"So the truth is being crushed by the anti density zealots on one side and pro-density zealots on the other, while the evidence itself is infrequently consulted, if at all."

And of course this entire article is evidence for the fact that population growth - which is the driver of these infrastuctural problems and demand for housing - is the CORE PROBLEM. Why not stop growing the population so that we do not need to provide ever more food, electricity, and transport? That would bring down housing prices and give our own children the chance of future home-ownership.

You can't grow forever in a finite system and the enviromental and resource problems we are seeing are evidence that were are reaching (beyond actually) the limits of the Earth to support us.

All the people in the world can stand on Tasmania at the same time.

Yes undidly, but where will you grow their food while they are standing there?

A well written article, but I believe that Ross misses the point as the real issue - urban sprawl and increased densities - in that both will have a detrimental impact on the environment and the living standards in the major capital cities.

The government's cumulative high immigration policy is a recipe for economic, social and environmental disaster. What are economic benefits from immigration in an economic environment where Australia's main economic exports are from mining and agriculture? In respect to the urban environment, unfortunately the easy cost effective options for urban growth are long gone - flat cleared land without environmental values serviced by infrastructure that has spare capacity.

The growth via immigration is merely a cost shifting exercise by the Federal Government to increase tax payers and taxes, with the States and the general community picking up the cost of providing more infrastructure and declining living standards, services and urban environment.

If Australia were entirely made up of green rolling hills, forests and permanent rivers and with adequate rainfall we would see a number of larger inland cities. Urban sprawl is a problem because there is some point where even best practice infrastructure no longer does the job adequately.

High density living has not worked in some cities including the UK where there are huge enclaves of socially disadvantaged groups. NY is made out to be the success story of HD living but only if you live in the trendy upmarket areas. Those living in poorer ghetto situations might disagree.

I cannot see any situation where overcrowding and congestion is a good thing. Busy can be interesting and exciting but chaos is not.

Urban sprawl encroaches more and more into bushland and arable land - that is the issue for Australia. We cannot keep damming barely running rivers to ensure water security. We could desalinate but why? It only increases pollution and makes more demand on energy sources.

Run Logan Run.....

For those who are interested, here is an article with a picture showing the proposed development, which puts 20,000 people into five blocks, not big city blocks either.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/miltons-population-to-double-due-to-development/2008/05/06/1209839581523.html

Similar high rise apartments (30 storey) are proposed in other centres near railway stations ('transport nodes'). There has been prolific growth in apartment living in Brisbane, but at the same time there has also been the development of new adjoining 'cities', where hastily-built pine frame and cheap cladded houses spring up like mushrooms.

The developers and builders do well while the tradies and consumers get what they deserve for voting in such weak politicians.

The problem for South East Queensland is that the floods of immigrants for our Kev's 'Big Australia' do not want to live in dry, dusty, hot and boring places like Emerald. They will always gravitate to the big cities.

Although government has recently discovered an interest in moving people to the country, the same political parties in government have consistently turned away from supporting country people and have presided over policies that resulted in a long-term population drift to the coast. There are only a few petrol pump lessees and war widows left in most country towns, where even the tiny RSLs, CWAs and lawn bowls clubs have had to close their doors through lack of membership.

Only a fool would believe the platitudes and promises of either side of government. For decades both have implemented policies ensuring that smaller farms and country towns could not remain viable. All in the interests of 'efficiency' and globalisaton.

Mr Rudd's priorities are 'diversity' and a 'Big Australia'. However he has yet to explain or win a mandate for either and avoids public debate. The capital cities will continue to be the preferred destination of migrants and both high density infill and urban sprawl are the inevitable results.

contd..

It will not be long before government decides that the public park near you is 'too costly' to maintain and could be put to better use by a developer who could put a medium or high rise apartment block on part of it while converting the remaining part for 'improved' use. Hold on, that is already being done where some developers are being permitted to claim adjoining public park as recreational green space for their development, enabling them to fill even more of their available land with concrete.

Yesterday we drove past one of the most ugly medium rise apartments possible, which was built on the site of a beautiful old State primary school. Interestingly, had the original structure been privately owned, local government approval would never have been forthcoming for its demolition. It was a historic site, the buildings were in good repair and relatively unchanged, it was placed high and the land content was small. The apartments of galvanised iron and cheap cladding that replaced the school now occupy every available square metre of the land. The roof has almost no eaves and it is obviously so hot that most owners are putting ugly airconditioning units on the outside of the building. It already looks like a slum building.

That is the sort of result that we can expect from population infill - cheap and nasty, with no prospect of long life and a host of maintenance problems. Built in haste and for maximum profit.

However at the root of the problem is the over-enthusiastic 'Big Australia' and its rolling population explosion, but Mr Rudd doesn't want to talk about that and never you mind.

If the two extremes are a problem(see pelican above).. what's really wrong with apartment buildings along transport coridoors?? what is the name of this style of development?(ps i havent been off this page to see all the articles you have referenced as yet, so I havent read more than is here..) I'm interested in forming an opinion.

One of the problems I see with high density infill near transport nodes is that provision is not being made for green space and for the various facilities that can make life liveable and enjoyable for any but those who are young professionals, who are at work during most daylight hours and can and do seek their recreation and entertainment elsewhere (back to the cars, one each).

Have a look at the picture of the Milton infill project in the link I gave above and imagine for a moment that you have a child, or are old or that you stay at home. There is a sea of concrete and bitumen, no park and no neighbours at home and no to many of the other environmental factors necessary for daily living and maintaining physical health and sanity.

If government was willing to acquire land to provide such facilities that would improve things, but life in a thirty storey apartment would not suit most people for most stages of their lives.

Is the huge increase in population really necessary and will the community ever be consulted?

If high density is so universally sustainable and environmentally desirable, "urban sprawl" or stand alone dwellings, the most popular family choice of a home with a backyard would not be put up as the devil. Therefore high density should be market "demand" driven, not as we have today with these apostles of political correctness driving housing choice. If the planners and celebrity chefs, want others to buy off their plans, lets see them put up their own money to prove the comfort of their ideas. Or are these density regulators and their lackeys in it for some other politically financial reason.

This population debate reminds me of the joke about the drowning man - when someone came by in a boat he said 'no God will save me', when a swimmer got to him he said 'no God will save me', a canoist turned up to help him, again 'No, God will save me' only to lament at the Pearly Gates 'why did God not save me? Peter responded but for goodness sake I sent someone in a boat then a canoe, another swam out to you....

The same goes for the growthists idea that man will do alright 'No innovation and technology will save me' - we can face those issues caused by overpopulation. Man can face these problems yes...but the solution of striving for more sustainable populations is not regarded by the growthist mentality as just that - a testament to man's innovation and ability to adapt.

Adapting to rising populations in the cities by building yet more buildings, having people like in the US, living right above or below railways with all the associated noise and fumes. These living conditions are not found in the more affluent suburbs - it will be the poor that have to live under these conditions to accommodate growing populations. Cornflower is also right about green space, we are losing it continuously to dodgy planning approvals.

Pelican

I agree with the points that you and Cornflower have raised.

Can't help myself, but have to point out the importance of a comma.

"No god will save me."

or

"No, god will save me."

Maybe I'm being a pedant, but I had to read your post twice to be sure of the meaning.

@Cornflower

Yes, Rudd is a complete fool to believe in a big population, however the alternative (Liberal Party) are no different - for 11 years Howard was bending over for big business and bigger population - the baby bonus started with him, do you believe that Abbott is concerned about a sustainable economy for Australia? If not, what is the solution when our leaders don't either see or acknowledge that continual growth is unsupportable?

Gosh you are write Severin. I was thinking the comma in my head but it did not transfer into the fingers. Changes the meaning completely. :(

I wonder if Graham Y is able to change it for ease of reading.

..and I typed 'write' instead of 'right'. Aaaaargh... must stop trying to multi-task.

Pelican

Many is the time I wish I could edit something I have posted. Despite rereading my comments before posting, I continue to make mistakes.

No god can save me from being human.

;)

Ross, you make good points about the confusion between 'sprawl' and orderly, contiguous urban development. But I think you've also overcooked your argument somewhat by resorting to a couple of urban myths.

First, it's simply false that urban growth boundaries create land shortages that push up the price of houses. Melbourne has had an urban growth boundary since 2002, yet the National Housing Supply Council finds that in Victoria there has actually been an oversupply of housing, that only turned into a shortage in 2008 when the GFC squeezed project finance. The fastest rise in Melbourne house prices occurred between 1996 and 2001, at a time when the Kennett Government was promoting genuine 'urban sprawl' - putting new subdivisions USA-style in rural locations remote from existing urban areas and facilities.

Blaming a shortage of residential-zoned land for house price rises also misconstrues the way the industry operates: developers buy up greenfield land in residential zones and then release it for construction on a timeline set to maximise return on investment. Again, there may be a shortage of houses in parts of Melbourne but there is no shortage of empty residential-zoned land.

The ACF Consumption Atlas is also frequently misunderstood. This used an economic input-output analysis to trace all consumption, not just energy use. Not surprisingly, it found that wealthy inner-urban dwellers have a higher footprint because they spend more money. But the methodology also relies on questionable assumptions, such as that a steak that costs $30 at a restaurant has 6 times the footprint of the same steak bought for $5 and cooked at home with $1 worth of electricity.

You can make a perfectly good argument for developing urban areas along roughly traditional lines just by noting the lack of reasons not to. As long as development proceeds along well-defined corridors that avoid high-value rural land, and infrastructure such as public transport is provided ahead of people moving in, the only compelling argument people have made for high densities is that this is supposedly required in order to boost public transport use - the argument Mees has comprehensively demolished.

Yep, nothing wrong with sprawl, but non urban would be better.

The announcement today of 3 areas, chosen for satellite cities, one only a few Km from me would be improved by a couple of things.

1/ Move them further out, [& away from me]. One of the reasons much of Melbourne works is that, with that great bay, spliting iy up, it is like a series of self contained cities, with work play & home all in a confined area.

2/ Announce the start of construction of the electric railway line to service these cities.

3/ Announce that the government will take up 10% of the new area for public service offices, & thus reduce the number of them traveling into city high rise offices every day.

4/ Announce the other initiatives, & light industrial develoments, in conjunction with the residential, so the residents can find work right there, & not in the Brisbane CBD.

In today's world, there is no reason for CBDs to even exist. With them eliminated or much deminished, there would be no need for the huge traffic flow into them each day, which causes so much trouble.

Australia has 2.8 people per square kilometre. If the entire population of Australia were packed into one place at the current supposedly sprawling population density of Melbourne, we would use no more than 44,000 square kilometres, leaving more than 99 per cent of the nation, 7.6+ million square kilometres, completely empty of people.

If we increase our population, to 35 million, we need only 70,000 square kilometres and still have more than 99 per cent of the nation empty of people.

If the entire population of Victoria were packed into one place at Melbourne’s density, more than 90 per cent of the state would be completely empty of people.

England manages to fit ten times the Victorian population into an area the same size as the state with only one very large city and more than 80 per cent of its people living outside London – in villages, large towns and manageable cities.

If Australia had 20 million households each on a 1,000 square metres, they would take up only 20,000 square kilometres of the 7.7 million we have. Hospitals, schools, restaurants, shops, etc do not have to take up any more land because of the size of housing blocks, though transport does. I have been through wilderness areas in the US, with its 300+ million people in an area not much larger than Australia. There is plenty of room for decent-sized blocks of land in this country.

If population has to grow, decentralisation – not sprawl, not urban consolidation - is the answer.

Chris C
I agree with you that decentralisation is the solution to reducing the size of our larger cities. It will also reduce the current situation where larger urban areas take much of the water from country areas. Look at Melbourne's pillaging of the waters in the North of that State.

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

The point is our land is largely arid - the size of the land mass is not the only factor. Only a small percentage of our land mass is suitable for agriculture, much of it being developed.

As I said earlier if Australia had the lovely rolling green hills of England all over we could certainly take a lot more people. Sadly we don't. England is not a good example, there are many in the UK concerned about optimal population levels, not just in the UK but worldwide.

http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.more.ukpoptable.html

Severin, "Yes, Rudd is a complete fool to believe in a big population, however the alternative (Liberal Party) are no different"

I agree with you.

There is NO political mandate for a 'Big Australia' and all political parties are avoiding discussion either through pretending they are unaware of voter opposition, or by shelving the issue by calling for an inquiry to be held some time in the future.

I agree that urban sprawl is not really the problem.
Urban siting is the problem.
If our major cities were situated in featureless desert country (or better yet, on the ocean) then such cities could quite conceivably contribute to increased bio mass and biodiversity; that is assuming urban environments absolutely have to involve above ground dwellings, covering good soil with tar and cement, etc.
The fundamental problem of urban sprawl is that it almost invariably occurs on good arable river flats, for purely historical reasons which don't necessarily still make sense; particularly at a time when we need all the farmland we can get.