The Property Council is interested only in more development and more money. They are typical of the string pullers behind the mass immigration policies ruining Australia and “CBD health”.

That may have been the case in Brisbane, which had a reputation of being just a larger version of a small country town, but was not the case in Sydney, or most larger country towns for that matter.

In the early 60s Sydney CBD had all the best cinemas, a range of eateries & most of the night clubs. I guess it wasn't actually hopping as today, as there were no bars or discos, but who needs those?

You could actually park in the main streets for a trip for dinner & a movie, & it cost nothing.

Nothing would make me go into either CBD today, day or night. I have not been in one since I stopped having to deal with governments, about 20 years ago, thank god.

CBD's are choking on the congestion of their own success. Need to relocate and move to the periphery.

The bigger cities become the less habitable the become, while crime and mental health issues rise exponentially with growth and expansion. As does the carbon footprint.

Don't measure, decentralize!
Alan B.

CBDs are an anachronistic white elephant and an obstruction to traffic.

Understandably, real-estate investors are desperate not to lose their investments there, though they are no longer needed.

Yuyutsu,
The objective should be to move people, not traffic.
CBDs have a large catchment area - lots (sometimes millions) of people can get there easily. And that makes them attractive locations for employers - it gives them the best choice of workforce , and is a good location for meeting with clients and customers.

In the future, once we have high speed rail, I expect there to be a lot of decentralisation. But that won't make CBDs obsolete. The proportion of people working there 9 to 5 may decline, but the proportion of people doing some work there some of the time is likely to increase.

Dear Aidan,

Well if you just think of white-collar employers, then indeed CBDs are a golden goose. Not so for the poor employees who are forced to waste their time commuting and in heavier traffic too, nor for customers who are also forced to be on the road longer, nor for others who find it prohibitive to navigate around the surrounding suburbs due to CBD traffic. Most of us avoid the CBD to the extent we can.

Government (and yourself I presume) wants to increase the fire of the economy, employment and wages. Also CBDs are their geographical seats of power, so in order to save the CBD (and often also their and their friends' personal real-estate investments) from natural death they do two things:

1) Increase red-tape so that more office-workers are needed, requiring more office space. Instead of being truly productive and contributing to the general welfare and happiness, those workers only produce compliance and frustration, wasting the time of those who are forced to use their "services".
2) Initiate expensive public-transport projects to/from/through the CBD, with tax-payer's money of course and at the expense of roads elsewhere.

Aidan please explain how you can have high speed rail stopping every mile or so to pick up passengers.

Rather than transport people to any silly centre, it makes much more sense to move the facility to where the people live. & thus remove the need for & cost of all that travel.

Think with a bit wider thought mate. The statuesque is not a sensible future.

Hasbeen, please explain why you inferred something impossible that I never said nor implied?

I'm well aware that trains that stop every mile or so wouldn't be high speed. But I'm not advocating getting rid of the conventional railways and roads. Therefore there isn't a need to stop every mile or so, as people could use them to access the high speed rail.

Currently people are crowded into the main cities because that's where the jobs are - and the jobs are there because that's where the people are. Likewise with the cultural activities. But high speed rail would enable people in country areas to get to the big cities when they need to, so more people would move there, and employers would take advantage of that.