The National Cities Performance Framework will support all governments to better target, monitor and evaluate cities policy. It will be key to the government's commitment to continuous improvement through City Deals.

Vacant housing rates are rising in our major cities. Across Australia on census night, 11.2% of housing was recorded as unoccupied – a total of 1,089,165 dwellings. With housing affordability stress also intensifying, the moment for a push on empty property taxes looks to have arrived.

This report aims to provide robust data to rate Sydney’s performance in comparison with 33 of peer cities. It identifies transport and population growth as key issues for Sydney.

Australia has the highest rate of population growth of all the medium and large OECD countries. But urban planning for this growth is often inadequate.

Dig a little deeper, and the Census figures tell us unexpected things about more than one Australia, writes Tim Colebatch.