Land use change in Brunswick

Our cities are always evolving. They expand and change internally, the old makes way for the new, populations grow and change. This blog looks at an area in Brunswick, an inner suburb of Melbourne, to determine how land use has changed over the last 100 years. This has been done using the Sands and McDougall directories, as well as personal observation. 

The rise of high rise in Canberra

On a recent trip to Canberra I stayed in the suburb of Belconnen. I hadn't been there for many years and I was struck by the number of high rise apartment buildings around the town centre. High rise development is a relatively new phenomenon in Canberra but it is guided by the 2018 ACT Planning Strategy. The Census offers some insights into how high rise development has increased over the years and where these dwellings are located. Read on to find out more.

Building approval trends in cities - behind the headline number

The number of building approvals is generally viewed as an indicator of the state of the economy, and hence is one of the more important data sets released by the ABS.  Approvals are linked to construction activity, jobs and the flow-on effects to the rest of the economy.  Recently I had a conversation with someone who expressed concern at the decline in building approvals, suggesting it was a precursor to an economic recession.  Now I'm not an economist by any stretch of the imagination, but surely it's more than just the number?

Melbourne housing trends - when a three bedroom house is no longer enough

Last week I looked at dwelling diversity in Melbourne from the perspective of dwelling type.  This week's focus is the number of bedrooms, and how this differs by dwelling type across Melbourne.  Separate dwellings comprise 66.1% of the stock in Greater Melbourne, but they come in all shapes and sizes, adding to the diversity mix.  A major trend in recent years has been the increasing size of separate houses - as measured by the number of bedrooms.  For many years the humble three bedroom family home was a quintessential part of suburbia, but their numbers are declining for a variety of reasons.  Read on to find out more.

Which area has the most diverse housing stock?

Australian cities are typically low density, sprawling entities.  Separate houses are the most common dwelling type in Australia, comprising 71% of all dwellings in 2016.  In recent years, more dense forms of housing, such as flats, townhouses and villas, have become increasingly common.  This has increased the diversity of housing stock in many parts of our cities, and the dominance of the separate house is eroding.  Over the next couple of weeks I'll be looking at measures of housing diversity in metropolitan Melbourne.