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The Forum > Article Comments > Better suburbs = better cities > Comments

Better suburbs = better cities : Comments

By Ross Elliott, published 29/5/2015

It's the trendy thing to quote Richard Florida's 'creative class' theories which become the excuse to increasingly spoil inner city workers with transport, cultural and other forms of taxpayer funded infrastructure.

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I would like to thank the author for this article. The obsession with the inner city is strange. I have lived my entire life outside the inner city, mostly in the suburbs, but also in country towns. I would like policy-makers to focus on where most people live. The suburbs are not the wasteland portrayed regularly in the pages of The Age. They are mostly pleasant places to live.

The Board of Works determined the shape of Melbourne 44 years ago – a set of development corridors separated by green wedges. The Board of Works set aside 2,670 square kilometres for green wedges and 2,359 square kilometres as urban land. As The Age reported at the time, ‘The plan is for Melbourne to grow out along seven major corridors, each four to six mile wide, and separated by permanent non-urban wedges’. (“Blueprint for Melbourne 2000”, 29/11/1971). Note ‘permanent’.

Now we are subject to pressure to eat away the green wedges and to force higher densities on green suburbs. Instead we need decentralisation.

There is a planning history in my posts at:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/2010/10/20/what-should-we-do-about-melbourne/.
Posted by Chris C, Friday, 29 May 2015 9:51:27 AM
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Thought provoking article Ross, or at least it should be!

Instead of dormitory suburbs feeding an inner area with grid locked commuters, we need to instead build/create/plan satellite cities replete with their own CBD and industrial estates.

Far more rational decentralization; and a brand new residential housing estate/carcass, for the white shoe brigade to squabble over!

And finally made truly feasible by new desal (which treats salt or waste water) for around quarter of the current cost; and returning as much as 97% as the safest possible potable water!?

And designed from the ground up, these new cities could be entirely self powered, and just from the waste they would make!?

The last piece of the jigsaw being the roll out of rapid rail, and made affordable by the sale of resumed and rezoned land, which would fund all of it; and is where we would build the brand new cities!

And solve multiple problems with one fowl stroke, the first be the long overdue return of genuinely affordable housing/the end of the 2-3 hour long commute/wasted productive time; which by the way, costs the nation somewhere in the order of 50 billion per?
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Friday, 29 May 2015 12:00:39 PM
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Suburbs are indeed very important. But do you have any actual evidence that they're being neglected in favour of our inner cities?
Posted by Aidan, Friday, 29 May 2015 12:34:59 PM
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Why make it so hard to fix, when the answer is so simple. Move the bureaucrats.

There is no longer any reason to cluster public servants around parliament. We could relocate 80% of them into a ring around the outer suburbs, dispersing much of the peak hour traffic flow into expanding areas rather than concentrating it in the city. We can then convert those high rise offices to inner city apartments for all those greenies, who want to live as far from nature as possible.

With the many overpaid bureaucrats gone some of the high end retail effort will follow, reducing even further the peak hour crush, improving regional shopping as an extras benefit. Thus fixing the cities is so simple it's laughable how planners can get it so wrong.

A couple of questions Rhrosty, what is your idea with rapid rail. Rail can only be rapid if it does long distances without stopping. It can service intercity, & perhaps satellite cities, but is useless for suburban transit. Are you suggesting your satellite cities are high density lumps far apart? Concentrating population on rail corridors requires stop start commuter rail systems.

Secondly, please forget your preoccupation with resumptions. No one has a right to remove a group of land owners by force, for the good of anyone else. If you want someone's land, pay enough to make them want to sell, not rip it off them.

Thirdly how do you think selling subdivided blocks will pay for anything. If done by bureaucrats, the only way to give profits to government, you can be sure there would no profits, but another huge loss making mess. It is the nature of the beast.

So yes, satellite cities by all means, but not on land acquired by force, & stick the bureaucrats offices in them, not still transport bureaucrats to an old city offices.
Posted by Hasbeen, Friday, 29 May 2015 6:15:26 PM
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Yes Has, brand new satellite cities built from the ground up; replete with their own CBD's and industrial estates!

And independently powered by thorium reactors, and or the waste cities and towns etc; currently waste!

And yes, I would resume land that people have just acquired as money for nothing land banks/grabs!

Besides, all cities and towns are always built on land once owned by someone else!

The world does not owe anyone a living!

I like your idea of moving the bureaucrats, and having some of the interdependent commercial interest follow them.

Some of the current rail corridors could be given over exclusively to "mixed use" high rise, and those acquiring it for that purpose must be able to build within twelve months!

Even one land baron is one too many; and one of the principle reasons for the current lack of housing affordability!

I like the idea of brand new mono rails sited on the green space/concrete, that divides commuter highways; so they can sail on by gridlocked and crawling traffic; and the interminable traffic lights.

The underside of the wide rail can still provide space for street lighting, enclosed electric wires/fibre, that exit underground?

This could reduce the amount of urban land need to provide commuter options; and indeed, reduce the gridlock?

I'd like computer controlled, driverless, queuing, on demand gondolas, that follow endless circuits; meaning, waiting half an hour during peak hour times, could be reduced to say just five minutes and rolled out as transport for the longer express commutes?

I'd suppose that they could be powered by magnetron drives, meaning they'd possibly be able to accelerate up to 900+ klms PH?

That'd eliminate the need for inboard comfort facilities? Wait five minutes and use the ones at the destination?

I mean Gold Coast to Brissie, could be faster than you could fart; and given the acceleration and top speed, some would be sure to have oops, (boom boom) lumps in them?

You have a nice day now.
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Saturday, 30 May 2015 12:18:04 PM
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Dear Hasbeen,

<<We could relocate 80% of them into a ring around the outer suburbs>>

Good idea... but not in MY suburb: I fear for my health!

Why not send them to the moon instead?
Oops, that would spell the death of all romance!
Posted by Yuyutsu, Saturday, 30 May 2015 9:08:42 PM
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