The fundamental problem is too many people.At present the boosters have the running.Citizens need to see this and get active for a stable population.

The rule of the 5 Ps - Population Pressures Provoke Poor Planning.

The NIMBY's are right! The community have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Our cities are becoming more dense, and also sprawling out. So, higher density living is not a "solution" to coping with population growth, and growth, supported by the LibLabs, will continue. Unless there are NIMBY voices in the community, our lifestyles will become more crowded, we will have less privacy, family life will deteriorate and we will pay more for housing but get less of it!
Our suburbs have become a resource for developer profits,supported by our State governments. Those making money are those making the decisions about our high-density futures, to our detriment. They are simply in denial of climate change, food shortages, peak oil and the increased need for air conditioners and heating - without leafy trees and cooling green wedges.
The root cause of all this grief is our forced population growth - driven by our excessive economic immigration. This issues is being smoke-screened by the threat of "boat people" to hide the numbers of legal immigrants.

Once again I am in a quandary what to think here.
On one hand I recognise the rights of locals to decide what happens in their area but at the same time I cant help feeling a sense of selfishness and exclusion in the NIMBY attitude. A sort of "we live a good life here and no one else can come here and join us lest they lower our quality of life" attitude. It certainly smacks of elitism and exclusion and not a little fear to me.
Are locals the only ones who should have a say on development?

Don't be in a quandary Mikk. Bad public planning has ruined thousands of privately well planned lives, many more than it has ever helped.

One example I know well is the Cronulla area of Sydney. A mates family had moved there along with a lot of other low income earners in the 50s. Cronulla was considered the pits then, with no services, & way out in the sticks.

These people built their little fibro, or brick veneer homes, & put up with the traveling inconveniences. It was a great place to bring up kids. The area was a great community of friendly helpful people.

Then the planners discovered it, & decided it would be a good out of the way place to shove more low income earners, & made it a high density area. Six pack blocks of flats sprung up like mushrooms.

With this growth some facilities were built, a hospital, another bridge, & more 6 pack blocks of flats & units. As unit sights the land value, & the rates skyrocketed. When their rates exceeded the rent on a flat, many of the original battlers were beaten. They sold up, & moved to cheaper areas, including my mates folks.

None of this had done anything for them. As a building sight, their land was worth a bit more than their house, but not enough to help much, & the whole families life was throw into turmoil. Kids had to change schools, & lost their friends, & both parents had to change jobs, as the new home was too far to travel.

This type of disruption has happened to so many that it is no wonder that "planner" is a dirty word. Australia would be a much better place, if we could just find a desert island to which we could banish all planners.

Sprawl merchants like Ross Elliott and Wendell Cox do the bidding of property investors/speculators who want to restrict the supply of housing in order to prop up their asset values at the expense of renters and would-be buyers. They prefer sprawl to density because they know that sprawl is more expensive per dwelling, especially when the cost of infrastructure is included. This approach only helps those who own more than one property; it's no good to ordinary home owners, for whom the higher resale price of the present home is offset by the higher purchase price of the next one. The alternative approach that DOES enrich ordinary home owners without hurting anyone else, namely financing infrastructure by recycling some of the uplifts in land values caused by the infrastructure, is not in the sprawl merchants' repertoire.

As can be seen in Elliott's latest rant, the sprawl merchants are particularly hostile to transit-oriented development (TOD), because that further reduces the infrastructure cost per dwelling, making it too easy to increase the supply of accommodation.

Elliott is particularly indignant that a certain builder got approval for 30 stories instead of 20. Never mind that for a given population density, taller buildings allow more open space on the ground, which Elliott claims to support.

Then Elliott has the chutzpah to bag the TOD-supporters for having achieved "precious little" in the face of opposition from people like himself!

"Even schoolchildren," says Elliott, "were smart enough to realise that more people per square kilometre will mean more congestion, more crowding in shopping centre carparks, more crowded buses, and more people wanting to walk dogs or play cricket in parks." Is Elliott too dumb to realize that TOD means more buses to take the load off cars, and more trains to take the load off buses and cars, and that taller buildings can free up ground space for shopping centres, carparks and sports grounds? Or does he merely hope his readers are too dumb?

[CONTINUED...]

[...CONTINUED]

Elliott extols the virtues of backyards, which are real enough, but fails to acknowledge that backyards take space from communal parks and gardens. Moreover, some of us have better things to do than mow the lawn, or prefer to live above the streetlights where we can see the stars. It's called choice.

The pressure for greater heights comes from property owners who only want to develop their property to its full potential, but whose property rights are being curtailed by NIMBYists, politicians and bureaucrats who restrict the owners' building rights in spite of the need for housing. Elliott resorts to Orwellian blackwhite, describing such restrictions as "democracy", "fundamentals of economics" and "market demand", and the absence of such restrictions as "mandated policy dogma", "Soviet-style", "anti-democratic", "determinist", and "made by a collective"!

Of course, if you're pushing a particular viewpoint, it's to your advantage to portray the opposite viewpoint as having the inside running. So Elliott alleges that "the density mantra has taken root". The reality may be inferred from repeated extensions of urban growth boundaries that were meant to be set in stone. And of course Elliott repeatedly describes the defenders of density as "elites", when the real elites are property investors who don't want competition from new construction, NIMBYists who don't want any riff-raff to be able to afford to live anywhere near them, and pro-Establishment demagogues who get to decide who is branded with the pejorative epithet "elite".

The pro-sprawl argument is self-serving prop-agenda and needs to be called out.

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Hasbeen: If Sydney were dense enough, Cronulla would still be rural.

Grputland, if that were the case mate, Sydney would be a ghost town. It would be such a horrible place to live that even it's harbour would not ensure it's survival.

We have all seen what happened to those high rise heavens, built in the 50/60s for public housing in the UK as well as inner Sydney. Why would anyone want to repeat that catastrophe?

To clarify: I'm not a fan of big public housing projects, whether their density is high or low. When tax policies and planning policies are conducive to a plentiful supply of private housing in appropriate locations, we'll see how much need there is for governments to get involved in the housing-supply business. (Very little, I expect.)

Ross,
Just for interest sake how has this 'park' helped your land value?
How would you suggest we house the people who work in the city ...Ipswich perhaps?
What would you suggest for the extra roads/pollution (noise/gases) to facilitate the flat expansion?
How about public transport, isn't it easier in inner city that from the wilds of 40+ ks out?

How far out do you want the food bowl to be? the expense etc.

Let's face it you whole essay is based on self interest and perception, oh yes political bias.

Whoa. The comments to this article seem to arouse a deal of bile. Let me try set my view straight, for what it's worth:
- I am not a sprawl advocate, not a NIMBY, nor 'anti' infill.
- Urban growth can and should accommodate BOTH well planned new suburban communities, AND well planned infill
- Planning systems should recognise the need for balance, recognising community opinion, market opportunity, and social objectives
- There are some outstanding examples of new suburban communities, as well as new infill communities. These provide us with lessons, if we're prepared to examine the evidence
- In Brisbane, the infill result of what was done in New Farm/Terneriffe/The Valley under the Redacliff/Soorley administration of the URTF is exemplary.
- Also worth celebration is what's being done at places like Springfield, North Lakes etc. Good urban and suburban outcomes are not uncommon, we only have to think about them
- There is a place for democracy. It's my view that elements of planning dogma in policy tend now to suggest that communities are not entitled to a view about their local future. Whatever happened to 'no taxation without representation'?

Planning for growth is not an easy subject matter. Silver bullets don't exist. An evidence based approach, with market realism, community support and pragmatic solutions designed to provide for our future surely can't be a bad ambition? And surely no value in the usual 3 point plan: 1 Denial; 2 Pass the buck; 3 Shoot the messenger?

Ross, the whole problem with your last post is the idea of social objectives.

Just who decides what those social objectives are.

This is where planners have a habit of assuming superiority, most falsely.

Most of them have nothing in common with those for whom they are planing, & all to often are more interested in the outcome achieved for the state, or local authority, than the people who are to live with these plans.

As I said earlier, the public would be better off without them.