Merlin the Magician, aka Scott Ludlum, on a sustainable house:

“this single house vanishes into a sea of tens of thousands of large, nearly identical unsustainable homes built in breathtaking defiance of the basic ground truths of the 21st century.” And continuing with the wafting mist of mysterious sustainability: “With persistence and goodwill it is possible to see our way through to the resilient city: the design and re-working of ecologically sane, human-centred communities that will be genuinely at home in the 21st century.”

While the Australian population continues to expand, it is only a deluded magician that can envisage a landscape and society sustainably compatible with each other.
There is no doubt that such compatibility in house and city design could be improved by a factor of two; and there is absolute mathematical certainty that, at current expansion rate of 1.9 per cent, population would double in 37 years

Our governments tax us by stealth through utility charges, and provide subsidy to business through significantly lowered (per kL or bulk per MW/kW) water and energy charges. Also these revenues are used to prop up state budgets by mismanaging state governments such as ours, now nearly if not already facing the kind of rot famous under Cain/Kirner and WA Inc.

Governments won't do too much to mandate water tanks or solar hot water, or put these on all government properties including public housing because they would cut deeply into a critical source of revenue. Its all about money and its wrong, but as long as self-interested gullible bogans and others keep voting in labor (as long as its not that dreadful howHARD's mob in their eyes) they think all will be great.

Same with increased mass transit to fill in the gaps, including a lot more rail for the cities like Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, because fuel taxes and motor rego are such a big source of revenue (however if you're a megachurch or little one you get free motor rego and absolutely no government tax or charges).

Maybe under privatisation we could make all these things mandatory because then it would not cut into government revenues, but I don't think privatisation's right either. The whole system is rotten.

A nicely written essay but it is all (vaguely) about planning and not about resilience. To be resilient - able to withstand shocks e.g. in essential resources - you need to have spare resource capacity e.g. of fuel, food, water. This is something that is actively discouraged as "inefficiency" in our cost competitive, just-in-time world. All the improvements spoken about such as more public transport etc. are meaningless if population is allowed to continue to grow. After all, the footprint of a city is not just the part covered by buildings and roads, it is the total area used to supply the inhabitants with what they need to live including all the agricultural acreage for this. Future urban planning must consider the location of food growing, how the food will be transported, and how much food is needed (i.e. population size determines consumption). Any measures to increase resilience that do not consider the size of the consumer base (population) and that do not plan for a sizeable reserve capacity in essential resources are just greenwash and doomed, ultimately, to fail (since population growth eats up reserve capacity).

One of the best articles on one of our most neglected opportunities. Well said Scott.

As to the (all-too-usual) knockers here - it's a short article, not a treatise. And how about some sensible debate politely offered, instead of just moaning and gloom. If we all just say it can't be done, we'll be right.

Perhaps the knockers should go out and feel the sunshine and smell the flowers. Then come in and give their woman a hug and kiss. Oh, don't have a woman to hug and kiss? Try making yourself more pleasant to be around and maybe you will.

Geoff - we are trying to make contributions to the debate but how does your comment help in any way? Do you have a contribution? Sounds more like you are just trying to stifle debate.

WTF?

The first two posts by Colin and the trannie nail it.
At the moment we have out of control population growth needed to support the false economy of house building.
Get the punters locked into home ownership debt and then tax them at an ever increasing rate.
It’s only a matter of time before more money will be needed to pay for the breakdown of maintenance-neglected infrastructure such as sewerage and water supply.
I seriously wonder if we still have the capacity to feed ourselves (unless our main food source is wheat).

Enjoy the ride.