City traffic congestion seems to be a growing problem -
especially in major cities like Sydney and Melbourne.
We lived in Los Angeles where a cohesion of cities
were linked by freeways. The city centre was just another
area that could be avoided.

My husband while working for the Melbourne
Public Works Department a few decades ago -
recalls coming across a Master Plan done in
the 1940s for the decentralisation of Melbourne.

The
Master Plan back then apparently proposed the future
growth beyond the outskirts of the outer suburbs drawing
traffic from the centre to the outer rim, instead of
drawing traffic from the outer rim to the centre. He thought
it was a great Master Plan - worked on by experts.
However, it was ignored.

In the meantime -
We've watched the growth of the city of Melbourne with no
regard for the future. Some attempts were made to establish
new city centres, but decade after decade more and more
has been squeezed into the city centre - only adding to the
growing congestion. This problem also exists in Sydney. And I
imagine also in other capital cities.

My question is - why are planners who design cities being ignored
by politicians? Why did no one take any notice of the
original Master Plan for Melbourne that was worked on by
the Melbourne Public Works Department of the time?

Is it political? Do politicians have alternate agendas?
Why are we all so focused on over developing our city centres-
when we can surely see the obvious problems that this causes?

Your thoughts please?

Traffic congestion is a problem in all Australian cities because immigrants flock to the cities. There are too many damn people in Australia, thanks to the anti-Australian, mass immigration policies of Liberal and Labor. Note the word 'Liberal'. I'm not using 'Coalition' any longer because there has been a denegration into Left liberalism since Turnbull took over. The could-be Conservatives - the Nationals are weak and lead by a 'moral degenerate'; the few conservatives remaining among the liberals are cowards. In my book the government is a small 'l' outfit (as in the U.S where liberal means left wing or socialist). The Turnbull government, then, is socialist, globalist, multiculturalist, high immigrationist, traffic-congesting bunch of traitors.

Dear ttbn,

What I'm trying to discuss here is not politics as such
but the over-development of major city centres and the
problems caused. Better planning is what's needed. Instead
of uncontrolled builds up of city centres shouldn't we be
focusing more on developing outer centres?

For example, in Melbourne in the 1970s and 1980s there were
attempts made to limit the growth of the city centres by
putting restrictions on height of buildings, types of
businesses and multi-storey residential developments.

Nowdays, it appears that "anything goes." Apparently in an
attempt to generate more revenue for the city.

It's all about politics, Foxy, including the lack of planning you rightly bring attention to. There has also been a total lack of planning in immigration, which has impacted on the lack of town planning. The Australian dog is not even chasing its tail any more.

Dear Foxy,
It's not overdevelopment that's the problem; it's failure to provide the appropriate level of transport infrastructure to service the population. A growing population is a great opportunity, as it makes previously unviable infrastructure viable. But governments prefer to meet short term budgetary objectives rather than to make the necessary long term investments in our future. And IIRC you're one of the people who's to blame for that. But I haven't got time to go into that now - I may do so next week if I'm less busy.

It's not just a funding problem, though - there's a lack of overall vision, which means the wrong projects tend to get selected.

But decentralisation is not the answer. Drawing traffic away from the CBD and to the outer rim results in a lot more congestion on the outer rim - and as the outer suburbs expand it gets more congested still. But such development is difficult to serve by rail, so this sort of development tends to increase car dependence and pollution.

Dear Aidan,

Just hypothetically - if one goes to the Supermarket
and puts all their groceries into one paper bag the
paperbag sooner or later will burst from the weight.
We see that frequently. However if you distribute
your groceries into a number of paper bags not only
will your groceries not fall onto the floor with the
bags bursting but you'll end up with spare paper bags
that can be re-used for next time.

Does this analogy make any sense?