At a recent summit in Melbourne, the Urban 45 put forward 45 challenging ideas to address 15 urban issues in Australia’s cities. The Urban 45, its summit and the resulting manifesto were organised by a coordinating committee of academics - from RMIT University in Melbourne and the University of Tasmania in Hobart.

The Urban 45 manifesto is available for download here www.rmit.edu.au/urban45

Three of the key ideas to come out of the Urban 45 initiative are:

1. Leadership
Urban 45 is looking for real leadership at the Commonwealth government level with a view to shaping sustainable cities. This should be recognised with a presence at Cabinet level and the creation of a strategic urban policy making capacity. This capacity is seriously deficient in Australia, where we lag behind other countries such as the USA and the UK.

2. Cooperation
Urban 45 urges cooperation between the three tiers of government - Local, State and Federal - with an emphasis on working together to achieve real results. The problems of housing affordability stress, traffic congestion and other symptoms of dysfunctional urban structures can only be effectively tackled if the three tiers of government work together.

3. Renewal and investment
Australias urban infrastructure has been neglected and requires renewal - from public transport to the supply of rental housing and age care services - investment is urgently required.

The Urban 45 consists of 15 academics who are leaders in their fields of expertise. Each has written on a thematic area of city life to which three high-impact policy initiatives are attached (hence the 45 of the title). The aim of this document (see www.rmit.edu.au/urban45) is to bring the academy and its analysts into closer contact with policy makers, journalists and practitioners in the public sector and industry. The key objective is to generate consensus and a cumulative weight to evidence-based ideas designed to jump-start policy intervention into the areas of our daily lives and livelihoods.