Live event: Is housing 'abundance' really the solution?

About this episode

The episode features a debate on whether building more houses can solve the housing crisis, with insights from various experts.

Governments of different stripes tend to believe that the way to deal with the housing crisis is to build more houses. If there were an 'abundance' of houses, we'd be able to easily tackle the lack of *access* to secure housing. But is abundance – as popular as that term has become in the last year – the key to the issue? (Let alone the key to a nice 3-bedder in the suburbs). In this funny and boisterous Festival of Regenerative Urbanism event, held by the Henry Halloran Urban and Regional Research Initiative at the University of Sydney, a panel of experts with a bee in their collective bonnet go head to head. Starting with a spirited critique of 'Abundance' by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson from Professor Nicole Gurran, the debate features: Jess Scully, Author, City-maker & Curator; Tina Perinotto, Publisher and Managing Editor, the Fifth Estate; Patrick Fensham, National Leader for Urban Policy & Governance, SGS Economics & Planning; Planning Institute of Australia Victorian President; Professor Steven Rowley, Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre; Ben Hendriks, Founder & Executive Chair, Mecone; Mehnaaz Hossain, Editor, Honi Soit, The…

People in this episode

Guests: Professor Nicole Gurran, Jess Scully, Tina Perinotto, Patrick Fensham, Professor Steven Rowley, Ben Hendriks, Mehnaaz Hossain

Topics covered

• housing crisis
• urban policy
• housing abundance
• urbanism
• expert debate

Keywords

• housing
• urbanism
• abundance
• crisis
• debate
• experts
• policy

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Henry Halloran Urban and Regional Research Initiative, University of Sydney, SGS Economics & Planning, Planning Institute of Australia, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Honi Soit

Places: suburbs

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