I know whose tiny thought bubble needs a sharp prick.

I groaned reading the same old tried rehash of nothing.

1. People don't grow old *forever*. Eventually they die. The baby boomer retirees are a *temporary* phenomenon. Subsequent generations are smaller.

2. Immigrants reflect a similar age range, so do nothing to alter it.
Immigrants also grow old. If immigration were to address this, you'd need to limit it to *young* people.

3. Only 60% of the last decade's immigrants were "skilled". The other half a million were completely useless.

4. Our major cities are sardine cans. But where do immigrants live? Do they move to the country towns and regional cities? No. Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane.

5. *World* population growth figures are irrelevant. Australian *density* statisitics are irrelevant (most of the land is uninhabitable). Australia has its own capacity limits, so its irrelevant comparing world figures.

6. Less human labour will be needed in the future as more and more work is mechanised. Taxes will still be collected from *companies*.

Dick Smith did not say that we should have a two child policy, the Murdock Press did.

www.dicksmithpopulation.com.au

Also it doesn't matter how you write it. "Population growth is declining" every 5 days there a million more people on this planet, so I would say this is something we need to be concerned about as our planet isn't getting any bigger.

Practical population and land management to consolidate sustainability of the existing world population could be achieved.

Thinking has to move away from multi billion dollar unproductive National Broadband Network construction and into productive infrastructure development, such as wet north water harvesting and aquaducting through more arable and habitable land.

Big population centres southward need a more sustainable water supply that could also be achieved by utilizing presently unused northern water instead of local southern water.

The Darling River catchment already runs well up into Queensland, no need for aquaducting all the way.

NBN billions could build the connection and increase productivity and exports. This would help consolidate present population well-being very quickly while generating revenue from business and employment and exports instead of from 'carbon pricing'.

I anti-pops campaign has run out of puff. Things got sticky for them when they lost the middle ground of the environment movement and they got a bollocking from Bob Brown recently for being half baked cranks.

Things went further pear-shaped for the Sustainable People Lobby when they inadvertently sided with the no-immigration lobby represented pretty much by Tony Abbott.

Even though most of the anti-pop leaders are engineers, geneticists and IT boffins, many thought they had pitched their tents way to the right - which is pretty much where they belong.

One positive aspect from this 'debate' has been the importance of urban design of our cities. It's odd we don't debate that more considering the centripedal drift of people to cities across the world and the fact that traditional fuel sources will only get more expensive.

Cudmugeon, some good points, but these also come at costs;

I wouldn't really rate New York or London as examples- they're simply awful, cramped, polluted cities with very poor social interactions and moderately high crime- that don't really demonstrate any positives about urban living but plenty of negatives.

Better cities like Singapore, Berlin and Amsterdam are also highly compressed in space and resource consumption (and spare time outside transit), and homeownders have limited capacity for independent power and water generation, meaning it's very expensive and dependent on third parties.
Furthermore, in urban environments there is simply no resources or things to do available that do not require payment (listing things to do in a city would mostly involve paying for pubs, clubs, movies, services and products- people with no interests in these things simply have nothing to do.

In short no matter how good the city otherwise is, contraints on shared resources and stronger dependence on third-party services and products will always apply- and only engages people that are culturally compatible with being constantly immersed with many other people

You are right that multiple separate compressed cities (Europe) are far superior to singular compressed MEGAcities (Australia and Asia) mainly due to de-compression of traffic into efficient freeways, with spacial considerations allowing people to park outside and walk to work in 10 minutes in most cases, and easy public transport coverage). It's cheaper, saves immense amount of time for commuters and reduces pollution and traffic congestion.
It makes a huge amount of difference, although in terms of household issues the compression issue remains.

Donkeygod;
Problem is where will the extra people go? Building a whole new city is a viable option- but nobody wants to touch it. Some towns call for more people and more urbanization, while to some it's the kiss of death to go urban.

Ross Elliott is a realist. According to our economic reality he's quite right, we do need a population boom in order to sustain growth and current modes of consumption. Are all those railing against the idea, including Dick Smith, prepared to accept a plummeting standard of living in reparation? Because that's the ultimate cost attached to the idea of "sustainable" populations. Environmentally sustainable populations are economically unsustainable.
I despise the indignant, spoiled brats out there who rail against overpopulation and other forms of environmental degradation, but would run a mile before they'd accept a material sacrifice. If you don't like population growth and environmental rape, rail against the system that demands it and remember, you can't have your standard of living "and" sustainability.