Let me guess before I read this article: there is no mention of population growth!

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reading….

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reading…

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Erm…. Yes I was right!!

Jago, how can you talk about urban planning without discussing the huge factor of constant rapid population growth, which drives urban sprawl and urban consolidation and ever-increasing pressures on all sorts of urban infrastructure and services??

Quite frankly, our government would be highly duplicitous even if it had really good urban planning policies for as long as it imposes very high immigration upon us.

Urban planning should surely be all about improving our existing cities and suburbs, for the current population, and not about facilitating never-ending population growth.

No matter how well we might plan new suburbs and satellite cities, population growth will continue to exert enormous pressure on existing areas, many of which already have massive problems with traffic congestion, water supplies and all sorts of other things.

Please Jago, if you are a good urban planner, or a good researcher in that arena, you will advocate very strongly for us to stop growing our population and strive to achieve a stable population at a level only a little higher than it currently is.

Hi Jago, I admire your work on oil vulnerability in cities but if you want these ideas to be read by a wider public rather than just political policy wonks then you will need to greatly simplify the language you use.

Policy not backed by funding is ephemeral indeed and the plain truth is that, in a world of increasing economic difficulty due to stagnant oil (energy) production, there will not be the money in future for any effective infrastructure projects, urban renewal etc. It is simply too late for that. (Note: It is best to focus on purchasing power since one can always print money but if does not give increased access to energy then it is pure inflation.)

The thing I wonder about is how long the delay will be between the time the government concedes it has run out of money to the time it reduces the immigration flood. It will probably keep mass immigration going for a while in the false belief that this creates economic growth (whereas only increased energy use can do that).

This is going to be a VERY interesting decade!

Ah Ludwig, back to Peak Population again.

Change the track this one is getting boring.

How about peak oil, peak Coal, peak gas, peak food production, peak oceans, peak Ice caps, peak polar bears, peak CO2, peak glaciers, peak temperatures, peak oceanic acidification, peak industrialisation ,peak, peak bloody peak.

Lets have some peak Ludwig for a change. Get a life for pity's sake.

At last, someone is writing about urban design.

No one gives fat rats about population as population is people and who is going to vote for less of you and me? They're still smarting from last Monday's demolition job by King.

Even so, urban design is something the anti-pops could get involved in as most of them are science or engineering gnomes.

Most of our cities are still being built ala the 1950s. Old world thinking.

Cheryl, I’m often bemused by those who ignore reality to make a point about population control. We have much of the Western world blithering on about support for Chinese dissident Chen because he spoke out against the forced sterilization of Chinese people.

In the meantime, through indirect support via the UN to the UK’s International Development Aid program, we all support the forced sterilization of Indians? Where do we actually park our hypocrisy?

<< Tens of millions of pounds of UK aid money have been spent on a programme that has forcibly sterilised Indian women and men, the Observer has learned. The Department for International Development in 2010 cited the need to fight climate change as one of the key reasons for pressing ahead with such programmes. The document argued that reducing population numbers would cut greenhouse gases, although it warned that there were "complex human rights and ethical issues" involved in forced population control. --Gethin Chamberlain, The Observer, 15 April 2012 >>

We also contribute, under our UN CO2 Tax regime obligations, a 10% contribution to the UN. Why? Because the money from Australian taxpayers is to be used to “Pay” such as Indonesia to stop them clear felling their forests for food production. Great, so why do we also pay (thank you Midnight Oil, you bald headed ministerial toad), Indonesia to actually clear fell their rainforests to produce palm oil which we buy back at a discounted rate?

The hypocrisy, schizophrenia and contradiction from our government is truly astonishing.

And our Urban Design policy is important because? What a load of turd.

Spindoc, what on Earth are you saying??

Peak population??

Where does this come from??

Peak polar bears?!?!

Man, you are just plain weeeird!

I mean, putting a spin on stuff is one thing but this is taking the ‘art’ of spin-doctoring to a whole new level! Like um, spinning it right off the planet and out of the galaxy!

And there’s not the slightest bit of anything relevant to the thread in your post! ( :>/

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<< They're still smarting from last Monday's demolition job by King. >>

Haaaahahahahaaaa, you wish Cheryl, er Meryl, der Malcyl, ahh Malcolm!

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Well, at least there has been one sensible post after mine.

Well said Michael.