But why, Ross??

Why would you want to build vast new suburbs or satellite cities, especially in a region that has major population growth pressures?

Where is it all going to stop?

It is just so counterintuitive. Why don’t you put your efforts into improving the efficiency of existing suburbia instead of espousing huge new ones?

And it is all so damn contradictory. To espouse the virtues of state-of-the-art buildings and urban design is NOT environmentally friendly, or people-friendly, if you are going to just keep pushing more and more of it at us in a never-ending growth momentum.

Ross, I think your talents are being badly misdirected. Put them towards existing infrastructure, not vast new stuff!

Sorry, but I see the likes of you as the enemy of a healthy future. The ‘pack-em-in-and-just-keep-packing-em-in’ mentality is just so totally the OPPOSITE to what we need, especially in southeast Queensland.

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What's wrong?

Correct me if I got this wrong, but from a Google Map inspection there appears to be no rail access.

If that's correct, surely a rail link to Brisbane should have been a necessity from day one of the project. It's going to be very hard to put one in now.

This community appears to be totally dependent on road transport. With a projected population of 100,000, that's going to be about 200,000 vehicles. Of course everybody drives cars too, don't they?

Hmm, not my idea of Nirvana - and I'm an avid automotive enthusiast.

On a lighter note, it's a bit unfortunate about the name - duh!

While I agree with voxUnis that a rail line should be a requirement of these satellite city developments, I otherwise have to agree with Ross. They are cheaper to develop than infield, much nicer to live in, definitely the way the future should be. Oh just in passing Voxy, why a rail line to Brisbane? It really is time to abandon the Brisbane city centre, & move it all out to a greenfield site.

This ridiculous fixation with existing city centers is just that ridiculous. Sensible planning would get 90% of the government offices, & the public servants who travel to them each day, out to the Springfields & the Yarrabilbas as they develop. The traffic problem, & the squalor of inner city infill development is fixed at a stroke.

To hell with the property council, & their highrise office blocks in the city centre, turn them into apartments for those who like crowded living, but let the rest get out & stay out. Most of us would rather live work & play away from the place.

I have not been to the city since I stopped having to talk to bureaucrats years ago, & certainly hope I will never have go there again.

The only reason for siting most of our old cities where they are, was their suitability to unload sailing ships, hardly a reason to continue using them as a seat of administration. It would be cheaper & better for everyone, property council members excepted, to get out to some fresh air. Satellite cities offer the best of everything, unless you're a surfer, & the city's not much good for that anyway.

Continued.

Continued

In the 60s, I courted a young lady who lived in Sutherland, [down Cronulla way]. The houses were cheap little fibro boxes, but so what? It was a great place. Yards were large, open, & had nice gardens. The footpaths were full of kids playing, as were the yards.

I went through there last year. What a mess. Infill everywhere, everything so jammed up it was depressing. Every bit of land was full of housing of the very worst type, infill & six packs. No room left for parking, so the streets were so full of parked cars, as were the foot paths that it was hard to even drive through. If we could force the planners who push this rubbish to live in these developing slums, there would never be another built.

I met my wife at Mooloolaba yacht club. We were both on yachts in there for a few days. A walk from the yacht club up to town for a hamburger a loaf of bread, or a beer was a real pleasure. It was a beautiful place in the mid 70s.

We had not been back, so recently when nearby, we took a sentimental trip to have a look at the place. What a mess.

Without a sat nav we had to park the car, & go walk around just to find how to get down to the harbor, so "infilled" is the area. Again infill & hi-rise had destroyed a beautiful place.

Fellers, you can keep it.

Ross you state 'The first and most obvious thing that can be said of these projects is that they’re popular. Already more than 100,000 people are living in recently developed master planned communities in the South-east corner of Queensland alone, and that will rise to more than a quarter of a million people as existing projects reach completion. Popularity is a sure sign of market success and means these projects are filling a need within the community.'

Sorry but popularity does not equal success. You continue to drive and survive on the growth mantra.

In years to come this site will be known as a fools paradise.

We live on a finite planet, more people equals more use of all resources, ever heard of the law of diminishing returns, perhaps you should go back to school and do a little bit more education.

The last thing Australia needs is growth, urban infill, suburban spread or TOD's as you put them. Growth is over, get used to it and smell the real roses, or better still a flower that produces some sort of food product.

What a terrible article and argument you put forward.

So when are the Anti Growth lobby going to toughen up and tackle the big issue, immigration?
There has to be a credible Zero Immigration movement and it has to have some teeth for any of this out of control growth to be brought under control.
Example, we had 17,000 new Irish immigrants to Victoria last year, that intake alone has added a population roughly the same as that of Wangaratta with all it's material needs, housing, infrastructure, health etc.

We are working on it Jay - getting our immigration slashed that is.

Already we have had a sitting prime minister unseated partly based on his unpopoular support for a 'big Australia'.

What were one of the first things that Julia Gillard did upon toppling Rudd......she publicly and explicitly distanced herself, on the 7:30 Report, from 'big Australia'.

You boosters are no longer unchallenged on Austrlia's political stage so you had better start getting used to the idea that you will no longer have it all your own way with endless growth.

...Hasbeen are the eyes to the consequences of overpopulation, and the blind attachment to economic growth at any cost; while Jay of Melbourne nominates accurately the reason.

...But, I can predict the madness is in decline. House prices are crashing across Australia, and mortgage and rental stress escalates, as banks panic into “rort mode” to shore-up sagging profits, (including the traditional corporate unimaginative stand-by, which harbours the usual anti-social blind view, of exporting Australian jobs to Asia, to achieve this aim).

...Rolling city suburbs, gated behind invisible fences of ethnicity, are the consequence offered to Australians following the blind importation of people, designed to prop-up narrow views of the vested interests of banks and developers, working hand in hand against public interest.

...The eyes of “Hasbeen”, are rightly horrified as he views the blatant consequence to living standards of fellow Australians by “slam-dunk” development. What strikes me as the pinnacle of madness in urban development mentioned in this article, is the total un-necessity of it all.

<< So when are the Anti Growth lobby going to toughen up and tackle the big issue, immigration? >>

We have been, all along. Our champions – Dick Smith, Bob Carr, Mark O’Connor, Kelvin Thomson, John Coulter, Jenny Goldie, etc, etc have always been very strong on this point. But it has obviously so far proven impossible to get our highly unillustrious leaders to accept.

<< There has to be a credible Zero Immigration movement and it has to have some teeth for any of this out of control growth to be brought under control. >>

For sure!

Hey, it would seem that you are well and truly in the ‘anti growth’ lobby, my friend. Good stuff.

Although I’d prefer to call it the sustainability lobby, which fully supports the right sorts of growth, but denounces continuous expansionism.

Cheers.

Oh dear, I failed to mention to whom I was responding in the previous post.

Jay of Melbourne.

Hay folks, I'm right with you on stop the immigration, I reckon we have all, or more than, we should ever have.

However, every time we have a divorce, or a break up, we seem to need a new house. If we are going to build them, lets spread out a bit, & build good neighbourhoods. Living jammed between some old houses, just because it's close to a city you will rarely if ever visit, is a mugs game.

Remember that lab experiment with rats, where they increased the number in a set space. At a certain level of crowding, they started killing each other.

Well, if you pay attention to the news reports something sounds similar.

So welcome to the experiment folks. Enjoy!

What really annoys me about people like Ross is that, according to them, it is entirely about opponents of population growth having the wrong mind set and that it is us who need to be change our thinking or be oppressed.

Ross's entire career has been in an industry that cannot exist without a steady supply of new home buyers. Once the housing needs of the existing population are met he goes off to government demanding increased immigration to keep his career, and his lifestyle, going.

On the other hand, ordinary folk like you and I have to go off to the centre link queues once the market for our employers' products contracts and our own services are surplus to our employers' requirements.

So whose interests is Ross et el really serving here? Australia's or his own?

Well may be Ross has to face the fact that the services that he and his companys' supply to Australia are similarly surplus to our collective requirements and that HE should join the centre link queues or otherwise pursue another career!

Despite the fact that Ross would love the building industry to grow indefinitely and for his career in to prosper until his retirement, he needs to face up to the fact that the industry is not a productive one when it goes beyond supplying the legitimate needs or the native population.

We have seen what has happened in Ireland in particular with their enormous building bubble that has burst with the GFC, leaving hundreds of thousands of Irish with investment property loans they cannot pay back and with entire empty estates that will likely be bulldozed in the coming years.

How is such a scenario of any economic help to Australians in the long term.

WHEN are we and our governments going to quit giving people Ross, and industries he represents, the oxygen that they do not deserve!

How many boom and busts have there been in past decades all touted, by self interested individuals like Ross, as the next big thing in wealth creation for the nation.

How many generations have had their fingers eventually financially burned by businessmen like Ross?

When will we learn from history rather than continually repeating it?

We heard it all before in our current life times, let alone through recent history.

"This boom is different and will never end."

"The price of ...... will never decrease."

But every time the unthinkable that Ross et el say will never happen, indeed happens sooner or later.

But they always make sure that the millions they have made by exploiting others are safely quarentined from the inevitable bust.

When will we learn folks?

Never?

Ahh Boylsey, such passion.

Good on you. Cheers.

I can see the merits of these 'satellite cities', and am certainly glad that masterplanned communities are the continuing trend rather than soulless and jobless housing estates. A few thoughts, though.

If a community of 250,000 generates 30,000 jobs, where does everyone else work?

And, while we're on the numbers, I'm confused by your assertion, voxUnius, that a population of 100,000 will lead to 200,000 vehicles on the road.

Growth, anti-growth, immigration and anti-immigration sentiments aside, perhaps the important thing here is efficient use of space without destroying lifestyle. We're constantly told that quarter-acre blocks belong in the past, but that doesn't mean we have to live on top of each other, or that we have to drive for half an hour (or more) to take a walk in the past. It is my opinion that communities like Springfield - though not without flaws - are opportunities to get right what we got wrong in the past.

Otokonoko as long as these developments meet genuine need of existing Australians and not needs generated through immigration at the behest of Ross and his industry mates.

Also we do not need to generate as many jobs if immigrants are not pouring into the country in order to manufacture housing demand for the building sector.

Australia needs to create industries (and jobs) that meet genuine need around the globe, boost our exports and are genuinely productive for the country. These industries and jobs will be technologically based, e.g. biotechnology and medical technology. Australia's economic future primarily lies in these industries and not in the building and construction sector.

The building sector does not generate export income. Beyond meeting genuine local needs all it does is push up government and private spending on infrastructure which in turn pushes up our federal deficit.

Sorry Boylesy I think you're indulging in wishful thinking there. I think it is highly unlikely we are going to become a manufacturing country again, & definitely not while we have crazy governments costing us out of any industrial development, with fool taxes.

No apart from mining, & it looks like Gina Rinehart doesn't want ozzies even there, we are going to have to become resigned to taking in each other's washing.

To that end, we need to start taking action, with our feet & accounts, against companies who contract jobs off shore.

The moment I get that tell tale accent when I call a company, I know it's an offshore call centre, & change supplier. I have changed my bank, phone company, & my fuel supplier this year. I have notified the companies involved.

Yes I know, a waste of time, but if enough do likewise, we will get some jobs back.

Manufacturing wise, in the 60s, I was the technical service officer for a company supplying plastic raw materials to 7 TV manufacturers, 5 refrigeration manufacturers, 3 phone manufacturers, & dozens of appliances manufacturers.

We also developed dozens of electrical & electronic applications with people we supplied.

Only 3 of all those manufacturers are still making anything, although a very few are now importers, & marketing companies. We could not keep what we had, I doubt we can handle start up in any manufacturing today.

Hasbeen:

...The rising sun of Globalism now shines scorching and hot from a mid-day sky.

Are there still people out there who don't know that Planet Earth isn't increasing in size & it's atmosphere is getting thicker ?
Growth is what we're trying to manage yet some people continue to advocate growth ?
Show me a nicely coloured map with the condition of the various layers of our atmosphere before showing me projected ones of bigger suburbs.
Also, a map showing the various sewerage outlets with projected overlays of the added flow rate would be interesting.

'Individual' Ross brings to mind a favourite joke of mine.

Q. What is the difference between Ross and a computer?
A. You only have to punch the information into a computer once!

Think of the environment that communities will have to exist with in
the not so far off time.
Energy will have high cost and be relatively scarce.
Globalisation will gradually fade away.
Everything, manufacturing, food production, education etc will become local.

Small towns are the way of the future, large cities will decline.
Transport will be electrified with light rail locally and heavy rail
for longer distances.
In that sort of civilisation Springfield looks very much like the future.
If as someone said there is no rail connection, then someone has not
looked into the future. I notice in the picture there is a motorway,
well fine, it will make a fine permway for a railway.