News

Low-income workers in Australia’s two largest cities face a trade-off between rent and commuting costs, with those who pay lower rents often spending more to travel to and from work, and vice versa, according to new research by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI).

AHURI has formed a collaboration with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to convene an international housing policy exchange in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This online policy roundtable will provide an important platform for international knowledge exchange and evidence building as global recovery commences.

Internationally, a key driver for the popularity of smart city initiatives has been their potential to deliver economic benefits for cities and their governments, businesses, and citizens, and their ability to increase a city’s competitiveness locally and internationally.

For tenants who experience a disability, poor health or complex needs and are reliant on income support, social housing offers their best chance of stable, secure and affordable housing, new AHURI research confirms.

Australia is an urban nation. People arriving in Australia from all over the world during the last 230 years have built and, predominantly, lived in cities. Many of these cities began as prison settlements and strategic sites of military occupation; others were established to exploit the wealth of the land, and some claim more enlightened origins.