based funding is necessary, but it can only do so much. It’s much more effective if we don’t have schools with high concentrations of poverty and disadvantage.
Low-density suburbs can cause social isolation that’s harmful for individual and community well-being. But research confirms we can plan neighbourhood centres so they become vibrant social hubs.
All but a handful of the former public housing tenants are gone. But despite the government again rejecting the recommended heritage listing of the Sirius building, the fight to save it isn’t over.
Even where communities are mixed, many inner-city families go to extraordinary financial and geographic lengths to ensure their children do not go to school with children from ‘the flats’.
Mixing public and private housing in urban renewal projects can be a contentious business. But public good and optimal use of public resources, not developer interests, should guide such decisions.
Top contributors
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Emeritus Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor, The University of Melbourne
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Associate Professor, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne
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Honorary Senior Fellow in Urban Geography and Planning, The University of Melbourne
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Associate Professor, Associate Head of School (Research), co-leader of the research network HOME, Deakin University
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Senior Lecturer in Architectural HIstory and Theory, UNSW & Honorary Research Fellow, Australian Centre for Architectural History, Urban and Cultural Heritage (ACAHUCH), UNSW
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Senior Lecturer and Architect, Deakin University
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Research Fellow in Urban Studies, RMIT University
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Alan Morris is a Friend of The Conversation.
Professor, Institute for Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney
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Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media, University of Canberra
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Adjunct Professor, School of Social Sciences, Western Sydney University
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Academic Fellow & Lecturer in Architecture and Cultural Heritage, Nottingham Trent University
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Professor of Education Policy and Comparative Education, Murdoch University
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The University of Melbourne
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Head of Urbanism and Associate Professor of Urban Studies, School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney
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Lecturer in Humanitarianism and Development, Deakin University