Cancerous cities

“The naked truth about a world class city: Letter to a friend”. This is from an anti-overpopulation/growth site and is a letter from a former Vancouver (Canada) resident about how his city is being ruined by growth and development. I found these observations meaningful:

The other incident took place the very first time I came into Vancouver. I hit a wall of freeway traffic, arrived at the clinic, sat down. Then along comes this woman in her late twenties. She’s wearing high-heels and those sickly long painted finger-nails. Yep. This must be Vancouver alright. These women by their dress and their cosmetics betray the fact that they are totally cut off from nature. Quadra women garden, hike, kayak and chop wood. Their clothes are functional and they have little time for fashion statements. Vancouver is a space ship. A bubble with its own environment. And the woman who sat across from me at the clinic is typical of the millions who are feeding the consumer economy with their addictive shopaholicism.

My sad impression of this growing cancerous necropolis is that it will not be stopped until its host – the environment – dies. The people who live there are sleep-deprived, workaholic, zombies fuelled on a caffeine-overdose fully committed to their artificial lifestyle because they can’t foresee its provisional nature or imagine alternatives. We can lobby, we can educate, we can polemicize – but the great masses of Canadians we are trying to reach live in these urban fantasy worlds. What we mean by quality of life – what we know to be an authentic meaningful quality of life – has no meaning to them. When we tell them that a Canada of 40 or 50 million people would not be a pleasant place, that farmland and habitat would be lost to housing, how can that have meaning to people who don’t mind living like sardines in a sardine can, as a tenant in 12 story highrise in a forest of highrises in a city of two million? Quality of life for them is not wildlife habitat – it’s access to a Big Box store.

This description applies to virtually all cities; horrid, polluted, overcrowded, stressful environments cut off from the natural world but still dependent upon it for – and draining it of – vital resources (food, water, etc.).

None so blind as those who will not see

The Australian Government is obsessed with increasing immigration (“Migration plan to ease skills crisis”, The Age, 20/3; “Record migration but more needed”, 21/3). I have doubts about the so-called “skills shortage” that is given as a reason for this; it seems more that employers want cheap labor:

The 457 visas have been controversial, with Labor claiming in opposition that unscrupulous employers were using foreign workers to undercut local wages. Unions also claim that temporary skilled migration is a form of indentured servitude, which is used to keep a lid on wages. […]

Meanwhile, Australia’s population is growing at its fastest rate in almost 20 years, with imports of skilled workers lifting net migration to a record 179 122 people in the year to September, and population growing by 318 500 to 21 097 148. But the arrival of new workers has exacerbated the housing shortage.

So, reduce population growth – restrict immigration – and the housing shortage won’t be so acute! The obvious solution that governments don’t want to see. I am so sick of this idiocy; increasing overpopulation is eroding the liveability of this city.

South Australia’s Premier has pledged that “the state will not run out of water” despite its ongoing drought and allocation from the Murray River at a mere 10%. So where is this extra water going to magically come from? There are plans for a desalination plant (as there is in Melbourne), but it is years away, and won’t address the problem of living sustainably. The self-delusion of politicians is dismaying.

Future slums

“The Next Slum?”, The Atlantic.com, March 2008. How the suburbs of “McMansions” are gradually decaying into slums. This is in the USA, but this fate has also been predicted for the similar housing estates being build around Melbourne (“New housing ‘failing future generations’ ”, The Age, 21/10/2006). I would love to see these blights on the landscape razed and returned to bushland.

Baby extravagance

“ ‘Stop paying the well-off to breed’ ”, Herald-Sun, 14/3. The Government is to keep paying the baby bonus, unfortunately. I sent a letter to the Herald-Sun; don’t know if it will be published [it wasn’t]:

The Government’s hypocrisy in continuing the extravagant baby bonus (“Stop paying the well-off to breed”, 14/3) in the same week it considered cutting bonus payments to vulnerable carers and pensioners is dismaying. In an already-overpopulated world, paying people to reproduce is irresponsible and the scheme should be scrapped.

Strangled city

“Population boom to choke city, says Monash experts”, The Age, 6/3. PM John Brumby’s plans for Melbourne’s expansion get well-deserved criticism from university experts – but the focus is still on coping with population growth rather than restricting it in the first place.

My second letter to a newspaper this week got published! In today’s Herald-Sun (they don’t have an online letters page, unfortunately). The letter was titled by the editor:

Reduce the population

Reducing population growth and thus the demand for housing is an obvious solution that politicians such as Mr. Brumby seem reluctant to acknowledge.

They are obsessed with “growth”, no matter what the environmental cost.

I am dismayed at seeing what has made Melbourne a liveable city – its open spaces and low urban density – relentlessly destroyed.

Build it and they will come

Another overpopulation rant coming as I wake up to the news today: “90,000 new housing blocks for Victoria” (The Age) and “Brumby fast-tracks land for housing” (Herald-Sun). The State Government’s so-called solution to the housing crisis is to build more houses – and thus encroach on yet more valuable open land and wilderness. And if that’s not bad enough, the PM is considering importing foreign workers to build these houses!

The blindingly obvious solution of restricting population growth so that demand for housing is reduced seems not to occur to PM John Brumby (whom I am coming to detest as much as I did Jeff Kennett - both are obsessed with “growth” no matter what the environmental cost). In the same edition is another article saying that water restrictions will stay because of the ongoing drought. Something of a contradiction here! I am so disgusted and furious at seeing what made Melbourne a liveable city – its open spaces and low urban density – destroyed.

“An inconvenient truth about rising immigration”, Sydney Morning Herald, 3/3. Those who criticise high immigration rates risk being accused of “racism” (see “Conspiracy of silence and exclusion: the Shunning of Immigration Critics by the BBC, ABC and CBC”), but such criticism has nothing to do with that issue; just the simple fact that you can’t keep importing huge numbers of people without putting a tremendous strain on resources, and creating stress from overcrowding.

The wonder of it is that, despite the deterioration in affordability, house prices are continuing to rise strongly almost everywhere except Sydney’s western suburbs. Why is this happening? Probably because immigrants are adding to the demand for housing, particularly in the capital cities, where they tend to end up. They need somewhere to live and, whether they buy or rent, they’re helping to tighten demand relative to supply. It’s likely that the greater emphasis on skilled immigrants means more of them are capable of outbidding younger locals. In other words, winding back the immigration program would be an easy way to reduce the upward pressure on house prices.

Finally, there’s the effect on climate change. Emissions of greenhouse gases are caused by economic activity, but the bigger your population, the more activity. So the faster your population is growing the faster your emissions grow.

A plague of Poms

My letter got published in The Age! :-) I’ll buy a copy and keep the page. The letter was retitled but otherwise wasn’t edited (I kept it short and to the point).

“23,000 Brits head to Australia”, Herald-Sun 3/3. Article on the high rate of British immigration to Australia. I found this comment by one new arrival significant:

“Britain is a difficult place to live in at the moment – it’s overcrowded, congested, difficult to get around,” he said. “The economy is not doing that brilliantly, there’s a lot of red tape. What we’ve got down here is space, it’s a great country to explore.”

If our high rates of immigration continue, Australia will end up in the same situation as Britain! Much of Australia is infertile desert and thus uninhabitable (not to mention the ongoing drought), so we can’t support a large population – something politicians don’t seem to understand (or want to). (Posted at Public Population Forum.)

Hate the HIA

“State urged to release land to ease crisis”, The Age, 1/3. The Housing Industry Association is urging the Victorian Government to release more land for housing – not surprising as the greedy bastards stand to make money out of constructing more and more houses. I guess they won’t be content until Victoria is smothered in housing estates? Missing in all the agonizing over rising house prices is that a major cause of this is the growing population – something which the Government is deliberately encouraging and which is eroding the liveability of Melbourne. (Posted this at the Public Population Forum.)

I also sent off a slightly more civil version (removed the “greedy bastards” phrase) to The Age letters – I don’t know if it will get published; it is my first attempt at writing a letter there. The topic is of great concern to me though, and I have to vent somewhere.

A house 2 doors down from us was auctioned today; I am dreading its fate (i.e. likely demolition and replacing with ugly townhouses). I am so sick of this constant overdevelopment and degradation of a once-pleasant suburb.