How our cities work – essential lessons from lockdown:
By Matt Wade
New research on the demographics of essential workers in Australia’s largest cities casts a stark light on geographic and gender inequalities, writes Matt Wade for the Sydney Morning Herald.
Essential workers are employed “across health and social services, education, freight and delivery, transport, police and emergency services, logistics, construction and some retail,” and make up 45% of the workforce in Australian capital cities.
They are exposed to greater risk of contracting Covid-19 in their workplaces, and through travelling to work. According to a study by consultancy SGS Economics and Planning, most essential workers in Sydney and Melbourne live in outer metropolitan growth areas where housing is more affordable – these regions also recorded a high share of infections during the 2021 Delta outbreak. Sydney’s west and south-west also experienced the most stringent lockdown restrictions.
In parts of Melbourne and Sydney around 60% of workers are in an essential job while in some inner suburbs of both cities the share is below 30 per cent, Matt writes. “The upshot? The property market dynamics of Sydney and Melbourne has been closely linked to the geography of the pandemic.”
The analysis also revealed a stark contrast between the types of jobs male and female essential workers do. Around 60% of male essential workers were employed in traditional industrial workplaces, such as factories, transport, logistics and construction. And 53% of female essential workers were employed in health and education – jobs highly exposed to Covid-19.
Researcher Alison Holloway said the study shows that cities are “not experienced the same by men and women, and in public policy if we are not looking at things with a gendered lens we’re missing a lot of the story.”
Wade also points to a disparity in access to job hubs for those living in outer suburbs—especially women. Holloway’s research indicates that “women consistently have higher levels of tertiary education than males in metropolitan areas but earn less than men in the same locations… this gap is much larger for women in growth areas.”
She suggests that because caring and family responsibilities tend to fall on women, they are taking jobs that they are overqualified for, because they are close to home – “in purely economic terms that’s wasted productivity,” she says.
“A conservation foundation in Costa Rica is trying to help the tree-dwelling mammals survive rapid urbanisation by building road crossings,” writes Sarah Holder for Bloomberg CityLab.
As a result of rapid population and infrastructure growth in Costa Rica, many sloth populations have been all but eliminated. Costa Rica’s Sloth Conservation Foundation founder, Rebecca Cliffe, says it’s not too late to protect the slow creatures, “We’ve got such a good opportunity in this region to try and achieve this coexistence and balance … There’s still a chance to reverse the damage and do things the right way.”
The ideal habitat for a sloth, she says, is “a dense forest canopy, which well-camouflaged animals can navigate without drawing attention to themselves or running into ground-dwelling predators.”
Rapid urbanisation, cars, and infrastructure have left a thinning canopy, encroaching on their habitat and putting sloths at risk. “As pedestrians, sloths do not walk as much as ooze, inching forward commando-style with their bellies to the ground.”
The Sloth Conservation Foundation is working to help make changing urban spaces safe and navigable for sloths through initiatives including “stringing rope above roads that sloths can traverse by their signature crawl in just three minutes flat.”
The foundation has built more than 130 sloth crossings so far, as well as working with local custodians and contractors to ensure that infrastructure is sloth-proofed and safe paths are available for the creatures to traverse their changing habitat.
The Street Furniture Australia factory, in Regents Park, Western Sydney, is both a manufacturing hub and R&D studio for our Australian-designed and made street furniture products. We run fun and informative group events for customers throughout the year, to share how products are designed, tested and built, and the latest products and projects. Director of Tract Julie Lee said: “It was a great opportunity for our team to look behind the scenes and understand the innovation, research and climate positive outcomes Street Furniture Australia is focusing on. Thank you for having us!” Place Design Group Associate, Liam Isaksen, said: “The factory tour is a fun experience to learn about the design and manufacturing process of public furniture we use in landscape architecture design. Seeing the work behind the scenes and …
Did you catch these most-read case studies, furnishing tips, new product announcements and special industry events in your StreetChat updates in 2023? Each month our StreetChat enewsletter publishes new projects, products and trends from the public domain; subscribe to receive it in your inbox. 10. Which design firm can see Longhorn Cattle from their office window? 2 countries. 9 cities. 300 landscape architects. Street Furniture Australia and USA partner Spruce & Gander visited offices in Australia and Texas. There were key similarities and some notable standouts. 9. Jazz at The Mint: Product and Book Launch Sydney landscape architects gathered at the iconic Mint Courtyard to launch a design book by our founding directors Darrel Conybeare and Bill Morrison, and expansions to the Linea collection. 8. 2023 Good Cause Giveaway goes to …
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Students could have a field day with more outdoor learning: “Australian students typically spend over 10,000 hours during their adolescence in schools” – despite this, the schoolyard hasn’t traditionally been viewed as a space to improve student wellbeing, writes Gweneth Leigh for the Sydney Morning Herald. The return to classrooms in the wake of COVID-19 has prompted an urgent need for schools around the world to create learning spaces that are well-ventilated and socially distanced. Outdoor learning has proven to be an innovative and simple answer to this dilemma. “For some this meant clustering picnic tables together, building shade structures, adding trees, gardens, even yoga circles and mountain bike trails”- varied, resourceful outdoor classrooms have had a distinctively positive impact, they report. Studies have revealed that greening school grounds helps …
Cities for “small men” – gender and urban planning: In The City for “Small men” – mode, median or just plain mean? Claire Martin, landscape architect and Associate Director of OCULUS’ Melbourne studio, outlines gender sensitive thinking concepts and methodologies for urban planning. In the world of medicine, until relatively recently the World Bank reports that “medication doses [were] typically adjusted for patient size with women considered ‘small men’” – Martin writes that “despite women, girls, and sexual and gender diverse people making up over 50% of the world’s population, it seems Western planning, like medicine, has had a similarly blinkered view of men as the locus for the universal model.” “While gender inequality impacts people of all ages and backgrounds looking at the person specifically, not typically, is paramount …
New concept to see older women live together to avoid homelessness, loneliness: Older women are recognised as the fastest-growing cohort of homeless people in Australia, writes Dea Clark for ABC News, as they struggle to find affordable housing. With a soaring rental market and no hope of owning their own homes, Dea tells the stories of women who are turning to a newly formed foundation Sharing With Friends, which aims to provide the opportunity to buy into custom-built shared housing. The prototype, designed by Eloise Atkinson, will fit on an 800-square-metre suburban block of land provided by the charity. Five women will each invest $120,000 to pay for the construction of the accommodation consisting of five private living quarters, a communal laundry, library and garden. Eloise Atkinson told the ABC the challenge …
