Melbourne

Melbourne’s Missing Middle’s signature recommendation—a new Missing Middle Zone—would enable six-storey, mixed-use development on all residential land within 1 kilometre of a train station and 500 metres of a tram stop—building an interconnected network of 1,992 high-amenity, walkable neighbourhoods.
‍
Melbourne’s Missing Middle envisions Parisian streetscapes across all of inner urban Melbourne, along our train and tram lines and near our town centres. Gentle, walk-up apartments, abundant shopfronts, sidewalk cafes and sprawling parks replacing unaffordable and unsustainable cottages. 
‍
The Missing Middle is the most desirable, walkable urban form, typified by inner Paris, and it should be legal to build in our most desirable, economically productive areas.

Chris Lermanis is a keen amateur photographer who spent his weekends in the late 1960s and early 1970s photographing around the inner Melbourne suburbs of Fitzroy, Carlton and Collingwood with his Pentax SV camera and 50mm lens.

He hand-processed the black and white films at home and made prints in the bathroom or laundry, which was temporarily converted into a darkroom. During this time the houses and factories were being demolished and the new housing commission towers built.

Lermanis recently started looking at his old prints and now has a book project planned.

• In short: Data detailing the air quality at Melbourne's Southern Cross Station has been released for the first time.
• It shows nitrogen dioxide levels in parts of the station have regularly been more than 90 times the guidelines set by the World Health Organization.
• The Victorian government and the station's operator say they've been meeting Australian workplace standards.

Undoubtedly mistakes were made in the policies, planning and delivery of this area. But that doesn’t mean improvements can’t be made. If we pause to consider that Fitzroy, Carlton and Richmond were once regarded as highly undesirable places to live or visit, this should propel us to think of what a cultural hub Docklands could become.

A golden opportunity is developing the precinct into Melbourne’s home for live music. Given the right encouragement and planning to grow, Docklands could be the rebellious musical counterpart to the high-class cultural experiences on offer in the city’s arts precinct. Prior to COVID, live music contributed around $1.5 billion to Victoria’s economy each year which makes its recovery and expansion a very valuable proposition.

A report soon to be released by architects at Melbourne University spells out the environmental damage of demolishing the towers — including the thousands of tonnes of concrete sent into landfill and carbon released in producing replacement concrete — and details the benefits of retrofit as a tried and tested alternative. Work from the architectural practice OFFICE on estates in Ascot Vale and Port Melbourne demonstrates that refurbishment and infill can take place without relocating existing residents, at significantly lower social, environmental and economic costs.

The big housing demolition is not only costing the state a great deal; in the short term it massively reduces the affordable housing stock. In the middle of a housing crisis, this is bizarre. Contrary to Keane’s argument that our object is to keep public housing tenants in substandard housing, it is to ensure they remain close to home while more public housing is built. Those towers that can be refitted can be done so with minimal disruption to tenants, who move within the blocks while the work is done. Most public housing estates have expansive grounds. New public housing should be under construction on those estates now, so that when it comes time to demolish the unsalvageable towers, tenants can move into new housing next door. In what way is this a difficult idea?

Carlton is number eight! Only because the top five is almost entirely the Melbourne CBD, which shouldn't count, in my opinion. However I do think that "Feels eerily similar to Canada" should be Australia's national slogan.

Instead of simmering in a stew of rage and resentment I began to wonder if that conferred invisibility could be harnessed. If I reframed it as a cloak of invisibility I could do all sorts of things “inappropriate” for my age.

I refrained from robbing a bank (though fairly sure I could have got away with the loot), instead turning my attention to street art.

My first guerrilla paste-up a decade or so ago was in a lane in Ballarat, Victoria. I was quite nervous and slightly fearful of being at least fined so I donned a hi-vis vest and put out semi-official public work signs and had a friend spotting for me. I needn’t have bothered – people went past me and simply did not see me.

Motorist deaths in Melbourne have fallen by half over the past decade, but there’s been no reduction in deaths among pedestrians, motorcyclists and bicycle riders over the same period.

It is in this context that City of Yarra councillors voted last week to expand a trial of 30km/h speed limits across all of Fitzroy and Collingwood, other than major thoroughfares and pending state government approval.

A growing number of major cities including London, Paris, Toronto and Barcelona are adopting 30km/h limits on their streets and say it has made their cities safer. The World Health Organisation has called for it to be the maximum where vehicles mix with pedestrians and cyclists. But Victoria Police’s chief commissioner, Shane Patton, scoffed at the plan last week, saying he was not aware of any evidence that it would reduce road trauma. “I think no one is going to obey it ... it’s ridiculous,” he said.

Patton’s view – although perhaps widely shared – may have been a shock to Victoria Police’s fellow members of the Victorian Government Road Safety Partnership, made up of the Transport Accident Commission and the Transport, Justice and Health departments.

The partnership told a state parliament inquiry into road trauma earlier this year that successive studies had shown that 30km/h was the “maximum impact speed for a healthy adult before death or very serious injury becomes increasingly likely”.

Someone hit by a car at 50km/h has a 90 per cent chance of being killed, compared with a 10 per cent chance at 30km/h, those studies show.

Come with me on a magical journey between Sydney and Melbourne. No, not via the airport… but starting at Sydney’s Central Station, aboard a newly refurbished all-sleeper night train.

[…] 

So my perfect journey is a dream – but why can’t Australians enjoy such a pleasant way to travel, given sleeper trains are going through a major resurgence in Europe, partly in response to climate change? It’s a good question, and there’s a simple answer: because the New South Wales government doesn’t want you to.

To Fitzroy locals, carrot man – who calls the inner-city Melbourne neighbourhood home – is simply known as Nathan.

VKM first photographed him during Melbourne’s Covid lockdowns and over walks in Carlton Gardens a friendship was formed.

“I know him now just as Nathan,” VKM says. “When we were walking, I’m not thinking about the man with a carrot. But then you see people’s faces and people’s reaction and it’s like, ‘oh that’s right, I’m with the guy who’s got the carrot’.”

For such a public persona, VKM points out Nathan is “humble and shy”.

Guardian Australia approached Nathan for an interview via a friend, but was informed he was happy for the carrot to speak for him.