The “cost of infrastructure” argument is a smokescreen from corrupt and incompetent local governments who have already betrayed their constituents with rampant waste and “troughing”.
I did not mention immigration in my earlier comments. It is the quality of the immigrants that matters, not the quantity of them. Rampant cultural relativism leads to masses of useless immigrants swamping western economies infrastructure and welfare systems.
Here is the crux regarding the cost of infrastructure. By containing urban growth and forcing up the cost of housing, local government forces every young first home buyer to take on so much excess debt, that the total amount of this additional debt burden across a generation WOULD have paid for a gold-plated infrastructure expansion and renewal had the load been placed directly on young first home buyers for this purpose, by way of a six-figure levy. This would have been electorally impossible, obviously immoral and an inter-generational betrayal. But what HAS happened IS exactly that, even if few people have the gumption to realise it. But it is property investors and the banking sector who have stitched up the lion’s share of the younger generation’s hard-earned future income, not the providers of infrastructure…….!
Our ancestors were not fools for funding infrastructure for growth, out of local taxation revenue paid by everyone. This is simply an inter-generational “fair go”. Forcing up the price of new housing forces up the price of all housing, just as new taxes on new cars would make all used ones suddenly worth more too. This is very nice for everyone except those who buy their first home after the prices were driven up – and this includes “everyone from now on”. But the older generations, who enjoyed a fair go with house prices and a fair go with infrastructure cost sharing, now not only avoid “paying in” for the sake of their descendants, but they reap what the urban expert Prof Robert Bruegmann aptly describes as “the greatest inter-generational wealth transfer in history” in their favour. A society that does this to its young has an utterly broken moral compass.

Here is the real hidden reason that local government wants to “constrain urban growth”. On greenfields, everyone knows where they stand re infrastructure levies: infrastructure is put in, fees are paid. But when “intensification” occurs, local government rocks the fees in to the developer on the grounds that the existing infrastructure is inadequate and must be “expanded”. This is complete and utter fraud. Truth be told, local government has long since failed to fund op-ex, maintenance and renewal, does not want a local tax revolt, and strategically maneuvers developers into the position of being the cash cow by which 100% of these costs can be met without raising taxes. That is, they “double dip” when it comes to infrastructure in existing areas; they charge local taxes for decades, allegedly for the provision and maintenance of infrastructure in perpetuity; AND charge developers for the same costs, fraudulently labelled “capacity expansion”.
The high level of “localisation” of municipal incorporation is a valuable protection, in the USA, against this kind of fraud. And the cost of renewing infrastructure is a major problem in many cities BECAUSE OF excessively high density and extremely poor planning, the cost of access and disruption being prohibitive. Shlomo Angel et al in the recent paper “Making Room for a Planet Full of Cities” make a comprehensive argument for lower urban densities with plenty of space and rights-of-way for cost-effective infrastructure operation, maintenance, renewal and expansion.
The future of western civilisation is “owned” right now by the many US cities with freedom to build, ongoing fringe growth, low density, and affordable housing. The “cost of infrastructure” paradigm is steeply in their favour, along with the competitive advantage of low land costs and the absence of property “investment” Ponzi mania.
Pre-empting the inevitable smear of the “vested interests” of urban fringe developers: their profits, in a genuinely competitive market for urban land, are a miniscule fraction of the completely unearned capital gains when thousands of square kilometres of land within some planners “growth boundary” is inflated in “value” by several hundred percent

<< …suppose, for sake of argument, our population remained stable at current levels for the next ten years. As our current infrastructure is already inadequate and cannot cope with current levels, what improvements or changes or plans would you suggest or like to see implemented? >>

Scribbler, I would think that it would be quite different in different situations and that various combinations of current ideas would help alleviate congestion, to some extent.

New roads, light rail, busses, cycleways, car-pooling, incentives to decentralise or work from home, etc. These could all have some impact, presumably. Although I would guess that it would not be a huge impact in the depths of Sydney or Melbourne.

I don’t know beyond these broad suggestions. I would leave the details to the planners, who can spend their days carefully analysing the exact logistics, costs and benefits.

<< That was my original point. I hope this time I have managed to make it more clear. :) >>

I know! But dare I say it; it is nonsensical if you are just going to ignore the ever-increasing population. Not only nonsensical but it would actually be making the situation worse by facilitating population growth.

It comes down to the very basics of supply and demand. We should never be thinking about just one side of the equation, which is what you are doing here. You want us to debate only the supply side of the transport issue in congested cities and not even think about the demand side. And where the demand is constantly and rapidly increasing, this just completely does not make sense.

Riding the old hobby-horse as hard as ever I see, Ludwig.

>>It comes down to the very basics of supply and demand.<<

This was the aspect of the article under discussion that I found notably absent.

Companies choose to base themselves where it is most economically advantageous for their business. To do otherwise would be terminally stupid. Historically, CBDs have evolved because firms opt to be where the catchment area for staff is widest - that way, they can keep their employment costs under control.

But make no mistake; if it will save them money, they will migrate from the CBD to outlying areas in a heartbeat.

But the dilemma is principally one of "first-mover disadvantage". In order to convince businesses that such a move is advantageous, infrastructure must come first, otherwise the cost benefits will not be readily calculable. Sadly, it requires a "courageous" government in these Eeyore days to take the initiative, and these are as rare as rocking-horse poop.

But it can be done, where supply-and-demand actually work:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/realestate/12wczo.html?_r=0

"'Financial companies want to be near the train tracks so they can tap into the young people, who seem to want to live in New York City, and the workers who are older and live in the suburbs,' Mr. Fagan said. 'It gives you the full life cycle.'"

Regrettably, "integrated transport planning" simply does not happen here. NSW's recent attempt to develop a twenty-year plan under previous-premier Nick Greiner shows just how feebly we approach the task.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/nsw-transport-plan-to-take-20-years/story-e6frfku9-1226464345083

The complete absence of innovative thinking, and the blind acceptance that the answer is "more roads", is indicative of the malaise at the heart of every Australian government right now. A built-in preference to do nothing that will remotely jeopardize the chances of re-election. Receptus ignavorum. The coward's retreat.

And no, Ludwig, I am not going to debate the role of population control in this context.

Pericles, you are half right. I recommend an extremely enlightening online short book: "The Flow of Money and Its Impact on Local Economies" by William Fruth.

The simple fact is that strong CBD's are unique to only a few cities, that are sustained by flows of finance sector fee income and bureaucratic income.

It is impossible to multiply indefinitely, the "wealth transfer", "economic rent" based sector of national economies at the expense of the wealth-creating, land-and-resource using sectors; just so you can have strong CBD's everywhere with centralised employment and viable mass public transport systems. As I already said, this is "tail wagging the dog", it is "physical determinism" and it is "cargo cultism".

The US economy is highly productive precisely because it has the balance about right: it only has one "Manhattan" among 260 cities with populations over 500,000. It only NEEDS one. The whole WORLD only needs about 10 so called "global finance" cities.

In so far as "Manhattan" gets "replicated" elsewhere, this has to weaken the original.....! If global finance, law, accounting, advertising, firms decide to locate somewhere else, that is nice for centralisation of employment and/or apartment living in the place they go instead of Manhattan, but it weakens Manhattan in the process. But it would be absurd to expect Manhattan to be replicated in 200 US cities just so mass public transport is viable in all these cities. You can't expect Detroit to manufacture cars in a replica of Manhattan; the garment manufacturers left Manhattan decades ago for good reason; even less-lucrative finance businesses etc are being forced out by high rentals.

Germany has a so called "network of global cities" instead of one primary one, there is an interesting paper on this. But it also has a well balanced economy with plenty of real resource-utilising, wealth creating, value adding export industries, that no-one expects to "Manhattanise". (Cont.....)

(Cont.....) You might as well get all stressed out at the long distances that rural workers commute, and insist that farmers move into multi storey buildings so their workers too can catch trains. This is only slightly less absurd than expecting the entire urban economy in a nation to be based on tall building CBD's. There is a broad spectrum of land requirements in industry types that fall between "global finance" and farming.

It is noticeable that in the UK, the heaviest losses of competitiveness (and eventual shutdown) have been in land intensive urban industries like auto making. This is one of many perverse legacies of their urban planning system. Oliver Hartwich most insightfully commented a few months ago that "finance is the only industry still standing in post-modern Britain". Guess why the UK government is the world's staunchest opposer of "Tobin Taxes"? Guess what would happen to the local economy of London, which gets the biggest finance sector fee income of any city in the world? And what else is there in the UK economy worth writing home about? UK desperately needs a Houston. So does Australia.