🚨🎙️ Live Podcast Announcement! Join me and Stuart Donovan in Canberra next week to record a live @inflectionpoint.work Podcast on the history of the Auckland upzoning and the Auckland Unitary Plan.
Jonathan O'Brien
@jonobri.com
Writer, software dev, lead organiser yimbymelbourne.org.au // jonathan@jonobri.com // lead@yimbymelbourne.org.au
Fantastic news that the Planning Institute of Australia has finally accepted the evidence on Auckland. Broad upzoning works, and it’s great to see PIA get instep with the evidence. But the strategic planning process made Auckland’s reforms worse: the process locked up wealthy inner-city areas.
The changes to CGT and Negative Gearing are good tax policy—but they’re not a meaningful housing policy. All available research tells us these policies explain less than 5% of house prices. But the new Local Infrastructure Fund is a juicy $2 billion carrot.
By tying the new infrastructure fund to meaningful statewide planning and construction reform, the Feds are upping the stakes for states to do what’s right and make housing legal and easy to build where people want to live. This is the first real piece of Commonwealth housing leadership.
Very excited to be hosting the Birthright film Premier and Q&A next Monday 11th at the brand new Brunswick Picture House. This is a brand new Australian film about struggling with the housing crisis. It’s dark, funny, and—most of all—it’s fun.
Planners only want one thing and it's disgusting.
The Planning Institute’s call for a National Settlement Strategy is finally live. They provide four indicators of success. The good news for the PIA is that there is one clear way to improve all of these indicators: broad-based upzoning of all Australian inner-cities.
Absolutely delighted to publish Ryan Ginard on Australia’s urgent need for charitable giving reform. Ryan’s article appears in the fourth edition of Inflection Points, alongside Allegra Spender, Tim Nelson and team, and Keith Wolahan.
Australia faces three major crises: housing, energy, and productivity. Boundless is a book about how we might confront these great problems of our time, and it’s coming out in 2027. Co-written with the excellent @howardfmaclean.bsky.social and published by also-excellent Pantera Press.
After more than a decade of entering writing prizes, I am absolutely honoured to find myself on the other side. Introducing the $5,000 Inflection Points Writing Prize—for the best new piece of writing about the problems Australia faces, and the solutions within our grasp.
In September of last year, I was lucky enough to have dinner with Alain Bertaud—author of Order without Design, one of the best books ever written about cities—in a restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. Now, he’s coming to Australia.
Last night, the Planning Amendment Bill 2025 passed the Legislative Council. This is an astronomically impactful reform. Congratulations to @australianlabor.bsky.social, @greens.org.au, @davidlimbrick.bsky.social, and @animaljusticeparty.bsky.social for forming a cross-partisan, pro-housing bloc.
I do not think it is a fair test to show people two crooked photos and one AI render and expect to receive an instructive set of opinions. bsky.app/profile/dbro...
David Broockman (@dbroockman.bsky.social)
These are the building designs we used in the second experiment. NB: I used to live in building (b), and it passed SF's design review. Voters hate it and don't want to approve housing like it! Maybe…
bsky.app
This new work from @grattaninstitute.bsky.social is nothing short of seminal. For too long we have let our cities be locked up by bad, unjustifiable land use and housing policy. But the tide is turning on bad policy—and that is for the better. bsky.app/profile/grat...
Why does Australia have so many live house auctions? On my recent trip around the US, I learned that the Saturday morning pastime of house auctions are mostly unique to Australia. So I set out to investigate.
@jonobri.com hits the grey elephant in the new city debate - that the vast majority of regional towns and small cities are determined to avoid growing any larger than they currently are.
Jonathan O'Brien@jonobri.com · 10mo agoNo, Australia does not need new cities. My new essay sets the record straight: we have a lot of cities, but we aren’t using them as well as we could be. To make our cities more successful, we have to open up a lot more land for commercial uses to enable agglomeration.
As a proud Canberran, and being regional New South Welsh by birth, I agree with this. It's taken a century to build Canberra - a city built to solve a specific problem, not for housing - into a real city. Let's not repeat that. We need to interrogate the mindset of large towns versus small cities.
Jonathan O'Brien@jonobri.com · 10mo agoNo, Australia does not need new cities. My new essay sets the record straight: we have a lot of cities, but we aren’t using them as well as we could be. To make our cities more successful, we have to open up a lot more land for commercial uses to enable agglomeration.
The Connecticut news opted for a photo of the Vancouver guy and Melbourne guy when talking about #Yimbytown2025 #NewHaven @desegregatect.bsky.social www.ctpublic.org/news/2025-09...
The largest pro-housing conference in the US meets in New Haven
The YIMBYTown conference, which stands for “Yes in my backyard,” runs from Sunday through Tuesday. More than 1,000 housing advocates, policy makers and state and local politicians gathered downtown to...
ctpublic.org
No, Australia does not need new cities. My new essay sets the record straight: we have a lot of cities, but we aren’t using them as well as we could be. To make our cities more successful, we have to open up a lot more land for commercial uses to enable agglomeration.
Great piece on the intersection of housing, demographics, and schools in Australian cities by Katie Roberts-Hull. What's worse for neighborhood incumbents than school crowding? School closures. inflectionpoints.work/articles/the...
It is fantastic to see Clare O’Neil and the Federal Government increasingly on-message about the housing crisis. The Minns and Allen governments are undertaking some of the most meaningful and ambitious housing reforms in decades. Federal Government backing is crucial— 🧵
Today we @yimby.melbourne drop our new research note, demonstrating the bias of opt-in community consultation. It will shock no one who’s paying attention, but our sample of 15 consults across six councils found a massive overrepresentation of homeowners and older folk.
The conservative stalwarts over at Charter 29 have put out a new report on Victorian planning reform. It reveals a complete lack of understanding. They think the 'missing middle' is a set of suburbs—but no, it's the medium density housing that they'd like to see remain banned.
We used to build 50 homes per planner annually, but now it’s less than 9. Alan Kohler covering our recent research note on planner productivity 👇 www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iEh...
What’s slowing down housing development? | Alan Kohler | ABC NEWS
YouTube video by ABC News (Australia)
youtube.com
Absolutely awesome to see my dear friend and collaborator Siang Lu take home the Miles Franklin Award for his excellent novel Ghost Cities. The devil works hard. Siang Lu works harder.
The @inflectionpoints.work launch made an enormous splash. I could not be more proud of what we have already achieved. Our Melbourne launch event is next week, free, and getting booked out fast. Get yours at the link below!
