Cox, in neglecting to recognize the demand side of the equation on housing prices, is not alone amongst commentators calling for more land to be made available for housing.

As I have said before in response to other posts on this site - we have to address the demand side before we begin to think about making housing prices more affordable. Our immigration rates are at or near record levels and no end seems to be in sight to government's manic desire to bring in more and more people. These immigrants must live somewhere surely; or do they simply dissolve into the population without producing any "footprint"?

The situation with immigration in Canada is not much different to ours so it does not surprise me to learn that Vancouver and Sydney are the two most expensive housing markets of those covered in the survey Cox refers to.

Not a word in this article about what is driving the suburban cancer - population increase and what is driving that - insane immigration levels and misplaced family welfare.

The writer is clearly a member of,or paid mouthpiece for,The Boosters Club.

I find it difficult to get excited by articles like this.

I can understand that if you live in Melbourne, or out in the sticks, it may provide a little frisson of Schadenfreude for a moment or two. But to someone who actually chooses to live in the most beautiful city in the world, it is utterly meaningless.

To a demographer, a lot of the numbers cannot make any sense, I'm sure. The vital statistics of how much a plot of land costs, and how long it takes to get to work must be a constant fascination to them. But to someone who has lived here for more than twenty years out of choice, and will only be moved out in a box, they are totally irrelevant.

Sure, we have one of the least effective, and possibly most corrupt, State Governments in the country. No question, our Local Councils are a pathetic mirror of the State operations, more interested in factional politics and brown paper bags than actually working for their communities. As a result, our infrastructure is rooted, and our planning laws a poor joke, in which political wheeling destroys more in a day than common sense achieves in a lifetime.

But every time the sun comes up over the city, or reddens the Bridge in late afternoon, that all becomes totally irrelevant.

Don't see what the fuss is about.

A tale of two cities Atlanta Georgia, and Sydney Australia. Atlanta housing about $200,000 average. Sydney about $600,000. The difference: In Atlanta everyone is guaranteed a jury trial on request in any matter involving over $20 by the US Constitution. In Sydney since 1970, it was taken away from us, and it was never granted by the gangster dominated Federal Parliament in the Federal Court of Australia.

The result is that we are governed by lawyers and gangsters, and there is not a lot of difference between the two. The lawyers have an organised gang called the Law Society and dominate the Liberal Party and have a fairly heavy presence in the Labor Party too.

What is reallly sad is that the Parliament of the Commonwealth has fixed the problem, but the State Judges and Magistrates do not allow the Federal Law to apply. We wrote to Baulkham Hills council last year and pointed this out to them, and they said, please take us to court and set us free.We had to admit there is no court to take them to yet. The Land and Environment Court is a lawyers Court. The Federal Court is a lawyers Court, and the High Court is a lawyers Court.

We do not live in a democracy, we live in a lawyers republic, and freedom is an illusion. Until KR and his lot stop being closet Liberals and abolish S 39 Federal Court of Ausrtralia Act 1976, and Order 46 Rule 7A Federal Court Rules Sydney will continue to be the home of sickoes, homeless, and mentally disturbed people without a hope of effective treatment.

The Labor Party Federally fixed the problem. The Liberals have frustrated the solution for 11.5 years. The Labor Party should bite the bullet and fix the Federal Court and watch the fur fly

Today,we have compromised government institutions, feeding urban planners and their insiders(within the urban boundary) damming their own children,elderly,newcomers and the marginalized less than worthy to small box living which has failed everywhere for centuries. Hands up who wants to move into these high density living sandwich boxes and thereby transfer their traditionally australia backyard lifestyle positions to those who truly want them. Do I hear a whimper,No! What a bunch of weak and greedy,selfishly large bunch of politically correct, nimby, flea bitten hypocrites.

I don't want to live in a box nor hours away from the city/workplace.

I want to live in the city as it used to be (in this case Perth) before population growth, largely (if not all)driven by government policy on immigration and its inducements for us to breed, breed, breed.