Scribbler: "smaller population = less tax revenue."

So what? A smaller population = a smaller requisite infrastructure outlay.

Interestingly, Finland, Switzerland, Denmark, and Norway all have significantly smaller populations than Australia but all enjoy better urban infrastructure than anything one finds in this country.

<< You see the fact that Australia's land mass is 0.6% urbanised, shock, horror, and I see it as quite OK to increase this by, say, 0.01% per decade for a few decades, as some sort of crime against the Gaia Earth Mother. >>

Dear oh dear Phil, it would not just be the area of land consumed by new cities and towns under your decentralisation plan that would impinge on the environment. You’d have to consider the total human footprint.

And what about the quality of life of existing residents in those currently small centres on which very rapid growth rates would be imposed?

So I’ve got to ask; which is more important to you – effectively dealing with congestion or allowing our population to rapidly increase with no end in sight?

For all your apparent knowledge and concern about congested cities, it would appear that the latter absolutely takes priority with you.

Why??

The inescapable fact is that population growth worsens congestion in our already badly congested cities. And therefore, it should be one of the keys factors that the likes of yourself and Ross Elliott should be lobbying to reduce.

Decentralisation just doesn’t cut it! Even the most amazingly effective decentralisation, along with our best efforts at building new roads, upgrading existing roads, implementing bus, train and bicycle alternatives to driving one’s own car, etc, would in all probability fall way short of achieving large-scale reductions to congestion. And high and continuous population growth would work directly against these efforts!

So it appears to me that you are a presenting a very contradictory POV Phil.

.

Spot on, drab.

Some good examples there, drab.

>>Interestingly, Finland, Switzerland, Denmark, and Norway all have significantly smaller populations than Australia but all enjoy better urban infrastructure than anything one finds in this country.<<

Denmark has the second-highest level of taxation in the world, some 55% higher than Australia (48.8% of GDP, vs. our 31.5%).

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/tax_tot_tax_as_of_gdp-taxation-total-as-of-gdp

Finland and Norway are not far behind, on 46.9% of GDP (49% higher) and 40.3% (28% higher) respectively. Switzerland is still living off the income of all those secret "deposits" made in the 1940s, so is not strictly comparable, but even there, the tax take is over 13% higher.

It would seem that a more obvious comparison would be "the higher the tax rate, the better the infrastructure".

But of course, that wouldn't support your theory, so can safely be ignored.

What a lot of post-rational nonsense on this thread. A few examples of nations with lower population than "x", have good infrastructure, therefore low population = good infrastructure? Whatever happened to objective analysis; data sets, correlations, causations? Presumably Guyana, Djibouti and East Timor also have fabulous infrastructure?

Finland, Switzerland, Denmark, and Norway have mostly managed to avoid the absurd inflation of the price of urban land relative to incomes and GDP, that has accompanied "urban planning" unreasons in Australia. Expect fiscal problems at all levels of government in any of these countries that go the same way as the UK, California, and Australia. These nations infrastructure problems are a legacy of utter unreason in urban planning, which is what my earlier comments expose.

One of the biggest unreasons in our age, is the "cultural relativism" that ignores that a nation with centuries of a near monoculture of Protestantism with strong ethics of work, thrift, education and personal responsibility, miiiiiight just be more successful than multicultural societies or nations with mono-cultures that are stuck in the medieval era or worse.

Scandinavians who have emigrated to the USA are far more prosperous than those back home. Somalians in the USA are far more prosperous than Somalians in Scandinavia.

Pericles makes a good point. Perhaps the answer is "the more that has been spent on the right infrastructure, the better"?

Ludwig deliberately smokescreens the issues by not engaging with my actual point. Now it’s

“…..the quality of life of existing residents in those currently small centres on which very rapid growth rates would be imposed…..”

There is AMPLE land to build “new cities” without having to spoil anyone’s view, but why shouldn’t people in “small centres” simply move out to the numerous further “small centres” that exist in hinterlands all over the country? It is utterly non-democratic, elitist, and a betrayal of the younger generation if a selfish minority hold the urban future hostage.

As for the “total human footprint”, is Australia not utilising massive amounts of land for resource extraction and food production, for EXPORT? Didn’t I say this already?

<< Ludwig deliberately smokescreens the issues by not engaging with my actual point. >>

What point is that, Phil?

That we should keep on building new cities, and then when they become congested, build some more, and so on, ad-nauseum? And that this sort of decentralisation (or recentralisation) comprises your whole argument to combat congestion!

Is this the point that I am supposedly missing?

Please clarify. Thankyou.

<< As for the “total human footprint”, is Australia not utilising massive amounts of land for resource extraction and food production, for EXPORT? >>

So what’s your point here? That it is ok to just keep on converting agricultural landscapes into city-scapes and urban sprawl?

Ever-more people would mean ever-less productive agricultural land, ever-more domestic consumption of our produce and ever-less export income, all else being equal. How do you think this would work for us as our population burgeons?

continued

I asked you three questions in my last post.

The first one was:

>> …what about the quality of life of existing residents in those currently small centres on which very rapid growth rates would be imposed? <<

Your answer is that they should simply pull up stumps and move to the new urban fringe or whatever environment that they find most attractive, and that it is perfectly alright for there to be large-scale population growth in their areas and that if they don’t like it, tough bickies! Hmmmm!

But you have completely avoided the other two questions.

Are they too hard?

I repeat them:

>> …which is more important to you – effectively dealing with congestion or allowing our population to rapidly increase with no end in sight? <<

and

>> For all your apparent knowledge and concern about congested cities, it would appear that the latter absolutely takes priority with you. Why?? <<