What about the huge flow of INTERNAL migration?

The Age reported on April 24 this year ABS figures showing that while Melbourne was growing at 75,000 a year, Brisbane and Perth are each growing at nearly 45,000 a year. Brisbane (not including the Gold and Sunshine Coasts) will pass 2 million in October this year and Melbourne will pass 4 million in December.

61% of Melbourne's growth last year was on the fringes - a sociological and environmental disaster.

The SE Queensland Regional Development Plan projects more than an extra million people in the SouthEast in under 20 years. It requires 40-50% of new dwellings to be constructed within the existing urban footprint, and new greenfield developments to be on smaller blocks of 400-600 square metres. Brisbane is seeing huge infill activity - essential to prevent eventual loss of all the countryside.

How do you stop all these people coming? Bring in Russian/Soviet residence permits (propiski)? Or wait for prices to get so high that would-be internal migrants are priced out - as people are being priced out of Sydney?

Or do you accept the inevitability of population increase and plan to minimize its impact on livability?

The projected large increase in population and in density within developed areas presents a huge challenge to planners and legislators to prevent loss of livability.

Trees – particularly large, shady trees – are vital to preventing this loss. Developments must make sympathetic and generous provision of space around building footprints to retain existing trees and to plant additional ones, especially larger species which make the difference between seas of hot walls and roofs and leafy, cool, livable and beautiful suburbs. Existing public open space and recreation areas must be preserved and where possible increased. Vegetation Protection Laws must be legally enforceable. Local communities can help identify vegetation and spaces of high social and environmental amenity for them.

Governments must enforce architectural design for sustainable housing appropriate to the climate. Building footprints should be minimized to retain existing trees. Urban areas must provide a mix of housing lot sizes. And children need open space!

Glorfindel trots out some of the usual empty rhetoric:

"How do you stop all these people coming? Bring in Russian/Soviet residence permits (propiski)? Or wait for prices to get so high that would-be internal migrants are priced out - as people are being priced out of Sydney?"

Easy answer: stop issuing building permits.

"Or do you accept the inevitability of population increase and plan to minimize its impact on livability?"

Even the U.N. is stating that global population growth will stop in this century. How then is growth inevitable? How much growth must we accommodate before you would say enough is enough? Do you wish, as Tim, comments, to let even more people onto an already full elevator? And finally, how are large urban concentrations sustainable, and even viable, in a Post Peak Oil world? We have no other energy source on the horizon that will make up for the loss of fossil fuels.

Glorfindel says: "What about the huge flow of INTERNAL migration?"

Most of the population growth in our capital cities is being driven by external, i.e. overseas, migration. Thus, the focus of debate needs to be on external immigration, not internal population movements.

"Or do you accept the inevitability of population increase and plan to minimize its impact on livability?"

That's a bit like the driver of a speeding car telling his passengers that they should brace for impact as he speeds 180 km/h toward a cliff. When the passengers tell the driver to brake, he responds: "Why don't you just accept the inevitability of our current trajectory and plan to minimize its impact?"

In truth, there is nothing inevitable about the projected population explosion that you refer to. Contrary to your assertions, population growth in Australia is not some natural, undirected phenomenon that we have no control over. Rather, it is a direct result of government policy, specifically immigration policy. Without immigration, our population would already be in the process of stabilising.

We could curb population growth tomorrow by simply reducing immigration to much saner levels. All that is needed is the political will.

"Urban areas must provide a mix of housing lot sizes. And children need open space!"

But immigrants need shopping malls more. And since they are the ones driving Australia's population growth, not children, it is likely that the good urban planning principles that you promote will be ignored in the mad frenzy to cram millions more people into our already overcrowded capital cities.

Excellent article Tim.

But we should always differentiate between good growth and bad growth, as the two types are absolutely poles apart.

Good growth is stuff that leads to genuine progress. It includes better resource-use efficiency, the development of alternative energy sources and methodologies and technological advances that facilitate these things.

Bad growth is continuous expansion of resource consumption and continuously increasing economic turnover due to population growth. It is stuff that weakens the demand / supply relationship, while not improving our average quality of life.

It is very good to see that there is a lot of sympathy amongst OLO contributors for the views expressed in this article. This has been the case for many similar articles on this forum. So the next step is to work how to achieve a non-expansionist paradigm.

In theory it is so very easy to make a huge advance in Australia simply by reducing immigration to somewhere near zero and abolishing the baby bonus bribe. But with the continuous growth paradigm so entrenched, how do we get this implemented?

The continuous growth paradigm is not inevitable. The implementation of a non-expansionist sustainability paradigm is inevitable. But how do we get the general community and politicians to embrace it, with urgency?

Ludwig comments: "Good growth is stuff that leads to genuine progress. It includes better resource-use efficiency, the development of alternative energy sources and methodologies and technological advances that facilitate these things."

I no issue for the most part with these things in and of themselves, and am certainly not in favor of wasting things. However, at present these seem to be nothing more than enabling behaviours for our addiction to growth. Without an overarching strategy which looks to reduce consumption, halt and even reverse population growth, and acknowledge our not-so-privileged place on this small and beleaguered planet, such measures are, as a good friend has noted, simply rearranging the deck chairs while the Titanic sinks beneath us. We have no political leadership with this sort of broad vision and understanding, and indeed our leaders seem to be doing their utmost to hasten the coming collapse. The truly sad part is that we will let them get away with it, unless the future sees some sort of environmental crimes tribunal.

I concur with the above comments. A friend living in Melbourne often displays her angst with the current government's obsession with growth and the never-ending push into bushland.

Many overseas migrants are encouraged first to live in cities like Adelaide as most prefer Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth. What happens is after the agreed period they often head up to QLD or move to other cities increasing the amount of internal migration to the larger centres.

Not only are cities like Melbourne expanding but they are doing it in the face of severe water shortages. The irresponsible north-south pipeline project is testament to the selfishness of this growth push much to the detriment of rural dwellers and the health of our river systems.

Nick Xenophon is right when he argues for water management to be handled at the national level. This is the only way our national rivers can be protected from selfish state interests and one up-manship.

How do we get our governments out of the habits of this growth obsession? You have to wonder sometimes if they represent the people or just a handful of property developers.

The only option is to aim for sustainability:

- set an agreed limit for our population that is sustainable
- one in one out immigration policy
- no baby bonuses or paid parental leave
- a measured and well planned decentralisation project to boost ailing rural areas and relieve pressure on larger urban centres
- careful management of our river systems and the regional/urban divide
- more emphasis on locally grown food production centres