We seem to be brought up to believe that we can aspire to the $450,000 home right from the word GO. There were not many people that could afford to buy directly into the house of their choice 50 years ago.

One started by living in a very modest unit and worked up over a number of years. Some lived on a boat or in a caravan. It appears that sacrifice in the early years is not an option now even though our ever increasing population makes it more difficult to live near work and is my argument against this increased expansion that affects life style.

There is also much more demand on infrastructure and facilities which have to be provided by governments and they have to get the money from somewhere....It's all tied up up with "they" meaning the government via the taxpayer will provide. No one wants to be the tax payer.

There is minimal industrial strife in Australia . The answer to housing stress is not that advocated by the land development industry , namely continual expansion of city boundaries to construct Mc Mansions .

That " answer " will increase the cost of transport for workers who live many kilometres from their work , particularly if they are encouraged to travel by ever larger vehicles and have to pay for parking , and if many media commentators disparage the use of public transport .

People will eventually have to accept that more are going to live in inner city apartments , if necessary high rise ones . The media should stop romanticising the Mc Mansion on the quarter acre block and driving the kids to footy . Let the kids walk , cycle or take public transport to footy .

Governments should allocate funds to public transport and extra public housing , rather than to freeways and paying for developer 's costs . Parents should be prepared to accompany kids to parks within walking distance of their homes , so that they can play and exercise . This will overcome the argument that kids need a backyard in which to play , when many of them rarely go into the backyard , preferring to play computer games .

No matter how horrifying it is for many to contemplate , petrol is soon going to run out and become ever more expensive until it does so . Alternative fuels and electric cars , though they may be of some limited use as a replacement for petrol driven cars , are not going to be a complete replacement .

*People will eventually have to accept that more are going to live in inner city apartments , if necessary high rise ones .*

Ah Jaylex, that has indeed been the trend in large cities, creating
the perfect human zoo, with all its associated crime and delinquency
problems.

Is it the answer to our energy problems? I don't think so for
citizens of the human zoo are more dependant then ever on being
supplied by those trucks rolling in with food, toilet paper and
all the rest.

Before the cheap and abundant oil century, people lived quite
well by the so called village lifestyle. They worked locally,
grew a few vegies and a few fruit trees, ran a few chooks. The
kids cycled or walked to school.

Methinks that a similar lifestyle is far more sustainable and sounds
far more attractive, then you trying to force people to live in
human zoos

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12790#220803

snake, get in your EVIL mobile pollution machine, go for a drive around some of the inner suburban areas of ANY Australian city, have a look at the suburbs that were subdivided between 1945 & 1975?

You will see "infrastructure" that was built at this time despite our birth rate being several times higher, despite a tsunami of migrants as well, how did any of our governments build all those roads, schools, hospitals, courts, police stations, libraries, bridges, TAFE colleges, universities, Snowy Mountain Schemes, Ord River, etc, etc, etc?

ANSWER, there were LESS Sir Humphrey Applebeys driving desks, pens, paperwork, in triplicate, in all existing departments, let alone the extra ministries we have now.

Once upon a time, in the land of OZ, far away & long ago, the cabinet was "lucky" 13, 12 ministers + the PM?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12790#220808

jaylex, why does it have to be "public housing"? why can't our hero couple aspire to owning their own "strata titled" unit? Why can't we have families, extended families living in their own block of "privately owned" units?

Why can't we DEcentralise, tree change, sea change? the government could do this too, by moving bureacrookracy to the bush? With an NBN nationwide, why can't the south east QLD, Translink call centre be in Hughenden? Why can't the Cannberra Centrlink HQ be moved to Alice Springs, Longreach or Burnie?

i wonder how many "inner city, urban professionals" are in favour of actually living in/on an "organic farm" with wind turbines, in woop woop?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12790#220822

Yabby, as i live & breath, here i am agreeing with you, but you left out 2 vital ingredients in the inner city ZOO, long term unemployment caused by exporting jobs & mental illness manufactured by the PC, Thought Police playing head fu#*, mind games with the general public.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc5E6pvDv2Y&feature=channel_video_title create unemployment & poverty

http://www.mailstar.net/xTrots.html why they did it?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8630135369495797236# PC, mind games

http://www.academia.org/the-origins-of-political-correctness/ more PC.

So true Ross, & so wrong. Even worse, most of this garbage is driven by the thousands of totally unnecessary town planners, & the cost 10s of thousands of their support staff, having to be recouped some how by these dreadful state & local government drones.

Formersnag you're singing my song. If we had a single planner worth their pay we would have moved all government out of city centers long ago.

Yes the property council would hate it, but think of the savings.

No requirement for upgraded road or public transport systems into the centre.

No huge cost to upgrade the inner city infrastructure to handle even greater numbers. It is so much cheaper to install greenfield infrastructure, compared to rebuilding in a developed city, but our planners can't see it.

Dramatically reduced traveling time, cost & fuel consumption.

A life style worth living, rather than be a rat in a trap.

One has to wonder if any public servant can ever get anything right.

Hang on, do any of them even want to get anything right, that might be dangerous to one's career, mightn't it?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12790#220844

Hasbeen, i have been asking myself that question for 3 decades now, how can they get it so wrong? surely it is not possible for any human to be stupid enough to make these obvious mistakes? many of them are allegedly high IQ, university educated, "inner city, urban professionals", how?

BTW, i also think the author was correct in mentioning the "carbon tax", these union leaders know how much this abomination is really going to cost their workers & are quite rightly trying to "compensate" them for the TRUE cost.