Enough!?

Too much already!

And when a council can reject on endless spurious claims? Unless and or until this or that "admin fee" is handed over?

Then there needs to be change and the role given to totally objective, independent, non-political, non-partisan boards! Whose integrity, personal spending/bank balances, is frequently tested/examined and unimpeachable/unquestionable!

There can be a broad plan/objective and rules that are ironclad! So, e.g., there has to be a minimum width to streets and a guaranteed permanent potable water supply that's fit for purpose!

And we need to return to rolling out infrastructure ahead of development, rather than allow it to chase willy nilly development! As the goal has been simply to add ratepayers and ever larger and larger Maroyal and executive salaries? Or, so it would seem?

Some of the rules must be, that no high rise building casts it's shadow on another building and that there has to be adjacent green space and green belts that entirely surround any development more that ten square miles/16 square kilometres!

That all reticulated services, electricity, phone, internet, water and gas, must be delivered via underground facilities! And new suburbs must have a dedicated rail line/service first!

We could easily fund all of the above if we weren't also paying for endless duplication/ and asinine roadblocks in the path of progress, sometimes referred to as state governments/and their bureaucratic army? Replete with an array of embedded incompetence and pedantic empire-building control freaks?

Nothing they actually do now couldn't be done better, without adding new personale or cost, by a partnership of local council, the federal government and the unpaid volunteer boards of yesteryear, manned by retired or semi-retired professionals! And more regional autonomy!

Think we can't get enough volunteers? Think, Sydney Olympics! I mean, nobody more than recently retired professionals, is more enraged by the way their tax dollars have been wasted? ?

And with that overdue change, free up over 70 billions P.A.

So the referred to services are paid for and rolled out ahead of development; and remains available in almost any emergency or crisis/natural disaster!
Alan B.

I read Jacobs' Death and Life of Great American Cities years ago when I was interested in urban sociology and urban anthropology.

She had a sharp mind and most certainly knew her stuff.

Our 21st century planning profession has been at the forefront of normalising mass migration (Big Australia), because it makes our congested cities so much more "vibrant" and planning so much more of a exciting "challenge".

This back-to-front approach is a stultifying conformity, and very few planners would dare to break ranks. So, no, there isn't anywhere near enough "diversity".