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Developing a scientific understanding of cities in a fast urbanizing world is essential for planning sustainable urban systems. Recently, it was shown that income and wealth creation follow increasing returns, scaling superlinearly with city size. We study scaling of per capita incomes for separate census defined income categories against population size for the whole of Australia. Across several urban area definitions, we find that lowest incomes grow just linearly or sublinearly (β = 0.94 to 1.00), whereas highest incomes grow superlinearly (β = 1.00 to 1.21), with total income just superlinear (β = 1.03 to 1.05). These findings show that as long as total or aggregate income scaling is considered, the earlier finding is supported: the bigger the city, the richer the city, although the scaling exponents for Australia are lower than those previously reported for other countries. But, we find an emergent scaling behavior with regard to variation in income distribution that sheds light on socio-economic inequality: the larger the population size and densities of a city, while lower incomes grow proportionately or less than proportionately, higher incomes grow more quickly, suggesting a disproportionate agglomeration of incomes in the highest income categories in big cities. Because there are many more people on lower incomes that scale sublinearly as compared to the highest that scale superlinearly, these findings suggest an empirical observation on inequality: the larger the population, the greater the income agglomeration in the highest income categories. The implications of these findings are qualitatively discussed for various income categories, with respect to living costs and access to opportunities and services that big cities provide.

TitleReviewing changes to housing management on remote Indigenous communities ISBN 978-1-925334-32-6Format PDF

This paper examines the emergence in Australia of housing supply as a key consideration in urban policy and reform. Australia has experienced declining housing affordability over the past decade, and sluggish housing construction since the GFC. As in many other nations, there has been a growing emphasis on land use planning as the major supply constraint, resonating with theoretical debates about the legitimacy of planning and development control in the context of an ongoing neo-liberal campaign for deregulation across the Australian public sector. Through a detailed analysis of Australian government and industry discourse between 2003 and 2012, this paper finds the arguments for planning as the chief cause of housing market problems weak and contradictory, and heavily reflect the views of industry lobby groups. While not absolving planning as a potential supply side constraint, ongoing change to the planning system itself creates uncertainty and distracts from the range of positive policy levers that might be used to promote housing supply and affordable homes for low-and moderate-income groups.

This article applies theories of policy capture to explain why Australian governments appear unable to ameliorate the nation's chronic affordability pressures, drawing on discourses produced by government, industry lobby groups and the media, between 2003 and 2013. We focus on key episodes of policy activity surrounding a series of national-level inquiries on housing affordability, and affordable housing and planning reforms in the state of NSW over this time, to highlight the political strategies and tactics that have enabled key interests and the status quo, to prevail.

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A supply of affordable rental housing is essential to allow households to transition out of scarce public and social housing and into the private rental sector. Affordable rental options are essential for those households already in the private rental sector who are struggling to pay market rents. This report explores the lessons that can be learnt from the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) (discontinued in 2014), which sought to stimulate the supply of affordable rental housing for low-and moderate-income earners. Drawing on evidence from comparable international programs for subsidising rental housing supply, the report makes recommendations on how to design and fund a new scheme to deliver the supply of affordable rental housing required in Australia. Key findings  By June 2015, NRAS had delivered 27,603 dwellings with a further 9,980 to be delivered, 76 per cent of which were in major cities. Dwellings were delivered across a variety of housing types including apartments (39%), separate houses (22%), studios (17%) and town houses (22%). The variety of dwellings delivered was a very positive outcome.  Dwellings were delivered in suburbs with a range of socioeconomic characteristics and with generally good-quality transport infrastructure. The allocation decisions were a combination of financially feasible project applications and state government directed housing priorities, and the approach worked well in delivering quality spatial outcomes. AHURI Limited also gratefully acknowledges the contributions, both financial and in-kind, of its university research partners who have helped make the completion of this material possible. Disclaimer The opinions in this report reflect the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of AHURI Limited, its Board or its funding organisations. No responsibility is accepted by AHURI Limited, its Board or funders for the accuracy or omission of any statement, opinion, advice or information in this publication. AHURI journal AHURI Final Report journal series is a refereed series presenting the results of original research to a diverse readership of policy-makers, researchers and practitioners. Peer review statement An objective assessment of reports published in the AHURI journal series by carefully selected experts in the field ensures that material published is of the highest quality. The AHURI journal series employs a double-blind peer review of the full report, where anonymity is strictly observed between authors and referees.

Related reports and documents Inquiry into increasing affordable housing supply: evidence-based principles and strategies for Australian policy and practice https://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/research-in-progress/inquiry-73130.