I think development reaches the point where it defeats its own purpose. The city is great, the inner suburbs are great, but when we reach that dreaded fringe of outer suburbia, the greatness declines somewhat. People live in our capital cities, possibly because they choose to and possibly because that's where the jobs are. It's the people who travel from the suburban fringes who suffer the most from ridiculous traffic jams, and who find themselves trapped in an unnatural environment but without the benefits a city brings.

The development of 'subsidiary centres' such as Chatswood and Hornsby could help to solve this problem. I lived just outside Hornsby, in Mount Colah, for part of my childhood, and my family had to travel quite a long way to experience any of the benefits of city living. We had the benefit of a national park at the end of our street, which was where our focus lay; the treasures of Sydney were lost to us. Perhaps the reconfiguration of suburban centres into urban centres could reduce the need for people to travel to work, to travel to experience the joys of city living and to go about their daily lives. Obviously, governments can't just click their fingers and make this happen. Perhaps we shouldn't be so resistant to that idea.

I admit here that I'm talking about things that don't really affect me. Living in the outer fringes of Townsville, I don't have to worry about big city stuff. But I am still a long way from the action and, as new housing developments see the centre of gravity shifting west of the city itself, I see the gradual creep of suburban mediocrity overtaking the town.

Unlike ants and naked mole rats, people did not evolve as hive animals. It is therefore not surprising that many do not cope well with crowding, noise, pollution, being cut off from nature, constantly having to interact with strangers, etc., etc. Prof Robert Cummins in his Australian Unity Wellbeing Index found that people in general are happier at lower densities, even if they have less money.

http://acqol.deakin.edu.au/index_wellbeing/report-19-1-part-a.pdf

The correlation only breaks down for the highest income group, the sorts of people who are likely to have a country house as well as a city flat.

Another source of enlightenment is Prof Bill Randolph's "Children in the Compact City" on the effects of high density on children's physical and social development. (Even Peter Hume would admit that children aren't given a choice.)

http://www.fbe.unsw.edu.au/cf/publications/cfprojectreports/attachments/childreninthecompactcity.pdf

In summary, high traffic densities in modern cities are so dangerous that children cannot be allowed to play outside without constant adult supervision. Parks tend to be taken over by gangs of youths and sometimes by derelicts, making them unattractive for parents and young children. Children are often kept indoors, especially if their mother is depressed or belongs to an ethnic group that encourages women to stay at home. When they are at home, neighbours will complain instantly about noise, so the children are kept pacified with television or computer games, or distracted with junk food.

The relentless population growth that is driving urban consolidation is almost entirely due to deliberate government policy. 63.4%, on the latest figures, is due to immigration. With only natural increase, we would get perhaps another 3 or 4 million people before it ended and then went negative, not a doubling in 33 years. When have we been given a choice or vote about the migrant intake? The Rudd government concealed its intentions to further boost the population before the last election. Why is Peter Hume against the government imposing taxes, but (apparently) in favour of the government imposing population growth?

"Why is Peter Hume against the government imposing taxes, but (apparently) in favour of the government imposing population growth?"

I'm not sure that it is. The number of people in the world who are ready, willing and able to immigrate into Australia is enormous; far more than we let in. What is stopping them is government. So in that sense, government is by far the single biggest factor preventing population growth.

It only seems that government is causing population growth if we assume a hypothetical stasis that is based in... what?

I used to live in Sydney but moved away because of the traffic, and I now live far far away where it is more beautiful but inconvenient in just about every way. My father-in-law came from Newcastle, whose environs were a veritable paradise in the 1930s and 1940s, which he has seen overrun with people. And I have seen the same in my favourite haunts on the Central Coast. So I sympathise with the desire for what have we loved but lost; and the desire for open spaces. Sometimes we just want the world to stop but you know, it is neither practical nor desirable to stop it, because other people have their values and happiness to pursue, and it is not for us to call for policy to try to curtail their liberties, engineer society or impose a one-sided dream of stasis.

Also, what about equity, and sharing, and all that? I like people and if they want to live and be free, that is good enough for me. I think we need to learn to be more tolerant, not always trying to use the state to impose our values on other people. People come here and insist on breathing our air and taking up our view with their damn want of food, clothing and shelter and I say, that's life. If you want more space, don't live in the city! There's plenty of space and sometimes, we just have to be tolerant and rely on your own liberties, not on suppressing others'.

"It means conserving what we value, and having the guts to stand up for our heritage."
Who is we and our? Why should the values of we override the values of them?

Australia does indeed have plenty of space. Unfortunately, the vast majority of it is desert. We already have serious problems with finding enough water for just the existing population. That is why there is endless conflict over irrigation rights, why Ramsar listed wetlands are threatened, why there are permanent water restrictions in almost all of our cities, and why the politicians are building expensive, energy hungry desalination plants up and down our coasts.

Libertarians put a halo around private property, but ignore the fact that we also have collective property. If Melbourne, say, is a good place to live, with an attractive environment and good public services and infrastructure, it is because the current residents and their predecessors have made it so. In my view, I have no more right to move to a city or country where a majority of the existing residents feel that the population is already large enough than I do to help myself to Peter Hume's car, television set, or bank account.

While there are a number of ways that we can (and should) help the world's poor to help themselves, immigration is not the solution to global poverty. If anything, it makes the problem worse, because people see it as a personal solution, reducing pressure for the reform at home that will provide the only real and lasting solution. As plerdsus likes to say on this forum, Australia could take in 80 million people and turn the whole country into a stinking slum, but this would only amount to one year's global population growth. Open borders is a recipe for making Australia as poor, populous, and environmentally degraded as the places that people are risking their lives to escape. The people who promote it for their own economic or other advantage, because they want a nanny or gardener who will work cheap, for example, are nothing but traitors.

Sydney is one thing but to witness the same dramatic changes evolving on the Gold Coast is visual evidence of the decline in livability in the sunshine state. The GC has a population of half a million people and is a city created out of a beach culture and tourism that revolves around the natural environment.

But the drive for densification is rapidly destroying the goose that laid the golden egg or put another way altering the very element that made it what it is. The GC has learnt little from the development of Sydney or for that matter overseas cities.

The GCCC recently confirmed in writing that natural enjoyment was something that is undertaken in the hinterland, which is akin to saying that Centennial Park and others should be developed and Sydneysiders travel to the Blue Mountains for a natural experience. They see no need to protect the natural environment.

The point is that Europeans generally understand the need to be conscience of their open spaces and green fields for obvious population reasons. However, we take conservation for granted but in reality are rapidly destroying the lifestyle that we have bragged about for years, taken for granted and vacated out of apathy.

Conserving the habitats of people, I suggest, is extraordinarily vital. When a city urbanizes its parks and green fields at the same time as the city we are going backwards