Brad, you say..."Citizens should be shown the benefits of sustainable living." I say, you can show them all you like, but unfortunately true sustainability means putting an end to our current "growth at all cost" mentality and it's simply not going to happen. In the last couple of decades there's been an elevated interest in Permaculture, which is a good thing for those that are genuinely interested, but lets face facts. Permaculture could possibly save humanity from itself, but not without firstly putting an end to the growth interests of big business and consumers addicted to our current unsustainable way of life. The present notion of Permaculture leaves humanity with a warm, fuzzy feeling that everything can continue as normal without any, or with minor disruption to lifestyles should they too take up the Permaculture challenge, but it's not so.
Income and property growth go hand in hand with population growth and humans, being the greedy little pillagers they are, they won't stop until our planet is uninhabitable. Forget trying to plan for sustainable cities. You only have to look at the Boxing Day sales rush to see how greedy and unsustainable our lives have become. While you're extrolling the virtues of sustainability, make sure you keep your backside well tucked in against a brick wall or else risk being trampled to death by the crowds of humanity as they sing and dance their way down the road to Armageddon!

“Buildings are designed with sustainability in mind, with energy and water efficiency and novel ways to recycle your rubbish. Who says you can’t buy environmental values?”

Blah!

Some buildings are being designed with more thought about energy and water consumption. But, that’s hardly difficult, given our terribly overconsumptive and inefficient practices. It doesn’t take an Einstein to considerably improve on this. While these sorts of improvements are welcome, they don’t direct us towards sustainability for as long as the growth of our cities continues unabated.

“Nevertheless, we need to look into the future and set the right goals for our cities as they continue to grow.”

Brad, this is the classic contradiction that so many people seem to express; a desire to be more efficient and to move towards sustainability, but without even questioning the absurdity of continuous growth and hence the ever-increasing rate of resource consumption despite improvements in per-capita consumption.

We are not going to achieve sustainability if we continue down the same track of rapid continuous growth with no end in sight.

The thing that you completely miss in your article is any sense of a limit to the size of our cities, reached by good planning with sustainability in mind, rather than being reached by a lack of planning, resulting in people stopping their movement into the cities because of declined quality of life factors.

We cannot just sit back and accept the continuous expansion of our cities. Limits to growth – this is the biggest single issue in the struggle for sustainability.

I agree with other posters that whether growth of cities and materialism generally could be or should be limited is important to consider. But assuming that the drivers of economic and population growth are not likely to be switched off in the forseeable future, what can be done to prevent the decline of cities into increasing unaffordability and unliveability, a kind of urban hell that only the wealthy can insulate themselves from?

I think Brad has hit upon some of the ideas, such as decentralising city employment so that travel distances are reduced. Australians will also have to get used to increased urban densities as a cost of economic and population growth. But much of this is bound up in the issue of what kind of economy Australia will have in an increasingly globalised world economy. One key to the future sustainability of the major cities could well be a revival of the old, and mostly failed, idea of decentralisation. What can be done to reduce the decline of the rural economy, and to offset reduced rural employment from agribusiness integration and efficiency? These factors combined with drought, pressure from agricultural imports and the unwillingness of young people to inherit family farms is leading to the decline of rural towns.

Would a revitalised rural and regional sector boost these small and large rural towns, reducing the population drift to the cities and easing pressure on them? And how can it be achieved?

The groaning city of Adelaide.
This State Capital has been supported by prosperous regions such as the Riverland and the Lower South East of the State.
It relys on the taxes from these prosperous regions to sustain its existence.
The Adelaide automotive industry relies on State and Federal Subsidies.
Today the State and that means Adelaide rely on GST cash from the Federal Governmnet.
To call South Australia a State is an insult to the four most sustainable states of the Commonwealth.
The amalgamation of S.A. and the Northern Territory is the only positive move that the nation can make to advance the country in this century.
The scrapping of Adelaide as the State Capital for Alice Spings or Darwin would stop the groaning that comes out of Adelaide by every local politatian.
If taxes were redirected back to the economic producing centres of
Australia, the nation could become the richest country per capita
on the planet.
Importing cheap workers from overseas has always been the way Adelaide has approached any lack of skills.
The cheap labor price of S.A. is a national disgrace,most of the S.A. population live in poverty of less thgan $15,000 per annum and are forced to pay top rates and taxes on rates and water.

Put the HUMAN FACE back into COMMUNITY.

Housing?

Housing Policies?

The role of the Bank is unsustainable?

Calculate the Real Level of Household Poverty?

Count the real level of HOMELESSNESS!

Australia dreams ....... that our cities...........

.............................................................."...aren’t just economically competitive and ecologically sustainable, but cities that are socially alive, with minimal inequality and maximal liveability. Anything’s possible if we work together."

Unsustainable Rural Commuities vs the Unsustainable Urban sprawl. No one wins this way.

Fair Go Australia needs a Revamp!

http://www.miacat.com

Today John Howard said, regarding nuclear power, something like "everybody knows that our power needs are going to increase ... its common sense ...".

Duh? Isn't it common sense to stop this problem at source i.e. stop immigration? It is a shameful grab for votes from the business and immigration lobbies to be bringing in more migrants when we dont have the water or energy. And a shameful way to cook-the-books to make everyone think the country is "growing" when our quality of life is declining - as shown by plans in Strathfield to pack more people on top of each other in highrise concrete jungles.

And I heard Amanda Vanstone bunging on about how our population will decline and there will be no-one to look after us in the nursing homes unless we have immigration of young people who have lots of babies. We are quite capable of looking after ourselves without more immigration.