The Great Divide: Australia's Housing Mess and How to Fix It by Alan Kohler is a forensic account of how one of the world's least densely populated nations engineered a housing crisis that now ranks Sydney alongside Hong Kong for unaffordability.
About This Book
Australia's housing affordability crisis is not accidental — it is the product of specific policy failures, compounding over decades. Kohler traces the precise moment things unravelled: the early twenty-first century surge in house prices that permanently restructured Australian society, widening inequality and fracturing the relationship between property-owning and non-property-owning generations. The consequences cascade across the entire housing system: a rental crisis, depleted public housing stock, and a mortgage market under strain. This updated edition extends the analysis to homelessness, city-by-city affordability targets, and international case studies. Essential reading for anyone concerned with urban policy, housing design, and the social contract that cities are built on.
Key Features
- 208 pages of narrative analysis, policy critique, and reform proposals on Australian housing
- New edition material covering homelessness, per-city affordability benchmarks, and international comparisons
- Published by Black Inc., ISBN 9781760645373
What You'll Discover
- How Australia transformed a land-abundant nation into one of the world's most expensive housing markets
- The structural link between rising house prices, intergenerational inequality, and the collapse of public housing provision
- How much prices in each major Australian city would need to fall to return to genuine affordability
- What overseas housing systems have done differently — and what lessons translate to the Australian context
About the Author
Alan Kohler is one of Australia's most recognised financial journalists and commentators. His work spans decades of economic analysis and public affairs writing, with a focus on making complex financial and policy subjects legible to general and specialist audiences alike.
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 208
- Dimensions: 219 x 128mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781760645373
- Publisher: Black Inc.
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects, urban designers, planners, and policy researchers engaged with housing affordability, city-making, and the social consequences of land use decisions in Australia.