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The Forum > Article Comments > Urban dreaming: Australian cities for the future > Comments

Urban dreaming: Australian cities for the future : Comments

By Anton Roux and John Stanley, published 1/11/2010

There is an alternative to the mega city that captures their gains and preserves liveability.

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“If our cities are to remain great cities, transformational changes will be needed, rather than a continuation of the incrementalism of the past.” Amen! But such transformational changes will remain a fatuous prayer without an economic base supporting capital works and urban development. Any workable new cities will be supported by an uplift in their land values which can be tapped to fund their construction (as in the foundation of the Australian Capital Territory). Also, in 100% of those cases where municipalities switched their rating base from improved to unimproved values in Victoria since 1920, Land Values Research Group studies show a spike occurred in development and employment in comparison to those that continued to rate buildings and improvements.

Don Riley, who was made a millionaire by the effect London’s new Jubilee underground rail line extension had on his adjoining land, demonstrates in “Taken for a Ride” (available on-line) that it could easily have been completely self-funded by land value capture. So, my question is this. Why is it town planners, urban developers and civil engineers who support site value rating and land tax may be counted on the fingers of one hand? Even Ken Henry has given them a lead by recommending an all-in federal land tax, to replace the poorly structured array of state land taxes, stamp duties and payroll taxes, but the light still doesn’t seemed to have dawned on them. What is it, folks? I would have thought self-funding infrastructure and cities is a pretty good idea? Urban dreaming needs to be supported by economic realities.
Posted by Bryan Kavanagh, Monday, 1 November 2010 1:01:06 PM
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I would agree with some parts of this article. Towns within cities are possible. I have lived in small towns of 5,000 and in suburbs of large cities. There wasn’t much difference. The small town had its own library, hospital, shops and local council. The suburb in the large city had the same.

The main difference was that in the small town, one could travel 5 minutes out of the town and catch a barramundi, whereas 5 minutes travel in a city would take someone to the next set of traffic lights.

Cities that sprawl outwards are in a very precarious position if peak oil becomes a reality. I have seen estimates of fuel costing $5.00 a litre within 1 to 2 decades, and if someone is living in the outer suburbs, it could cost them $200 a week or more in fuel bills just to travel to and from work. So cities will have to go upwards and not outwards.

The 1 in 4 households in Australia that are single person households is not economic, and attention must be given to reducing this, but I don't think universities have done anything towards reducing this problem.

I don’t believe cities greatly improve communications. I am presently contacting people in 3 different countries on a regular basis, and the only difficulty is time zones
Posted by vanna, Monday, 1 November 2010 5:24:10 PM
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Interesting article and comments:

But in my opinion, the only way for our cities to become great AT ALL is to build some entirely new ones in the inland-regions of every state (ideally on an infertile but water-abundant region), and encourage at least 1 million people from each state-capital city to relocate there- and with the empty space try to encourage the remaining people to move elsewhere within the city (willingly) so that the wrongly-suburbanized regions are bulldozed and converted into something that would actually make sense.

We would need to introduce more high-rises in already urbanized areas also- and of course, ensure that they are accessible but do not cripple the nearby roads.

In short, building UP in areas already suitable (especially sub-city centers and business districts), clearing out space to convert into infrastructure or, outright SPACE.

Most importantly, a limit on outward expansion and highrise conversion MUST be imposed, and secured by will of the public.

Cities that are a gigantic homogenous mass always end up as unlivable failures- only cities that are limited to a small size, but are interconnected to nearby other cities are successes. Compare Europe to any other example and tell me which are better.

You can try to create more cultural distractions, but if people aren't actually interested in any of them, then these people are expected to shut themselves in their room of their subdivided flat and sulk?
Posted by King Hazza, Monday, 1 November 2010 6:46:32 PM
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Obviously GDP, productivity, & wealth production are three very different things.

While we have economists counting the taking in of each others washing as part of GDP, & only then do our cities of today have any sort of justification. When academics can claim that over 80% of our GDP takes place in our basically useless, worthless, cities it really is time for a new formula for what counts as “product”.

I do recall some time back a move to include house work, & domestic lawn mowing in our GDP. It may as well be, when what is done by the bureaucrats is considered as production, rather than waste.

Once upon a time real things happened in our cities. People really made things, & supplied the rest of the nation. Today, apart from a little unloading of ships, & loading of trucks, they are merely a home for public servants, & those who live off those public servants. They could not exist if they did not suck in the wealth produced elsewhere, by a small percentage of the people, to support their uselessness.

Today the wealth that supports our cities is generated almost exclusively, far away from any of our cities, & is often generated despite the efforts of those cities, not because of them.

That this article is part of our GDP shows what a fairyland most of our academics live in compared to reality
Posted by Hasbeen, Monday, 1 November 2010 11:24:56 PM
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Anton Roux and John Stanley wrote 1 November 2010:

>... suggests that "cities" of 250,000 to 300,000 people ...

Yes, for the Canberra 2030 Planning Workshop last month, I suggested Canberra could triple its density and population to around 1 million people.

Canberra has five town centres (Civic, Woden, Belconnen, Tuggeranong, Gungahlin), with public open space between these nodes. So each of these centres could be expanded to a population of 250,000, while retaining the green space between them.

Providing high density accommodation concentrated in the town centres would allow for efficient public transport. The new housing would be within walking distance of employment and high speed public transport between the town centres: http://blog.tomw.net.au/2010/10/optimal-australian-city-has-one-quarter.html
Posted by tomw, Monday, 8 November 2010 10:41:09 AM
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