“Fashionable free-standing houses set in curly mazes of streets make for wasted space”.

That is a theme I heard thundered to an audience by a staunch grid man visiting from California. And I was very taken by it – unfavourably.

The particular locality being discussed, in most disparaging terms, happened to be an undulating landscape.

Worse, I happened to be part of the team which had provided the information from which streetscapes and housing could be designed. The resulting design was a best fit of topography and significant components of existing vegetation. Opportunity remained within that framework to give due respect to the great God Ra (pity about Osiris). It was not cheering find planning tenets demanding supplication to the God Mars via the grid style of vintage Roman military encampments.

I live in the same non-grid suburbia, unrepentant, on an 860 square metre patch of land. It cheers me no end to be able to assist, via my veggie patch etc., in slowing-down water run-off when heavy rain does fall. And there is enough space so that the blue-tongue lizards don’t need to pay rent, nor the parrots ask permission to cadge an apricot.

Why should I live high-rise, and have vegetables and fruit imported all the way from the dessicated landscapes of the Murray-Darling – aren’t they already doing it tough enough without more pressure?

What is more – why should I save water and squeeze-up with a neighbor for the sole purpose of enabling an increasing population? That increase will certainly proceed towards an ever-lower standard of living, while increasing pressure upon the problems of climate change and environmental assets.

It's difficult to decide where to start given the number of canards this article contains: (poor) people in less developed countries don't use air conditioning because their houses are properly designed; housing developments are stealing fertile farmland; houses cause population growth; two storey houses are more sustainable than bungalows (this one is particularly odd, given the author's attitude to 'McMansions' which are generally two-storey); etc., etc.

Accurate information on some of these topics is available from the likes of: http://www.demographia.com/

Thanks Valerie, there is indispensable core wisdom here. You have actually described the Andalusian village housing model, going back to the Middle Ages but still standing hundreds of years later under accumulated layers of whitewash. I wrote about this in the chapter on Spanish villages in my book 'Walking the Camino'.

How to reproduce this today in Australia's individualistic housing market? Not so easy. But the basic pinciples you set out so well - of spending money at the outset on building heavy thermal mass walls and well insulated roofs,combined with intelligent use of the human capacity to open and close doors and curtains at different times of the day and night (it is actually quite essy to do this) is almost as applicable to free-standing houses on individual blocks as to well-designed connected terrace housing, as in a Spanish village.

My two pennys worth is that the government should set building codes that are appropriate for what ever is comming aditionally First home buyers grants should be restricted to efficient designs and constructions. I would also suggest stamp duty be reduced on these effecient homes. If people want Mc mansions etc they should pay.

It would make much more sense to provide incentives to the owners of Australia's 9 million existing homes to make them more sustainable (rainwater tanks, solar PV, solar hot water, insulation, etc.) than to keep fixating on the design codes for the 130,000 or so new homes that are built each year. Even if all the new homes were state of the art, it would take 50 years for only half of the homes to be at the desired standard.

While I can see the sense in the original article, I think the posters who have already given their opinions make a lot of sense as well. A sustainable future should, perhaps, be built upon improving the sustainability of existing homes and ensuring that new homes meet stringent standards.

In addition, I maintain that the "need" for air conditioning is a state of mind. I have lived in my tropical home without air conditioning for some time and, admittedly, there are days when I would kill for aircon, but most of the time I am content to rely on the high(ish) ceilings and large windows to keep me cool. My energy bill has never exceeded $120 a quarter, and that includes ambulance cover.

As for the beautiful crescents of terrace housing, the first image that springs to mind is one of London townhouses, built during the enlightenment and Victorian eras. What is missing from the picture is the wide expanse of green space. Sure, there are private gardens for the pleasure of local residents, but these "pockets" do not allow for the needs of our native wildlife. My windowsills constantly need cleaning thanks to the geckoes and green tree frogs; my car is carefully parked out of the firing range of the bats that inhabit my front yard. And I have long given up on flowering plants, much to the disgust of my local wallaby population. They have to make do with my lawn instead. Take all of this away from suburbia, and what do we have? Another desolate urban wasteland and a large number of homeless critters.