Open access policy analysis and visualisation

UrbanLab @Sydney was awarded $30,876 by the Henry Halloran Trust in 2014, with the aim of establishing the beginnings of an open access data system that would enable analysis and visualization of headline indicators for the Australian housing market and policy space. The Blue Sky UrbanLab @Sydney project has provided the opportunity to kick start and provide momentum for a long term machine learning and big data led information visualization research and dissemination programme around housing and larger urban planning issues for Sydney and New South Wales. It was envisioned as one of the first efforts of its kind in any university across Australia to develop an online, publicly relevant and accessible system for data analysis, information visualization and urban informatics, including a regular commentary series on housing policy and city science research in Australia. This summary report documents the project’s attained milestones. The various stages and achievements on data collection and analysis, research directions and progress, major research themes developed, and implementation stages are discussed. Finally, ongoing work and emerging plans for the future are presented. In summary, the visualization platform has been realized. A number of scholarly outputs were achieved. A number of new collaborations have been initiated at both academic and industry levels. The implementation of the Blue Sky project has been strengthened and provided continuity by the Henry Halloran Trust Research Incubator Fellowship awarded to the team leaders (Nicole Gurran and Somwrita Sarkar) in 2015, for 2015-17. Many of the results emerging from the Blue Sky UrbanLab @Sydney project have directly led to research and outcomes progress for the Incubator project. The outputs from the Incubator and all future projects will also be hosted on the online visualization platform that has been created as part of this Blue Sky project.