Who actually votes for these morons, and how can we make them accountable?

The complete and utter incompetence smacks of labor, am I right?

Caught between politically motivated nimbys and the deep green concrete.

Australia has clearly learnt nothing from the high rise developments
in places like the USA and Europe. What you are in fact creating,
is little more then a human zoo.

The first thing that skyrockets in these human zoos is the crime
rate.

To densify or sprawl, that is the issue……isn’t it?

Well it shouldn’t be. We have SURELY got to reach limits to the growth….of both!

Population growth, Tony Recsei, that is the underlying issue that needs to be tackled head-on by people such as yourself who passionately detest high-rise development and people such as myself who passionately detest urban sprawl.

We should both be on the same side, fighting tooth and nail to stop the utterly absurdly high rate of immigration into this country, and to wind back the birthrate a bit, both of which drive this manic endless push for high-rise development...and urban expansion.

I’ve been doing my bit in this regard for 20 years. But judging from your article, you haven’t been…..and yet you acknowledge population growth as being the driving issue in your very first paragraph!

Alright, so you have argued strongly against high-rise. But you haven’t mentioned a word about the downsides of urban sprawl, which you would surely acknowledge are substantial.

My town, Townsville, has seen a major expansion in high-rise apartment blocks around the CBD in the last decade. So much so that it has literally turned this large country town into a regional city.

As the town centre was right up in one corner of the urban expanse, and large shopping centres and other semi central business districts have developed out in the burbs, the old town centre became very run down.

The urban consolidation that has occurred via all this high-rise had reinvigorated the now city centre.

It is a good thing. But it would have been a whole lot better if it had replaced urban expansion. But alas, the sprawl has continued at an incredible rate.

I’ve said this a hundred times on this forum on all manner of thread topics – I find it amazing that people who are concerned about something that is caused or strongly contributed to by rapid population growth just completely miss the need to address that issue!! So often, passionate and knowledgeable people just take continuous rapid population growth for granted. That’s just crackers!

Congratulations to our stupid policy makers and to those of us who voted for a change of government.

On 18 December 2008, the Australian federal government announced policy and administrative changes to screening arrangements for foreign investors in Australian real estate, meaning it will
be easier for overseas purchasers to buy property here in 2009. These drastic changes to the Foreign Ownership Laws was made in the hope that increased foreign investment will help support property prices'

Well as a community we need to ask many questions:
How could this stupid policy actually support property prices? I would argue many foreign investors will simply outbid Australians. Greedy landlords and real estate agents will also play one against the other to get the best foreign dollar or euro or asian currency.

Then there is the issue of money laundering and chanelling such monies into the purchase of Australian property.

Oh! and if I spend $1-3 million dollars buying property as an Asian or Afgani or Russian businessman then I would feel it is my right to live in Australia, access Medicare or even get a dodgy business started.

It's all about the next election - why worry about selling off the farm. Afterall two or three stints in politics will ensure I'm financially well off mate - stuff the next generation of Australians.

Glad to see the question of population growth raising its head! This IS the critical issue. Just how many people do we want to live in any particular place? How many people can Australia support? Do we want to pack more people into some cities and regions or not? The debate has to focus on building sustainable economies so that we all can earn a living and live the type of lifestyle we choose, without it then being radically altered afterwards. I choose to live near a regional city on small acreage. I don't want my lifestyle compromised by high density 'infill' development. I commend SOS as they have properly assessed the negative impacts of high density living and yet the continued expansion of our population is why we have the problem in the first place. Bigger is not always better!

Don't you fools know already that Australian governments are run by us Italian, Greek & Jewish interests that stretch right back to our homeland corruptible governments. We even have an australia seat in our Parliament for God's sake. Your Dumb Labor Politicians ... are just tools.

Our property development scams are our reward for the work of governance of your society into the third world toilet bowl. Ya think it's easy? Or ya think an all out Mafia is a better option?

We tried puttin' our own people in your parliament. They got greedy, It failed. We like it THIS way. If you don't like it, its too late. So get back in your boxes, God knows we've built enough of them for you. And shudda up your face.

Yours Corruptibly

The Don

Ah Multicorrupturalism!

I'll be Frank, its The best Con for the Don.

The problem with higher density housing, is that it is driven by expedience. A suburb consisting of 1000sq.m. blocks can become a vibrant community, if planned and serviced properly. A suburb of 300sq.m. blocks will become a pocket of disadvantage and crime down the track. Generally inferior design, lacking passive surveilance, often lacking public transport, and a lower socio-economic demographic all combine to make these devlopments the ghettos of the future. But it is a cheap way of packing in the ratepayers and saving a few bob on infrastructure, the problems will eventuate after everybody has got their money.

Rocketing out of control.

It appears to me that even the best or sustainably educated leaders at National and State level can do nothing if Local Governments themselves are so prone to the unbalanced checks of cost heavy and cross-purpose leanings of developers. Take Cook Shire for example. It is not only Sydney or Urban areas that are prone to the lost opportunities of savvy improved, smart human ecological planning through development.

When you consider the strategic importance of Cooktown in relation to the "whole" significance of Cape York, it is a loss to all Australia.

How can Local Planning be "local" if there is insistently a 'blatant conflict of interest, where half of the members of the minister's assessment panel are developers who stand to gain from the implementation strategies being assessed and the other half are bureaucrats. There is no community representation.'

AND;

How can Local Planning be "local" if there is insistently a blatant conflict of interest, where half of the members of the local Council are developers or closely associated through their business network with the interests of developers who stand to gain from the implementation and signing of agreements, being assessed, and the other half indifferent bureaucrats.

In this kind of 'democracy' there is no scrutiny made to ensure real leadership based on community representation. If life truly matters then it is debatable which conversation could give weight to stimulate change.

Talking about "Selling out";

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2009/2634481.htm

or perhaps "Dealing with tricky people".

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2009/2632021.htm

Australia needs to hammer these issues Tony Recsei. Be it Government or Development Planning it seems we do less, the more we know.

Top comments here and hats of to Yabby for his 'What we are creating is little more then a human zoo.'

AND;

For the record see a related sample of bureaucrat evidence pans in crisis.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2009/2632244.htm

http://www.miacat.com/

We would not have a housing/property problem if we manage our population and limits its growth - preferably to zero.

According to statistics Australia's population increased by 3.8% in the last year that means in 18 years it will double to 44 million.
Do we have enough resources (land, water etc.) to build all the houses required?

We only export 30% of our grain, that does not leave much for population expansion and then will have to import, where from?
We are already a net importer of fruit and vegetables, if the drought continues, as is likely with another El Nino, then we will have to import more - again where from?

We are clearly over populated.

Peter is quite right.The latest population increases are running at a 50 year high at 400,000 per year,two thirds from immigration levels.These amounts are far beyong the NSW Dept of Planning's recent projections for NSW and particularly Sydney.The Dept's medium and high density agenda over the last 20 years is responsible for the decline in Sydney's amenity-gridlock,pollution and increases in housing cost are due to these misguided policies.The unaffordable rents in Sydney and Melbourne are being distorted due to the 350,000 overseas students who are basically doing phoney couses in hospitality etc to obtain Australian passports and paying thosands for the privilege.Housing standards are being degraded by these same students living 10 to a unit.The student visa/buy an Australian Passport racket was started by Howard and still continues under Rudd.The result is a part phoney immigration racket for skills we can easily teach Australians.Doctors etc are not what we are getting.Australians and our standards are being sold down the drain thanks to the Howard and Rudd governments "money at any costs" policies.

Tony2

"The latest population increases are running at a 50 year high at 400,000 per year,two thirds from immigration levels."

And Australia's mining mafia are trying to land grab agricultural pastures, where overall, Australia already feeds 60 million people.

Help..........lock the door......the bus....she's a already full!

Thanks All - I have read with interest your comments and agree with specific views on Immigration and sustainability. What could we (as individuals or a broader community) do to influence those who are meant keep the government honest i.e. the opposition, the democrats, the greens and or the independents.

How do we develop an advocacy group that stops the wreck and ruin of this country? What other forums could we use to highlight some of the policy gaps associated with housing, immigration and the rise and rise of 'foreign ownership of Australian property not to mention automatic access to permanent residency - thanks to some 350, 000 students and counting.

As a reminder - the NSW Minister for Planning is Kristina Kerscher KENEALLY. Her seat is Heffron which is located in SE Sydney (Alexandria etc).

It would be a good idea if her primary vote was obliterated in the next State election.

Yet another article that views the housing problem with blinkered vision forgetting all about the real driving force behind the housing problems faced in all Australian cities - ie growth in housing demand, I repeat DEMAND. It is NOT a contraction in supply that forces prices up to ridiculous levels and leads planners to a lose-lose choice between infill or yet more sprawl.

As Ludwig and others take great pains to point out it is all about population growth and the complete refusal of our worthless governments to recognize that fact.

"Australia is a continent sized country with total urbanised area of only 0.3 per cent." Yay for a rational argument! Because only 0.3 percent is suburban, lets grow it all over our last agricultural zones around our city centres? Hah! And exactly what percentage of Australia IS green and can actually GROW food?

Hey, if you want to expand suburbia, the most resource greedy and energy intensive form of habitation ever invented, out across a significant part of Australia, why not legislate that all NEW development occurs in the greater 98% of our country.... the DESERT!

What an absolutely moronic arguent! We are approaching peak oil, peak water, peak wood, peak everything as far as I can tell, and this guy wants to expand exactly the wrong living arrangement. 1/10 for effort (I was able to debunk the whole premise of his argument in the first sentence), 0/10 for rational argument and information.

What exactly do opponents of density housing expect the State Government to do with the increasing population?. 1000 a week, we're told! The taxpayers dollars are limited, to be funding major infrastructure more than 50 klm from the CBD. Most Victorians expect state of the art health facilities, but in terms of staffing and providing major medical equipment, we simply do not have the financial capacity for it. The same goes for our schools, staffing and technology costing millions of dollars, long after the building is funded....that's the easy part! it's the ongoings that cost money.

The more one spreads the population out, without the public transport system to sustain services to those far flung communities, the thinner the resources to service those distances.

Melbourne 2030 had a lot going for it, but some selfish individuals don't want to share the limited resources offered by inner Melbourne hospitals and schools, not to mention buses, trams and trains.

Be prepared to go up and not out. Make provision for open spaces to allow the sunshine in by not building up to the footpath and adjacent the neighbouring highrise....spread the density throughout the suburbs along the growth corridors and near public transport routes!

There is a truism here folks, You can only spend the dollar once!

So! you make it count! You use the dollar to create facilities that will service the most number of people with the very best equipment available, and being selective, only the best will do!

Mary Walsh

*Be prepared to go up and not out.*

Well lets take a look at how people lived, before all that cheap
oil changed things. Not too many high rises then. It was basically
at the village level. A quarter acre block, some veggies, some
chooks, some fruit trees, dad worked locally and the kids went
to school locally. The village doctor was around, for local health
too. What we had were a great deal less beaurocrats, sitting in
offices, watching the traffic go by.

Given that the era of cheap oil is nearly over, living in a human
zoo depending on cheap oil for supplies from toilet paper to
functioning lifts, is maybe not the smartest thing to do.

But learn the hard way.

Maybe I am ignorant, but why is urban sprawl such a bad thing?

Of course an expanding world population is the central problem but that subject is for another article at another time.
There is plenty of farmland available – just ask the farmers who are trying to sell their produce. That said, it is the ecological footprint of a city that is important, not the physical area of a city. This is the area needed to supply the energy and materials required by the city and to absorb wastes, which is 150 times greater than the area of a city itself. This ecological footprint depends on the number of people and does not decrease if the city gets denser.
There are many options available to house an increasing population. Very few states in the world rely on just one capital city. Possibilities include:
1.Whole of State Development and repopulation of declining regions
2. A viable decentralisation policy. A mix of incentives and infrastructure provision can be used to deal with the time and distance issues raised by decentralisation. These include high-speed rail, top class telecommunications and tax incentives.
3. The creation of new green Satellite Cities. Each to be as autonomous as practical and linked by high-speed transport and communications.
4. Judicious expansion of capital cities.
The Commonwealth should take some responsibility for its population policies by partially funding the infrastructure required and any necessary tax incentives. All that is needed is some long-term leadership from currently spineless politicians.

Mary/Choice is quite welcome to live in high rise.However,83% of Australians can't be wrong-they prefer to live in traditional single detached housing (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2004).

Miacat is right.High rise developer greed via windfall profits from rezonings, and "donations" to the Labor and Liberal parties in all spheres of government, is what's really driving our planning policies.What Australians really want is being ignored.

Tubbitt asks what can we do to be heard.Lately,I've been Emailing my local member over these issues.Tell them what you think.Most Labor and Liberal MPs can't think for themselves,or at least can't vote how they would like.They are told what to think and vote by the Cabinet,Caucus,or by the faceless men of both major parties.

Put Labor and Liberal candidates at the bottom of the ballot paper, and give someone else a go.The Libs and Labor have stuffed up over the last 20 years with many policies that the majority of Aussies don't support.

Finally,we have to ask do we need massive increases in population?Mary/Choice says Sydney is increasing at 50,000 per year.On the latest 400,000 new Australians per year, that figure is probably closer to 100,000 per year.The NSW Dept of Planning always underestimates population growth for whatever reason.They can't build what Australians want and should be pensioned off for incompetence.Every man and his dog can see how Sydney has degraded over the last 20 years of their medium and high density policies.

The latest massive increases in population growth make a mockery of the Rudd Government's policy to lower our Carbon imprint.Their promise to make housing affordable is a lie.400,000 new Australians a year hugely increases demand and pushes up housing prices.

Finally,good on you Yabby-you're True Blue mate.

Regards all from Tony2

Well said Tony2. It is the only chance we Australians have - get rid of the lib/lab setup that has been corrupted by vested interests' expansive pockets. I cannot really BELIEVE that they are really as stupid as they appear to be. Its all about lowest common denominator politics.

And Tony Recsei... overpopulation is the overriding world problem but it is also the case for Australia and the housing shortage is just one manifestation of it.

“Of course an expanding world population is the central problem but that subject is for another article at another time.”

What about Australia’s population growth Tony Recsei? That is vastly more important to the issue of domestic high-rise and urban sprawl. And it certainly isn’t a subject for another article, it is an integral part of the current discussion.

“There are many options available to house an increasing population.”

Oh dear, it really does seem as though you have completely set aside the issue of our rapid population growth and put your mental energies entirely into addressing one of the symptoms!

That is most unfortunate!

“A viable decentralisation policy”

What is the point of decentralisation if the population is just going to keep growing rapidly?

Firstly, the population growth in areas that some of the growth is being diverted from are just going to continue to expand, with all the associated problems, just at a slightly slower rate.

Secondly, the problem of urban sprawl and high-rise and the conversion from natural ecosystems or productive land to intensively humanised landscapes is just going to be spread around a bit, instead of being confined to our capital cities and a few mostly coastal regional centres.

There would be merit in some decentralisation within a stable population scenario. But not within a rapid population growth scenario.

“The creation of new green Satellite Cities”

Bugger new cities, we’ve got enough!! No matter how green new cities might be, they’ll be an enormous extra burden on our resource base and environment.

“Judicious expansion of capital cities.”

What about the judicious end to expansion of capital cities??

“The Commonwealth should take some responsibility for its population policies by partially funding the infrastructure required and any necessary tax incentives.”

The Commonwealth should take responsibility for our population policy by winding immigration down to net zero and abolishing the baby bonus.

“All that is needed is some long-term leadership from currently spineless politicians.”

Yes Tony. But in quite a different manner to what you envisage.

Sue is right, the big P is the thing (Population). But no politician or mainstream NGO will "touch" or campaign on this issue because:
(a) They are afraid of alienating their religious constituency/supporters - and in the process creating adverse media coverage and bad PR
(b) It opens the door to anti-immigration attitudes, and that opens the door to extreme racist elements (unfortunately)
(c) As long as the population keeps growing it is easier to keep the economy growing, and this also helps to reduce the adverse effects of the aging population
(d) It smacks of eugenics and forced sterilisation

But how I wish we could stop our national population growth - it may slow the economy, but would be so much better in the long term. We would be a happier nation I think - not so much pressure on housing prices, water resources, energy (CO2), infrastructure, space, biosphere, land-fill and freedom, so the list goes on. In fact, if we stopped our population growth, we could probably get rid of half our government departments, especially those in the environmental and planning areas. Think of how much money that would save!! But then again, maybe the bureaucrats like population growth - it keeps them in a job because of the problems that population growth creates.

Some excellent comments here from Ludwig and others. One issue that hasn't been raised here is the damage that high rise living does to children's physical and social development, as detailed in Prof. Bill Randolph's "Children in the Compact City".

http://www.fbe.unsw.edu.au/cf/publications/cfprojectreports/attachments/childreninthecompactcity.pdf

Because of the dangers from high traffic densities in modern cities, children who live in flats usually have nowhere to play outside without constant adult supervision, and there is also usually precious little room inside, where the children have to spend most of their time, especially if their mother is depressed or comes from an ethnic group where women are encouraged to stay at home. Parks tend to be taken over by groups of youths and sometimes by derelicts, making them unattractive for parents and young children. Because husbands who are working night shift and neighbours will complain instantly about noise, babies have dummies or bottles shoved in their mouths at the first whimper. Older children are kept pacified in front of computer games or television. Prof. Randolph has a lot more to say.

If a person kept a dog in a tiny cage, they would be fined for cruelty to animals. Why is the equivalent acceptable for children? If we really can't afford to let people have a single family house with a garden, if they want it, and plenty of open space, perhaps we have too many people.

It amazes me that I was nearly taken in by this paper, that it even disturbed me for 5 minutes! When I realized the fundamental flaw, I laughed out loud.

The fundamental flaw is that it analyses what is, not what could be. For example:

What is a house? Is it a whopping ugly McMansion, sucking down the juice from the electricity grid as it tries to power a 10 horsepower enormous great central air-conditioner? Or is it an Earth-Ship built from old tyres and earth and is totally off the grid and Co2 neutral?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship

What is an apartment? Is it a communist block era monster like the Morehead Street Redfern Housing Commission blocks? Or is it the eco-apartments of Christie Walk, which my sister-in-law helped design to be low Co2 and yet still high density? Is the apartment single use residential, or does it mix and match according to local community needs with some commercial, some residential, some day-care and even educational?
http://www.urbanecology.org.au/christiewalk/

What is density? Is it ugly single use apartments crammed around one railway station, where all residents have to commute every day away from the residential apartments into the CBD? Or is it multi-use, with a large percent of residents finding work within walking distance, freeing up the rail to move goods, not people?

What is a city? Is it a huge bland sea of McMansions from bland suburban horizon to bland suburban horizon, built on the premise of cheap oil and the motor car? Or is it a dense arrangement of exciting trendy diversity of use and functionality?
http://www.ecocitybuilders.org/

Does it freight all food by truck from distant farms, or integrate food production into the New Urbanist local structure? (See movie presentation to NSW University).
http://villageforum.com/

Criticising existing apartment arrangements has its place, but lets be honest and see this paper for what it is: a dishonest attempt to settle the consciences of those who would continue to peddle McMansions and a city plan dependent on the motorcar. The ONLY real question is what happens after peak oil.

Copied to: http://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/online-opinion-gets-new-urbanism-wrong-again/

I can assure Eclipse Now that Tony Recsei's article is about the decline of the traditional single detached house and garden, due to various forces such as developer "donations" to both the Liberal and Labor parties,misguided planning policies by the NSW Dept of Planning high rise zealots,and inaccurate info about the superiority re sustainability of high rise versus low rise.

A perusal of the Save Our Suburbs(NSW) website at www.sos.org.au,see Sustainability,will show that low rise is more sustainable than high rise.McMansions are only a small percentage of single detached housing, and Tony would no doubt agree with you about their power consumption.

But if we're talking about air conditioner usage,high rise would be the top of the usage scale.What with residents falling out of poor window design meaning all high rise windows are now preferred to be sealed,air conditioners are vital for unit living.

Good on your sister-in-law for making a living out of high density apartments.But I repeat-83% of Australians can't be wrong-they prefer traditional single detached housing.

We'll leave the vibrant lifestyle and drinking cappuccino alfresco to the in crowd out at Marrickville.

Regards from Tony2

Higher density living suits some people, and there is no problem with that. My concern is that people who don't want it, families with children and those who just like space, quiet, privacy, and a bit of natural beauty, will be forced into high density anyway because they are priced out of anything else in the city. Such people generally have no real alternative of living elsewhere because the politicians have made sure that there are very few jobs outside of the big metropolitan areas. Unemployed people who try to move to country areas have their benefits cut off.

Eclipse Now, you haven't dealt with the serious issues relating to children that were raised by Bill Randolph. Even if children are not considered, if you mix industrial, commercial, and residential development, you are bound to get noise and traffic problems (due to trucks and buses, even if there are no private cars in your utopia). People lived in small communities long before the era of cheap oil, and there is no reason why people couldn't live that way again, especially since the internet can supply a lot of the cultural advantages that used to require a big city. Yabby's utopia is a lot more attractive than yours. If you are concerned about agricultural land being covered up, this could be addressed by ending population growth, which is entirely due to pro-immigration and pronatalist government policies.

Anyone in favour of urban consolidation should visit the centre of Chatswood, NSW, a prime example of the uglification resulting from this misguided policy. Moreover, Chatswood and similar areas lack private or public open space. Feeble attempts to rectify this deficiency include the demolition of existing homes in order to provide expensive mini-parks.

Like all attempts at social engineering "Urban Consolidation" does more harm than good.

Grandmother of Seven

Tony2 is stuck in a "high rise" V McMansion mindset when there are dozens of alternatives in between! Read around a bit mate! There's ugly neo-communist high-rise blocks OR attractive, plant covered eco-city apartments with rivers down the street for kids to play in. And these are on the extremes of just the high-rises, let alone density via New Urbanist structures with a maximum of 4 storeys. Still more 'density' than suburbia, still walking distance, still car-free and yet totally different to your straw man attack of high-rise hell. Most of these 'density' plans allow a higher quality walking distance community, healthier living, attractive modern facilities yet with a lower consumption of energy and resources.

There are some interesting things on the SOS website, and the Paul Mee's talk is a MUST for anyone that wants to understand why Victoria's planning is such a mess. However, I think Paul would agree with much of my emphasis towards consolidation and "density" even though I'm not necessarily arguing for "high-rises".

As others mentioned, the pressures on our cities not be so bad if we had a sustainable zero growth immigration policy, with net migration out equalling net migration / refugee intake in.

"Bugger new cities, we’ve got enough!!" Well said Ludwig!

However I agree that we don't have much choice between Lib/Labor and am busy working to abolish the State governments and introduce Proportional Representation which should "mix up the parties" a bit. I'm convinced a MAJOR takeover of State powers is progressing in health, and slowly States powers are being eroded. Local powers are virtually non-existent and they are not recognised in the constitution. It’s time to roll all State politicians and services over into one National government, and recognise Local government planning powers in the Constitution so we can return some democratic powers to local citizens! Imagine a united Australian legal system and truly integrated economy, but with guaranteed local powers.

The move on health could be our opportunity to ask larger questions which will ultimately guarantee local rights!

Thanks very much Eclipse Now for your interesting comments to this website.

I must admit,I know very little about eco-city apartments and New Urbanist structures.

In fact,I don't know much about new "density" plans,but you can be sure I know what I don't like.

Regards from Tony2

This article says it all about how modern plans for 'density' EASILY BLITZ the suburban model for energy efficiency, water use, toxic emissions, pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and are also pedestrian friendly and business friendly!

No combination of Electric cars or plug-ins is ready to replace oil at the scale with which we will need it. They'll probably scale up 20 years too late.

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007800.html

Add to that the INEVITABLE, PREVENTABLE, and utterly stupid and SUICIDAL population pressures Australia is letting itself experience, and we'll have the mother of all Greater Depressions and social dislocations and crisis in the next decade or so.

We CAN get through this with clever, clean, green city design that is comfortable and trendy. We CAN'T get through this unscathed economically because we have left it too late to do so, and the likes of Tony Recsei keep campaigning against New Urbanism and eco-cities with misinformation and FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt).

The arguments in this piece are so utterly foolish and outdated because they lack any awareness of the very serious resource constraints facing us. Yet there are also fantastic opportunities that we have to live a better life, IF we can build the political consensus to head in those directions. I'm so angry with the blatant lies in this article I don't know where to begin! Just keep it up Tony Recsei, our kids will love you for it! ;-)

Meanwhile, I remain convinced that a major Constitutional overhaul is required to Unify legislation and policy across Australia and hand development power back to LOCAL government.

*We CAN get through this with clever, clean, green city design that is comfortable and trendy.*

That's fine Eclipse Now, let all the trendy chardonay set who
push their pencils around for a living, crowd into inner cities.
You can all be happy together, on top of each other :)

For those of us who prefer the "village" concept, the problem is
urban planners, who want to stop it. It works just fine and worked
fine long before cheap oil came along. Its also a great way to live.

As to energy, given that there are massive gas reserves in Australia,
not even yet developed, ie coal seam gas in the Eastern States and
the NW shelf in WA, which we are rushing to export as there are
no local markets for the stuff, perhaps we can just defer some of
that gas for our vehicles, then it won't have to be chilled to
-160deg C to be put liquid onto ships for export.

In the past we've seen how town planners screwed up going upwards,
especially if it was developments for the not so rich. I won't
hold my breathe to see if it turns out better next time, unless
its big money for the elite of course

The new urban and smart-growth movements show characteristics of an ideology rather than honest attempts to devise optimal planning solutions. In my article I tried to identify what is actually happening rather than cloud-cuckoo land fantasies. As you can see the evidence shows that higher-density constructions (this includes 4-storeys) are less sustainable than the typical Australian suburban home, they have substantially greater greenhouse gas emissions per person, they use more operational energy and more construction energy.

As one example of Alice in Wonderland “green cities” consider “plant covered eco-city apartments with rivers down the street for kids to play in”: Where can we see such a city? For this to be a practical solution a large part of the city must be like this, not just a token street. If there is to be sufficient open space will the density be sufficient to placate the authorities? How will all the people be able to travel to the many destinations that people travel to? Public transport cannot go from everywhere to everywhere unless you live in Hong Kong where 80% of journeys are by public transport. There are no rivers down the streets there or Venetian gondolas.

With regard to the future, all the studies I have seen show by far the greatest practical potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions lies in better technology while different modes of living or behavioural change would result in a comparatively negligible reduction (eg “Climate change and. land transport: achieving emissions reductions”, Adjunct Professor John Stanley, University of Sydney, paper presented to Institute of Transport and Logistic Studies, May 2007). An example of such technological innovation is the one litre per 100 km car planned to be released next hear by Volkswagen.

Hi Tony, a practical solution to this so called "stop the sprawl" nonsense, would be for honest governments to place a higher financial value on private property which contains "green space" their by directly reflecting the communities so called values, anything less will continue the hypocrasy of the nimbys and their political sicophants. Now this value will have to be of a greater financial incentive than any urban residential value to deliver the desired result.

Tony wrote “what is actually happening rather than cloud-cuckoo land fantasies”.
You’re the one with the burden of proof as to how your precious ‘suburbs’ are going to function in a post-cheap-oil-era. You’re debunking soviet styled apartments, not ALL density.

Only if we build public transport can the *right kind* of density spring up around it. If not, then there’s no hope of preparing for peak oil. Buy a bike, and hope the shops have something in them when you get there!

In the meantime San Francisco, Oaklands and Strawberry Creek California are all starting to implement some eco-city principles.
http://www.ecocitybuilders.org/

I only mentioned the kids playing in creeks for those sceptical that density can EVER be appealing. See these illustrations, which will not be practicable for *all* situations.
http://www.ecocitybuilders.org/downtown.html

Or watch this 15 minute movie to UNSW:
http://villageforum.com/

*Half* the Co2 emissions a car ever produces are produced BEFORE it is even purchased. It’s the construction of the car and the maintenance of car infrastructure, superhighways, and car-parks that produce so much Co2.
See point IV.
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007800.html

Did you include all these in your Co2 figures for car transport?

Yabby I agree we need to save our gas, but only to have some transport energy for constructing the post-oil electric transport systems we’ll need. The vast majority of renewables such as wind and solar produce electricity, which is great... as long as we have an electric transport system. Currently 97% of our goods are freighted by truck!
Note: trolley buses are 5 times cheaper than trams.

Trolley-trucks can act as council trucks that run along the main street on the trolley-line and then side streets on (limited) biodiesel / CNG / hydrogen / super-batteries / whatever you have.

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/07/trolleytrucks-trolleybuses-cargotrams.html

There seems to be some problem in the use of the terms low,medium,and high density developments

Di Beamer,former Assistant Planning Minister,attempted to settle this question once and for all ,and at the same time rewrite the English language,when she addressed the 2004 NSW Annual Local Government Association meeting.

Ms Beamer annnounced,no doubt under the influence of the Dept of Planning,that she had no problem in now considering villas,town houses,dual occupancies and 2 storey apartments as low density.She had no problem in now considering high density as medium density,though the actual sizes were not specified.

Single detached housing is,BY DEFINITION,low density

Villas,town houses,dual occupancies and 2 storey apartments are,BY DEFINITION,medium density.

Anything else is,BY DEFINITION,high density

The NSW Dept of Planning,in their maniacal-like zeal to densify Sydney suburbs,was prepared to rewrite the English language to achieve their ends.We Proles were to be fooled into thinking nothing was changing re higher density development.

Anyone who has read the novel 1984,by George Orwell,would know what these new definitions from the Minister are called-NEWSPEAK.The brave new world of the Dept of Planning was turning NSW into an Orwellian like state,Oceania in the novel-how appropriate for NSW-run by Big Brother and the Inner and Outer Party,aka the NSW Labor Government and the bureaucrats.We Proles were to be told what's best for us-Big Brother always knows best.

Similarly,on this site we have town planners telling us what's best for we Australians-they always know best.

Eclipse now suffers from the same delusions that most greenies do:

- I am right therefore sod the 84% who want something different,
- I am right and there is only one way to achieve the desired results and that is my way.

With correct insulation, the single houses can get nearly the low power consumption of higher density dwellings, people can use smaller cars, and the gov can sponsor de centralisation of businesses and industry.

But that would require inovation that most greenies lack. They have solutions proposed from decades ago that they follow with religious fanatacism, and asking them to change is like asking creationists to re write the bible.

Creationists should not rewrite the bible but should learn how to read it in the first place! (The early chapters of Genesis are largely symbolic writing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution

It's not that I completely hate the suburbs or am following dogma, it's that your suggestions are too little too late. If you think I'm ordering you around, what do the V8 driving boat-trailer dragging "BIG MEN" with their big car philosophy think about your little buzz-box suggestion above?

What do people think about having their homes REALLY insulated? To be truly insulated and passive solar we should probably be building with all our windows facing north, have thicker thermal mass absorbing walls, and totally reconsider the "look" of our houses. But what do you think the latte sippers will make of that?

The reality is YOUR solutions are probably just as obnoxious to many people as mine. Everyone is so self-indulgent in the current energy paradigm.

The REALITY is that we're running out of oil, FAST, and the systems we depend on are threatened. You can fart around suggesting little cars (which I'm quite sympathetic to, especially the Better Place 100% Electric cars coming in 2012 to Australia), but you haven't solved airlines, international tourism, freight around Australia, the sheer SCALE of replacing the entire suburban car fleet quickly enough, and population growth which got us into this problem in the first place.

Let alone that if we DID manage to save the suburbs with little electric buzz-boxes, and DIDN'T solve population growth, we'd soon pave over and plough up every last bit of green space left in Australia and then we'd only have the 70% of desert, 40% of which is SAND DUNES left in which to expand.

If that's where you want to live, go for it!

Eclipse, quite frankly methinks that you are getting your tits in
a tangle over nothing.

I say that for the following reasons:

Peak oil does not mean no oil, it just means that oil will become
far more expensive over time. That also means that it will be used
a bit more wisely then before.

Yes, when oil hits 300$ a barrel, kids might not travel 300km
in their v8s, just to bring home some kentucky fried chicken,
as is happening now. You will be amazed at the savings possible,
once the price screws are clear. That is simply not the case
right now.

I think that you also underestimate Australia's reserves of gas,
coal, etc. They are still frankly huge and I note that when South
Africa needed oil, they soon started converting coal to oil.

Yes, we should plan our houses according to the weather. The
main windows on this place all face north, I built that 25 years ago.
But even now, something like 70% of Australian houses don't even
have solar hot water systems! It seems that only energy prices will
make people wake up and change their habits.

Given that people did ok in a village concept before the advent
of cheap oil, no doubt with modern technology, internet and solar,
wind etc, they will thrive. Most people, with a bit of dirt and
some permaculture, could just about grow most of their own food.

But they won't do it, crowded in to a human zoo of people on top
of people. Well... rather you then me lol.

Choice favors the productive

Yabby you done the math on how much South Africa converted from coal into oil each day and yet how much oil we USE each day? Theirs was the world's largets coal-to-liquids plant in history.

From memory, I can't be bothered looking it up, at their PEAK it was about 110 thousand barrels a day. That's AMAZING! But Australia uses over a MILLION barrels of oil a day. Also, the "Hirsch report" (google it) concluded the world would take 20 years to wean off oil into ALL the alternative liquid fuels, including gas-to-liquids, biofuels, etc.

Ooops.

You got any idea what letting the market solve peak oil means? The market "solving" peak oil is the PROBLEM! As you pointed out, it means less travel, it means less tourism, it means job cuts in tourism (a major employer), it means rationing, it means airlines bankrupting (except maybe for the uber-rich and government), it means queuing 3 days to fill up, it means farmers in trouble... and while it might not mean "Mad Max" I'm pretty sure it's going to be a "Greater Depression".

But in your view it's no problem, we're all just going to grow our own food in some kind of permaculture paradise?

And you thought attractive modern New Urbanism gradually replacing suburbia was a fantasy? Wow! At least I was offering an easy to achieve trolley bus system that would encourage vital city cores (that many young people are moving into anyway!)

Unlike me, you don't want to offer people an attractive town-house, you just want them all to become serfs working the land! Now who's the dictator?

And while we are at it, do you want to tell us all how much land it actually takes to feed an adult male their daily calories on a decent diet, and not give people false hope that they can grow all their own food on the tiny little skid marks that pass for gardens these days around the great, glorious cathedral to consumerism, the McMansion.

Dream on hippie!

Ah Eclipse, your mistake of course is to seek one magic bullet, when
the future is all about diversity. Diverse energy sources, diverse
food supplies etc, are what it is all about.

I should have thought of you today, for I did a quick trip to the
big smoke and dropped in to a shopping centre. Given the size of
the arses that I saw, a bit of growing vegetables and eating a bit
less crappy foods, should work wonders for the health budget!

Yup, permaculture is an amazing system and its quite surprising how much
people can grow with it on very little land, even in their backyards.
They even have fun and don't need to pay to visit the gym!

*But Australia uses over a MILLION barrels of oil a day*

A million barrels a day huh? Save 30% that is wasted now, 30%
from gas, 30% from oil, and you have't even mentioned electric cars
driven on electric energy from coal, or the sun, or wind, or whatever
floats your boat. Throw in a bit of uranium if you pleae.

Diversity in the key.

*As you pointed out, it means less travel, it means less tourism, it means job cuts in tourism (a major employer),*

Sheesh, how shocking. No shopping trips to Paris for the chardonay
set for instance. My heart bleeds for them, it really does :)

Life will be tough! They might even get a bit of dirt under those
fingernails, the poor dears...

It is remarkable how fanatics clutch at one straw after another each time one of their specious arguments gets demolished. For more than 10 years I have been asking academics (and anyone else) advocating high-density “where in the whole world can one find a high-density city that does not exhibit the ills you claim high-density will alleviate?” Of course I mean a whole city, not just a tokenist street or some small precinct from which cars are shifted to the edge. I never get an answer – obviously there is no such city. It is all a pipedream.

Oh, I get it Tony. ;-) Just side-step all the previous points about peak oil, call us fanatics, and use a complete straw-man argument demanding to see *100% Density!?* I don't think even I was arguing for that, just less sprawl and *more* density.

You have not addressed peak oil. We can *already* see that the average European uses half the oil of the average American, leaving all that "wonderful" American sprawl utterly exposed to the risks of an oil crisis. Give it 5 to 10 years, and New Urbanists will be laughing so hard at all your trumped up faulty arguments for Sprawl, which is actually the "Greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world".
http://endofsuburbia.com/preview1.htm

Fanatics? Not really. It's a growing reality. Professor Peter Newman on the Science Show details how young people are moving into denser redeveloped vital city cores here in Australia.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2009/2571785.htm

Examples?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examples_of_New_Urbanism
has Australian examples, listed State by State, and then around the world, including:
1000 homes, eventually 30 thousand residents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stapleton_International_Airport

Featured in “The Truman Show”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaside,_Florida

Poundbury in the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Future growth!
“More than six hundred new towns, villages, and neighborhoods in the U.S. following new urbanism principles are planned or under construction. Hundreds of new, small-scale, urban and suburban infill projects are under way to reestablish walkable streets and blocks. In Maryland and several other states, new urbanist principles are an integral part of "smart growth" legislation.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_urbanism#Examples

“On 14-16 September 2008, 220 scientists, government officials, educators, professionals and citizens from 25 countries were invited by the Council for European Urbanism to meet in Oslo — 

— WE OBSERVE that on a comparison basis, efficient, compact, livable and beautiful settlements have significantly and often dramatically lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions, and other major benefits.”
http://www.ceunet.org/oslodeclaration.html

I'm for denser, but not TOO dense!

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007800.html

“there is a direct relationship between the kinds of places we live, the transportation choices we have, and how much we drive. The best car-related innovation we have is not to improve the car, but eliminate the need to drive it everywhere we go.

To give you a sense of how gentle a goal that is: the turn-of-the-century Garden City suburbs, with their generous lawns, winding streets and tree-lined boulevards averaged 12 units an acre. New Urbanist suburbs, not particularly dense, weigh in at 15-30 units per acre. Traditional town house blocks have as many as 36 homes per acre. Parts of Manhattan, I've read, can reach 160 units per acre, but even without crowding together high-rises, many extremely livable parts of Vancouver have 40 homes per acre.

And we're getting better and better at designing density that works. We're finally rediscovering the art of placemaking, learning to build dense communities with plenty of open space, welcoming public places, thriving neighborhood retail and a tangible sense of place. Some of this is technical: understanding that surrounding neighborhood cores that have lots of people, many homes, shops and offices, with less dense but walkable residential areas can make for places that actually feel far more livable and relaxed than most conventional new suburbs (of course, compact communities are also safer). Good compact communities offer an outstanding quality of life (on that, more below).

In other words, we know that density reduces driving. We know that we're capable of building really dense new neighborhoods and even of using good design, infill development and infrastructure investments to transform existing medium-low density neighborhoods into walkable compact communities. Creating communities dense enough to save those 85 million metric tons of tailpipe emissions is (politics aside) easy. It is within our power to go much farther: to build whole metropolitan regions where the vast majority of residents live in communities that eliminate the need for daily driving, and make it possible for many people to live without private cars altogether.”

*Give it 5 to 10 years, and New Urbanists will be laughing so hard at all your trumped up faulty arguments for Sprawl*

Not so Eclipse, because of course supplies to keep you new Urbanists
going, have to come from somewhere.

Now your ideas are fine for inner city development and computer
yuppies who live office lives, but that croissant does not just
magically appear in your cafe, the flour has to be ground somewhere
etc, so you have secondary industry. That needs space. For those
industries to be possible, it also needs people living near those
facilities, to make, build, repair things. That is where the village
concept, including sprawl, is ideal.

There are good reasons why US fuel consumption is so much higher
then European consumption that are not about sprawl, but just about
waste, as fuel as been so much cheaper there for so long. Do not
forget, in the late 90s oil was still down to 10$ a barrel.

Europeans always paid a great deal for fuel, so in Italy when I was
there, you'd see Fiat 500ccs everywhere, in the US it was Yank tanks.
In Europe there were lots of thick walled brick/stone houses,
with double glazed windows, in the US more wooden boxes, badly
insulated, single glaze with draft blowing under the doors. Cheap
oil would keep them heated.

Change the price of oil and you will see a dramatic change of all
these things in the US. No need to drive down to the drive through
coffee place for a cup of coffee, its not that hard to brew your
own, etc.

A village concept does not need the cars we use, which are large
enough to drive from Sydney to Perth. A golf cart type would do,
with a couple of batteries, perhaps even solar charged. Govt
regulation is what presently prevents them.

I'm surprised Eclipse Now doesn't cite Sydney as a successful example of this Smart Growth Law,an infallable Law as its adherents would have us believe.After all,the Smart Growth zealots of the NSW Dept of Planning have had 20 years to prove this Planning "Law".

From my Science(Chemistry) days at Sydney Uni,I seem to remember a failed Law is just a Theory.

As every man and his dog can see,this Smart Growth "Theory" doesn't seem to be working in Sydney

I would say 20 years is long enough to prove this Planning "Theory",so it looks like it becomes just another Planning Postulate or Hypothesis,and a failed Hypothesis at that.

As such, Smart Growth should be marked "Unsuitable for Sydney Conditions", and consigned to the Planning waste bin.

Regards from Tony2

Regarding the impending oil scarcity there is a surprisingly small difference in fuel energy usage per passenger km between public and private transport modes, reinforced by the fact that transport energy constitutes only 10% of peoples’ emissions. Total lifetime energy (the energy used for construction and operation of vehicles) varies little between public transport and private transport. In 1999 this energy per passenger km was found to be 2.8 mega joules per passenger km for public buses, for light rail 2.1, for heavy rail 2.8 and for cars 4.4 ("Total requirements of energy and greenhouse gases for Australian transport", Manfred Lenzen, Transportation Research Part D (1999), 265-290, Pergamon). All indications are that under pressure from this growing scarcity and the possibility of global warming private transport will become much more energy efficient than public transport. As mentioned, Volkswagen are to market a car next year with a fuel consumption of only one litre per 100km (less than 1/10 of what is was in 1999) and which of course will be able to go the shortest distance to where one wishes to go resulting in further savings.

As previously mentioned no one can name a high-density city that has any significant reduction in car use and does not suffer from congestion problems, long average travel times, pollution and high greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, quoting instances of newly developed medium-density in limited areas does not justify forcing high-density onto people in established suburbs. In the past many crazy impositions have been made onto people, often with tragic results. What we need are facts to prove this is to the greater public good and these facts are sadly lacking. It is preferable to quote primary factual numerical sources of information rather than rely on what may be ideologically driven opinions. Unfortunately very few of these articles are directly available on the Internet.

Eclipse Now refers to Professor Peter Newman who responded to an article that I had written in the journal "People and Place" in 2005. I replied to his response but there has been no further reaction from him.

TonyR,

“Regarding the impending oil scarcity there is a surprisingly small difference in fuel energy usage”
Which is it, fuel or energy? Cars currently require *liquid fuels*, which is a problem. It takes 16 years to change the fleet over. Trolley buses run on *electricity*, which can be amply supplied by green sources.

You also seem to select the "studies" that suit your purposes. MJ per passenger-km is 3.7 for cars, but .015 for electric trams, according to the “Australian Greenhouse Office, AGO Factors and Methods Workbook 2006.”
http://www.ptua.org.au/myths/greenhouse.shtml

Some denser plans focus on neither cars or rail, but walking. http://villageforum.com/ Coming soon to southern NSW.

I agree that transport is only a part of our emissions, but *medium* density and DIVERSITY can have all sorts of spin-off effects. Less need for cars means less cars manufactured, and saves on energy and materials. Closer communities enables walking and cycling.

As for endlessly repeating the myth that there is no dense city where people drive less? Hello? Manhattan? (And I’m not recommending a Manhattan style density, but the New Urbanism in my last post, or Village Towns at the link above).

“New Yorkers, like many city dwellers, tend to have a lighter per-capita carbon footprint than other Americans — in large part because they drive less and walk more.”
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/taking-the-woe-out-of-walking-in-new-york-city/

“New Yorkers' Carbon Footprint Reportedly Among Smallest in U.S.”
http://www.nysun.com/new-york/new-yorkers-carbon-footprint-reportedly-among/78949/

“City Dwellers Live Longer, Save More by Driving Less”
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007191.html

Portland is another example. They save $2.6 billion annually compared to other cities, live closer to work & home in compact communities, and save time and money.
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007191.html

You failed to address the point Peter Newman made on the Science Show about young people flocking into vital city cores, or the 220 EU scientists finding FOR *denser* and diverse city plans.

In my opinion all these arguments about infill verses urban spread are moot. The fact is that as long as population growth in Australia is not seriously curbed (and a significant start could be made almost immediately by drastically reducing immigration as well as replacing baby bonus type incentives with disincentives)there will be unrelenting pressures to both spread outwards and inwards. The other possibility is decentralization which of course may relieve some of the pressure in the shorter term.

Both land and conventional energy sources are becoming ever scarcer leading to ever increasing prices of both resources. Restrict spread and you have less land and housing affordability. Allow spread and you have decreased transport affordability, increased commuting times, decreased natural habitat and often decreased arable farmland.

Whatever "plan" evolves it is obvious that the authorities will need to pay more than lip service to addressing social and environmental concerns. I hold out very little hope though that we will get any more than the vested interest driven, but discredited "business as usual" solutions both major parties keep dishing up.

If we can't avoid giving birth to more Beijings, Mexico Cities or Sao Paolo's we should do our utmost to postpone them for as long as possible

Your right Kulu.At least we can all agree that a sustainable population is the way to go.

Unfortunately both major parties seem determined to break all records on immigration.After the latest revelations in Queensland re politicians standards and the revelations in NSW over the last few years ,time to give the Libs and Labor the flick.They have a gentlemens club mentality,giving each other jobs for the boys when the other is not in government.Even the latest attempt to bring in 16 as the voting age is an attempt to entrench Labor in power.Both Libs and Labor are still taking high rise developer donations ,the real driver behind this high rise frenzy.

This "Buy an Australian Passport' student visa scam was started by Howard and continued by Rudd.350,000 overseas students means 350,000 less jobs for our youth, as the visa holders have to work 1500 hours as part of their agreement.They're studying phoney courses like hospitality that our own youth could easily be taught at TAFE.

Then when they get their Passport that they have paid thousands for-we don't know what percentage get it-they get permanent jobs and take away more jobs from Australians.The next years batch comes in to study,but next year it will be 400,000, as the scheme is rapidly increasing,so 400,000 jobs are taken from our youth.

Mr Rudd's 50,000 job initiative for young workers, compared to these figures, is a farce.

Vote for the best other candidate is what I have done at the last few elections.My only other problem is who to put last and second last out of Liberal and Labor.

Regards from Tony2

Eclipse now,

There is a hell of a lot of ground between what we have now and the 100% insulated boxes and buzz cars you think we would need.

An increase in energy costs, and subsidies for smaller cars (such as lower tolls into the city) would reduce the use of gas guzzlers to recreational use as opposed to daily use.

In engineering there is the Pareto principle which suggests that 80% of the benefit can be achieved with 20% of the effort.

Your all or nothing approach will simply cause resentment and a back lash.

Hmmm, let's see. Methinks you're trying to straw-man my argument (especially with the "insulated boxes" remark!)

Energy costs? How does $300 a barrel oil sound in about 5 years? Or maybe *oil shortages*? Remember, 97% of freight in this country is done by truck. Peak oil is an established, peer reviewed scientific reality and we're about 5 to 10 years away from PERMANENTLY decreasing production!

Talk about hitting a "Limit To Growth!" And you're worried about resentment?

How does young people moving into vital city cores (New Urbanism, not high-rise boxes that you were referring to) square with your view of "resentment"? What about the longed-for arrival of more and more New Urbanist regions across the USA, with 600 more New Urbanist townships in the pipeline?

Claude Lewenz spoke at Sydney's TEDx this year on his "Village Town" concept for south of Sydney. 500 people / village, 20 villages / "Village-Town", and 80% local economy meeting local needs and all agriculture coming from the beautiful farms surrounding the village. See 15 minute video here.
http://villageforum.com/

Afterwards a young mother thanked him in heartfelt tears of gratitude for such a beautiful town plan and car-free lifestyle concept! This is *not* about appealing to the hippies, but something anthropologically deep within us that relates to smaller groups of human beings, and having an intimate sense of "place" that we still enjoy when we visit places in old Europe or places like Venice.

How does the marketplace *growth* of New Urbanism in a die-hard car-culture like America relate to your "resentment", and how does the intense emotional connection established by such places bear on your *theory*?

Ultimately, we will have 9 billion people by 2050 wanting the "good life", and you want to give it to them gift-wrapped in the most land and energy greedy town plan ever invented? Good luck!

Eclipse Now, When will you be making an application to build this village?

*Remember, 97% of freight in this country is done by truck.*

Yes Eclipse it is, but again there is at present huge wastage, due
to relatively cheap fuel. Trucking can also be extremely efficient.
Take a road train. For a 200km trip, it sucks around 150l of diesel,
but given that it can move 50 tonnes of freight, per kg that is
negligable. Freight logistics is the secret here.

Now lets say that you eat a tonne of food a year. That's just
3 litres of diesel to move your yearly food supply 200km.

In fact the Kiwis showed that it used less energy to grow a leg of
lamb in NZ and ship it to the UK, then it did to grow it in the UK,
due to extensive versus intensive farming systems.

New urbanism is great for those people happy to live that way.
I've lived that way in Europe and would never go back to it lol.
But I admit, it does suit some city people. Great, so give
people that choice, don't try to enforce it.

*and all agriculture coming from the beautiful farms surrounding the village*

Its not going to happen, you are dreaming. For things like wheat,
barley, rice etc all have specific requirements and cannot just
be grown anywhere

Eclipse now,

You claim I am using the straw man approach. I would describe your approach as a combination of the "chicken little" (the sky is falling) and the "field of dreams" (build it and they will come) approaches.

As we have seen with the financial crisis, oil demand can shrink rapidly. Even when peak oil arrives, the price will force a reduction in consumption most of which will be through efficiency increases.

I am glad one woman is happy with the design, but the polls indicate that 84% of Aus is not. People come to the cities for a reason, and the country side is struggling to get people. Similarily people are prepared to pay a premium for houses instead of apartments.

As we have seen with the financial crisis, oil demand can shrink and RISE rapidly.

Even when peak oil arrives, bloody-minded murdochesque & macquarieesque competition, NOT the price, will force a massive increase in consumption by the rich elite. Most of this increase will be consumed by wars, and cleaning up the ensuing dead bodies before they spread pandemics that will kill the entire human race.

The proof lies in the current "too good to be true" stock market rebound, which is nothing more than a forced return to greed and bubble bursting economics. The 'final' burst tending over time to WAR.

Remember the saying: "If it seems "too good to be true" then it probably ISN'T true"

The 'footprint' information that Eclipse Now refers to is for direct energy use only; however, direct energy use is dwarfed by indirect energy use, and the dwellers of multi-unit housing have very high indirect energy use, by virtue of the nature of their lifestyles. See: http://www.propertyoz.com.au/library/RDC_ACF_Greenhouse-Report.pdf
People living in flats are no water misers either; see: http://www.fbe.unsw.edu.au/cityfutures/publications/researchpapers/researchpaper5.pdf
Also, people who move into new multi-unit housing tend not to use public transport to the degree that planners expect; see: http://dtl.unimelb.edu.au/R/UA33AMXTYMQ4QDJ9J7TQ1U5IM44XJFJ7EK5ESHERLAXNKR2D2B-01101?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=66410&local_base=GEN01&pds_handle=GUEST
There is no shortage of available and suitable land on the fringes of most Australian cities to accommodate further suburban development, without alienating good quality farmland or areas of high conservation value. The costs of extending services into new areas is quite reasonable compared with the cost of upgrading and expanding infrastructure in established areas. In any case, as the Industry Commission demonstrated in its report in the mid-90s, the issue is not so much what urban form costs less; it's what does the market want and is it prepared to pay for it. In other words, the arguments typically used by planners to justify urban consolidation (that is, replacing lower density housing with infill and redevelopment) are specious. More power to Tony and his group!

TonyR, yooohooo, where are you? Answer Manhattan and Peter Newman on young people in Australia please?

Yabby, it seems you and I may have a more synchronised outlook than I initially thought. You appreciate New Urbanism for the city folk, and I appreciate the need for village escapes in the bush.

Would you agree that we need less suburbia, and more farmsteads *as well as* more New Urbanism?

Interesting stats on the NZ leg of lamb! What the HECK is wrong with UK lamb? Raised on petro-chemical feedstocks instead of grass would be my guess? Our local butcher had a community night where he demonstrated butchery and discussed why he prefers grass-fed beef that’s *aged* over grain-fed *fattened* meat that is faster to end-use in restaurants where it cooks easily (with all the fat disguising the fact that it had less aging. And is not as good for us!)

Shadow Minister, but the sky IS falling! Suburbia is now stuffing the sky with Co2.
Peak oil is so fast it takes 20 years warning to move off liquid fuels safely!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_report

EV’s will take 16 years. With New Urbanism, we won’t need a quarter as many cars in 20 years and have compounding benefits!

"One woman" caused the demand in the USA for those 600 extra New Urbanist projects, and had the following built in Australia?

New South Wales
Breakfast Point

Queensland,
*Sippy Downs Town Centre Sunshine Coast,
Kelvin Grove Urban Village, Brisbane
Varsity Lakes Town Centre, Gold Coast

South Australia
Mawsons Lakes, North Adelaide
Cape Cabarita, Cabarita

Victoria
Beacon Cove, Port Melbourne
Kensington Banks/Lynch’s Bridge, Kensington
Rippleside, North Geelong
Waterford Green, Footscray

Western Australia
Ascot Waters, Belmont
Claisebrook Village, East Perth
Cockburn Central, Cockburn
Ellenbrook, Ellenbrook
Marlston Hill, Bunbury
Subi Centro, Subiaco
Wellard Village, Wellard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examples_of_New_Urbanism

*OC, I think we both know those papers analyze the way people live in *today’s* apartments in *today’s* lifestyle, not in a post-peak oil world and “Cradle to Cradle” Industrial economy with correctly designed eco-apartments.

Eclipse, no I am not against New-Urbanism, for I know it suits some
people to live that way. I just don't think that town planners
should make it compulsory and I dispute the fact that village kind
of suburbia cannot be energy efficient. I think the market will sort
it out as energy prices change, real estate values change and
developers take notice of what different people actually want in
different places and according to their lifestyles.

The danger is that when it comes to cheaper social welfare housing,
that our Govts do what has been done around the world for cheaper
social welfare housing, ie large apartment blocks which are little
more then human zoos, with their associated problems.

As to lamb, NZ lamb like Aussie lamb, is produced by them eating
grass, clover etc. In Europe you have snow for months, indoor
supervised lambing etc. They eat huge volumes of grain and fodder,

all burning oil to produce. As with road trains, when you move large
volumes of freight with 50'000 tonne ships, the actual fuel used
per kg is negligable, compared to what that animal and its mother
ate, month after month.

My prediction is that as fuel prices increase, freight logistics
well done, will become a huge business. The town nearest to where
I live, would have 6 or 8 couriers a day drive through, all
small trucks, usually half loaded, going home empty. Then we have
road trains carting grain to the ports, coming home empty. It
makes no sense at all, but the potential for savings is enormous,
once higher fuel prices enforce them.

Eclipse Now, 'correctly designed' or not, multi-unit housing is inherently more expensive to develop and build on a per square metre basis, and hence, only relatively wealthy (and therefore generally highly consumptive) households can afford to buy/rent it; these are fundamental facts of property development. If anything, it will be even more expensive on the other side of your millenarianist paradigm shift. (BTW, many of the projects you have cited, while worthy, are decidely NOT new urbanist. Don't get too caught up in the marketing hype of a US architects' booster movement largely out of place here.)

Australia has a conservative estimate of 100,000 contaminated sites in cities and regional areas across the nation and the cost of cleaning up these sites is estimated to exceed $8 billion. Who's paying?

Four recent examples in Sydney:

1. The former Defence Naval Stores site (19.62 ha) on the northern shores of Parramatta River at Ermington. In November 2006, consent was granted for residential redevelopment of the site by stages. Site remediation is required to remediate various types of heavy metal and hydrocarbon contaminants (NSW DoP, 2008a).

2. The former Carlton & United Brewery site (5.8-hectare) on the western edge of the Sydney CBD. The redevelopment concept plan was approved in February 2007 to provide office space, apartments and a 5,400 square metre community park. Certain parts of the site were affected by petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). (NSW DoP, 2008b).

3. Residential development at Precinct C (6,795m2), Rhodes Peninsula. The site comprised reclaimed land formed by filling materials supplied by the former chemical manufacturer Union Carbide (Orica.) The backfill materials are so toxic that remediation must be completed before any construction certificate is released. The redevelopment project was approved in April 2008 (NSW DoP, 2008c).

4: Orica needs to work non-stop for 30 years to clean up the toxic groundwater at Botany Bay (Peatling, 2004), HOWEVER:

http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:JN6Ia75qQLAJ:www.smh.com.au/news/environment/botany-cleanup-may-take-a-century/2008/11/26/1227491636580.html+sydney+municipal+hazardous+waste+contamination+2008&cd=34&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au

5. The SA government announced that taxpayers had paid and initial $52 million to acquire a site at Bowden (contaminated by more than a century of industrial use) where it plans to build 1500 medium and high-density apartments, shops and commercial developments.

According to Professor Ravi Naidu Managing Director of CRC CARE each individual generates 776 kilograms of waste per person per year and this waste also contains about 20 kilograms of hazardous waste.

I have a good deal of information on how the multi-million dollar landfill operators, resource recovery and hazardous waste industries are “managing” the disposal and “recycling” of Australia’s burgeoning municipal and industrial waste and it’s not for the faint-hearted but avaricious governments and growth merchants rejoice and are happy in their work.

As soon as one specious argument is demolished another is raised.

With regard to electric trams: They are too slow (in my experience in city centres they only travel at twice walking pace) and are very limited in the destinations they serve.

Green sources currently can only supply a trickle of power. It is nonsense to say they can "easily supply" our power needs.

I do not know of any large modern city where walking is the main mode of transport. People travel to a huge variety of destinations that a great city provides - that is the reason for its existence. This structure generates the large variegated pool of jobs and labour that prevent us from living in the abject poverty characteristic of bygone ages. Only a tiny fraction of these destinations can be within walking distance.

A previous Planning Director-General advocated Manhattan style living. This did not go down well. Traffic congestion there is severe.

Portland, in spite of spending billions on public transport, has traffic congestion among the worst in the USA. Average peak period travel time approaches 45 minutes. Hardly an exemplary example.

Some young people do like living in city cores. However residence in city cores is usually of short duration. As has been mentioned, living in a unit has been found to be most unsuitable for children and people with children usually prefer single-residential accommodation if they can get it. In general the lower the density, the more do people prefer to live in that area (UMR Omnibus Results, UMR Research, Wellington, March 2009).

A characteristic of an ideological approach seems to be “Please don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up.” The onus is on the high-density proponents to prove their impositions onto unwilling communities are for the greater public good. They need to point to a high-density city with all the virtues they claim. Microcosms as examples prove nothing. Neither does nit picking.

"Green sources currently can only supply a trickle of power. It is nonsense to say they can "easily supply" our power needs."
Oh well, we're stuffed then. Bring Mad Max on, either due to running out of oil (IEA has finally admitted we're close to GLOBAL peak oil)
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/peak-oil-ten-years-away-expert/story-e6freuyi-1225757520051

or because global warming will kick us in the teeth when 1.5 to 2 billion Indians & Chinese run out of drinking water. Bring it on!

"I do not know of any large modern city where walking is the main mode of transport. People travel to a huge variety of destinations that a great city provides - that is the reason for its existence. This structure generates the large variegated pool of jobs and labour that prevent us from living in the abject poverty characteristic of bygone ages. Only a tiny fraction of these destinations can be within walking distance."
Well, true, but there are other transport technologies like rail, with Velib's bike share deal (active in Paris and Lyons and other European destinations) running bike stations either side of the rail journey.

But the main issue for your attention TonyR is it is now *official*: 10 years to world peak oil, and that's according to the IEA not some greenie activist nutter! the retired geologists amongst us will tell you that the IEA is probably about 5 to 10 years out of date and that world oil production actually peaked last September, but I wouldn't know about that. All I know is that we're going to have less oil SOONER rather than later, and we don't have any alternatives that can scale up *in time*, so bring on "Better Place's" electric cars, we'll need *some* of those (16 years to change the fleet), and bring on New Urbanism. Or just buy a pushbike. I don't really care about debating with you TonyR, you're an ideologue, but the PHYSICS of peak oil will work its wonders with our city plans as we struggle to adapt, and that's going to be very interesting to watch.

Eclipse Now, On closer inspection, these village examples you set, seem to be semi-gated, truncated and exclusive style enclaves and the type with very little room for a child's individual persuits outside the dwelling. Do you live in one of these urban villages and what is the actual living advantages apart from the shared recreational space when bringing up your children.

Did you watch the talk?

The advantage is everyone knows everyone.

There are no cars on the streets to kill kids.

The "truncated alleyways" are just off the main Plaza so the Plaza is meant to be all about attractive shops and businesses and the creative guild* and some space, a fountain and communal play area etc.

The "popsicle index" is higher than suburbia. That's a main advantage! ("Popsicle Index" asks if it is safe enough to let your 6 year old walk down to the local shops on their own to buy a Popsicle or ice-block).

The school classrooms are part of the village, and can be used at night for other functions. There's no "School" separate from the rest of the village, it is just a part of it. A recent economist podcast just stated that smaller schools can possibly help improve school culture and accountability.
http://tinyurl.com/matqmx

* The Creative Guild can be everything from a potter, arts and crafts store & industry, through to graphic design or musical enterprise of some sort. It's in the "parallel" real estate contract. 1 Creative guild must be in each Village.

Gated cities are nothing more than human zoos run by corrupted political systems and their big business masters.

Human beings are descended from wild animals. The notion that you can subvert the worst outcomes of OVERPOPULATION by posicle technologies is laughable in the context of human willpower and Campbeltown cunning..

Population dynamics dictates the carrying capacity of nations down to the level of suburbs. The second law of thermodynamics predicts chaos at certain population densities due to fundamental resource shortages and accessible free range space is an overlooked but critical resource.

When Population dynamic breakpoints occur (as in New York & many parts of Africa) kids will carry guns and not popsicles to the local store. Scientific analysis of the gated city situation GUARANTEES this.

The other guarantee here is that with subtle resource shortages resulting in escalating violence in gated communities, businesses will prosper even if they have to sell the drugs and guns that population chaos requires. And politicians will become More and More powerful as hitlerian lobbyists cunningly take hold.

The advent of gated community mentality is a problem:

Solution:

Whilst it is a woman's right to have all the children she wants and to propagate the lie that "it takes two to have a child when in fact it takes two to make a child and only ONE to HAVE it", the concept of gated communities from hell will move rapidly forward.

It is clearly up to the conscience of women to understand that while it is their right to have as many children & thus power as they want, it will ultimately be their obligation to send those children to war on behalf of some fanatic polititian and his/her big economic growthist business partners. For War is where the ideologue of "endless economic (nee population) growth" is headed.

Eclipse now,

Your Kibbutz idea is all good and well, but completely ignores the reasons cities formed in the first place.

People specialised, and needed access to larger markets.

Your idea is a lovely thought, but completely impractical for 90% of the population.

If China continues to grow at about 8% p.a. and its consumption patterns mirror those of the US or Australia today they will require 99 million barrels of oil p.a. to power their transport by 2031. The whole world today produces only 84 million barrels of oil p.a. Do our planners know this? Do they care?

One thing for sure is it will not be business as usual and whatever means our cities evolve in their attempts to house the populace will have to rely much much less on private vehicle transport and inefficient road freight. Until the penny drops (if it ever does) our governments will continue their myopic focus on road infrastructure as its answer to stimulating the economy, providing employment (they may as well encourage the workforce to a cycle of digging holes and filling them in)and using up its boom time windfalls.

Shadow Minister, what is it you think I'm proposing? All I have done is made the point that we need to live with less oil, design cities that are "More European than European", and there are a variety of interesting models to consider for this.

The "Village Town" idea maintains a critical mass of diverse industries with a population of 10,000. He has worked out the population density required to support certain industries... how many people it takes to support a local watch repairer, etc. So while maintaining a 'sense of place', 10 thousand people hardly represents a "Kibbutz" and is more one alternative out of many possible viable alternatives for a region as large as Sydney to adopt. That means some bits might be "Village town", some might become more "New Urbanist", some might become more "eco-city", and some might stay roughly as they are because economies of scale in certain industries are essential.

I'm just discussing the "general" trends here and possible models to go buy, each region should probably vote on how they'd like to progress into a post-oil future.

The interesting thing for me? The International Energy Agency announces 10 years till global peak oil and what do we hear on the headline news? Nothing. We're just going to sleepwalk into this crisis and then we'll see how people stuck in the vast distances of suburbia cope!

(If you're meeting your local MP just remember the following 4 words: "peak oil" and "Trolley bus".

Trolley buses are 5 times cheaper than trams).

*The International Energy Agency announces 10 years till global peak oil*

Ah Eclispe, but peak oil does not mean no oil, just that the stuff
is going to become more expensive. When it does, people will adapt,
cut on waste, move house to closer where they work etc. That is human
nature for you. People prefer a bit of pain to learn things.

So we'll be back to a rush to gas conversions. We'll see the first
electric cars hit the market, we'll see mopeds become more popular.
Long distance transport will have to focus on good logistics planning.

Whilst oil is as cheap as it is now, these things are not going to
happen.

Smart developers will indeed develop the sorts of ideas that you
mention, driven by consumer demand, ie some consumers, not all.

Who will be the big losers from peak oil? Most likely the third
world poor, living in cities. For their food costs will rise
dramatically. Abundant cheap grains rely on cheap oil for production.

Depending on the oil price, biofuels will certainly be competing with
food crops for resources. In my own case, I'll simply grow a
patch of canola for the oil, grow a bit less wheat. There is already
a press in town to turn it into biofuel, the moment that prices
justify it.

So no need to panic, change will happen, but change will be taken
seriously when the market signals make it happen. That is just not
the case right now.

Given the sheer scale of the adjustments we have to make and the fact that the Export Land Model (google it) means the international oil MARKET really COULD drop far faster than the global oil depletion rate, I think we're in for a rough ride.

CNBC on EXPORT LAND MODEL

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/35271

I think we'll "make it" but that we're facing a Greater Depression.

EV's are on the way, but even the most optimistic projections only have them at about 10 million by 2016 (MIT) and Shai Agassi's FANTASTIC integrated EV + wind power + Battery swap station system (funded here by Macquarie bank and backed by Renault, google "Better Place", coming to Canberra in 2012) will only have about a MILLION cars by 2015/16 ish...
http://www.ted.com/talks/shai_agassi_on_electric_cars.html

Out of 800 million cars and trucks? When the world oil market could already be down 10% by then, or more, if we're at peak now? Ouch.

Yep, I think we'll adapt. 4 years ago when I formed a team that briefed the NSW Cross-benchers on this stuff I honestly didn't. Fred Nile was sitting there saying "We've got to build more NUKULAR power plants!" and I was aghast because at that stage EV's looked a million miles away. But again, too little too late

Eclipse Now, Other technologically advanced fuels now being developed will be driving conventional engines sooner rather than later.

Great quote below

"Far-flung exurban areas have swallowed up miles of greenfield, replacing farmland and woods with pavement and lawns, and costing taxpayers a fortune in what's possibly the least efficient form of infrastructure: providing utilities and public services to a small number of people spread out over an large area. The social impacts of sprawl are arguably just as harmful. Sprawl is unhealthy for people who live in it. And as we know from the Housing & Transportation Affordability Index, people who have to drive everywhere they go are at an economic disadvantage, as well — 

According to leading thinkers like Arthur C. Nelson and Christopher B. Leinberger, the majority of Americans no longer desire to live in auto-dependent suburban environments. Given the chance, many would trade large suburban houses for the walkability of an urban neighborhood. Middle-class North Americans are already beginning to move in large numbers back into central cities, while property values on the suburban fringe have plummeted.

The approaching end of sprawl is a good thing, but it leaves the future of the suburbs uncertain. Foreclosures, unemployment and retail losses have already been a disaster for many suburban towns, and experts warn that suburbs are fast becoming the next slums as middle-class residents are replaced by poorer people who've been priced out of the central cities. Already, much of the outmost ring of suburban North America is in steep decline. The suburbs have long been unsustainable, and now they are becoming ruins. What are the solutions for this new frontier?"

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/010206.html