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Proposed "Joint Organisations" of councils should be expanded and made mandatory, the chief executive of Urban Taskforce NSW, Chris Johnson, has said. Revitalising Local Government, an independent report to the state government made public last week, recommends Sydney's 41 councils be reduced to 18, primarily through amalgamating small inner-city councils.

Terreform is a non-profit organization dedicated to research into the forms and practices of just and sustainable architecture and urbanism.  Terreform undertakes self-initiated investigations into both local and global issues and makes itself available to community and other organizations to support independent environmental and planning initiatives.

Interesting research out of ANU on strategies for protecting the existing "local food" regions in Australia.

"hey are not increasing affordability. They are not more environmentally sustainable. They are increasing housing supply, mainly for local and global elites to accumulate capital. A major consequence of the Australian government's taxation and regulatory regimes regarding housing has been to increase prices by encouraging demand for housing as a commodity, rather than a place to live. The various inquiries into the state of the Australian housing market should look at not just the regulations on foreign investment, but at the taxation regimes that encourage the home-grown approach. Most importantly the inquiries should ask: what is the effect of Australian regulation and taxation regimes on what is being built, and for whom?"

At one level, this is a community story about a development application for a childcare centre on Crown land in the inner-Sydney suburb of Paddington. On another, it's a story about how state authorities and corporate regulators failed residents and local councillors who struggled to hold politicians, developers and public servants accountable for dealings with publicly owned open space.