For decades we’ve lived with a range of accepted truisms around city planning, urban development and infrastructure planning. Then along came a virus. Some suggest the long-term impacts of the current pandemic will turn fundamentals on their head. Others – myself included – are more sanguine. But changes there will be and, as Bowie sang,…
Articles by Ross Elliott
Ross Elliott has spent close to 30 years in real estate and property roles, including as a State Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Property Council of Australia, as well a national executive director of the Residential Development Council. He has authored and edited a large number of research and policy papers and spoken at numerous conferences and industry events. Visit www.rosselliott.com.au
The 1979 movie The China Syndrome told the story of a wicked nuclear power company hushing up a nuclear meltdown, only to be busted by courageous, truth seeking journalists. The China reference was from the idea that the nuclear core would melt down and continue ‘all the way through to China’ from the USA. Today’s…
We’re all pretty much familiar with demography as the study of human populations, their characteristics and where (and how) they live. But does demography go far enough? Do we need a new discipline to bring more focus to the changing nature of work: the types of jobs we’ll see more of in the future, where…
As the year 2020 gets underway, there will be the usual changes to various government fees, charges and taxes. It’s nearly always up and public transport is no exception. This nearly always leads to gripes that “public transport is too expensive” and that to “solve congestion” we need more people to use public transport, so…
A recent decision by Brisbane City Council to restrict townhouse and similar ‘missing middle’ housing product to areas actually zoned for it has been met with hostility from some parts of the urban planning community. It has been exaggerated as a “total ban” and labelled variously as “terrible news,” a “huge mistake” and “a disgraceful…
In another 80 years, the world will be a very different place. Some nations are already shrinking and have much further to go, while others will grow dramatically. The world powers in economic and military strength are going to change. New stars will rise. Old stars will fade. So I thought it might be interesting…
What would you rather have right now? An approved 150 unit inner city development site? Or an approved 150 lot greenfield land subdivision anywhere within the urban footprint? The answer says much about future challenges for housing development in Australia. The rapid deceleration of the apartment market in Australia should come as no surprise. The…
A proposed High Speed Rail connecting Melbourne with Sydney and Brisbane is getting favourable press. But what are the hurdles and how would it compare with existing modes of intercity travel? “We should bite the bullet and go for a high-speed rail connection not just through to Sydney but right through to Melbourne and then…
“Around the world, the vast majority of people are moving to cities not to inhabit their centres but to suburbanise their peripheries. Thus when the United Nations projects the number of future ‘urban’ residents… these figures largely reflect the unprecedented suburban expansion of global cities.” That’s from the second line of the introduction to a…
In amongst changing Prime Ministers (again) or our ongoing obsession with all things Trump, there mustn’t have been much room left in the media this year for analysis of interesting jobs forecasts and other economic news. This one missed my attention, but it’s very interesting: the Federal Government’s Department of Jobs and Small Business earlier…