Collected letters

A selection of letters from The Age, most on the planning issues mentioned in my previous entry.

Land grab

If there is one job occupation I have come to loathe and despise above all others, it is that of property developer. Opportunistic scum who care nothing for the environment or sensitive architectural design and are only out to make a profit – I would like to see them rounded up and burned at the stake! My neighborhood, like nearly all others, is being ruined by developers buying up homes, razing them and their established gardens and building enormous eye-gougingly-ugly monstrosities (I have a website page about this). On a wider scale, the open land around Melbourne is being concreted over with new housing developments by developers; this has future implications for food security (prime farmland being built over) and the environment (the loss of vegetation). The city is growing like a metastasising cancer and nothing is being done to stop it – yet again, population growth is the prime cause of this.

Some articles from The Age on this topic:

“In defence of the suburbs”, 12/10/2010. The loss of backyards barely rates a mention in urban policy, but they provide valuable room for vegetation and wildlife.

“State's boom on ‘shaky ground’ ”, 28/10/2010. Victoria’s recent growth has been due to population growth and construction – neither of which can be sustained indefinitely. “But the researchers warn this population increase to approximately 90,000 people coming to Melbourne each year has ‘led to delusions of endless growth’ within the Brumby government and the business community.” And residents are paying for this dearly as quality of life degrades.

“Developers scramble for land”, 6/11/2010. Developers are greedily buying the land released by the expansion of the urban growth boundary. “RMIT associate professor of planning Michael Buxton said sprawling cities were energy-consuming, economically inefficient, environmentally destructive and led to social polarisation. ‘The Victorian government has abandoned planning and is handing the city over to developers,’ he said.”

“Growing pains: Victoria’s population explosion”, 20/11/2010. An overview of why Victoria has had so much growth. The author regards it as a positive. I certainly don’t – being popular is not a good thing in this case as it is making life increasingly stressful for residents.

“Labor’s high-rise dystopia”, 24/11/2010. One reason that the Labor government was voted in was that they promised to discard Jeff Kennett’s free-for-all urban planning. But they well and truly reneged on that promise, and proved to be just as bad as the Liberals in favoring developers.

“Design trend takes child’s play out of backyards”, 25/11/2010. As house sizes have increased, backyards have all but vanished. Playing in the backyard was one of my favorite activities when young.

“Land shortage, price hike link a myth, claims academic”, 6/12/2010. Claims by developers that more houses need to be built because of shortages are misleading; the main factors are negative gearing that favors investors, readily-available home loans and the first home owners’ grant are factors.

“Planning must be for people, not developers”, 6/12/2010. Both the Kennett and Bracks-Brumby governments were influenced in planning policy by developers, who donated to both parties (a law should be brought against this!). Unfortunately the new Premier Ted Baillieu is also developer-friendly, so the ruination of Melbourne and its surrounding lands looks to continue.

“Melbourne heads north to Kalkallo”, 8/12/2010. More of the depressing same. Future generations are going to curse us.

Deceptive advertising

Haven’t been posting a while for the usual reasons, so I have another backlog of articles. I just get so frustrated that so many people, including those in power, are in denial about the population issue.

Found an organization, PopDev, through a blog entry. At first glance they appear to be concerned about population growth, but reading through it reveals they are more the opposite – namely that growth is not the issue, that population control is a violation of reproductive “rights”, that starvation is caused by unequal food distribution rather than numbers, that sterilization is eugenics by stealth, opposing excessive immigration is racist, and so on with the usual fallacious arguments. Groups like this are just as bad as the more blatant growth advocates such as those in business and politics. The blog entry itself, by some female, predictably associates opposition to excessive immigration with racism. I have come to loathe many leftist/liberal/feminist women because of such views, which are diametrically opposed to mine (though I consider myself feminist and liberal in some other areas) – see my 4/2/2010 entry.

Anti-growth push

A grassroots movement against population growth has emerged as more people feel free to debate immigration without being called racists, says a new study. Up to 87 per cent of Australians now reject further growth, according to an analysis of opinion polls by Swinburne University sociologist Katharine Betts. Growing concern over crowded cities and environmental damage had led to a new openness in discussing population, she said. Dr Betts said the latest polls showed that between 50 and 87 per cent of Australians wanted an end to growth. Her study will be released today in People and Place, the journal of Monash University’s Centre for Population and Urban Research. (Herald-Sun, 1/11/2010)

“Big families damage Australia – survey”, H-S, 27/10/2010. One in 3 Australians in a survey think that families should limit the number of children they have to minimize environmental impact. The informal website vote, though, indicates more out of the 476 who voted think the opposite.

“Stem the population growth – Australia’s already full”, Advertiser, 5/11/2010. Interview with Professor Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb. He says that the general public is more aware of population-caused problems than politicians and businesses.

“Aboriginal population booms”, 26/9/2010. I have mixed feelings about this: it’s good that their culture is not dying out (as was though it would in more racist times decades ago), but alarming that so many younger people (teenagers) are falling pregnant, with the attendent social problems – I doubt they would have education/access to birth control in remote communities. Given the neglect of Aboriginal health in general, I suppose it’s not surprising.

“Foreign investors buy up Australian land”, Yahoo News, 15/11/2010. Of food security concern is the ownership of agricultural land by foreign businesses. Perhaps if things get dire the government could seize back the land – they should take responsibility for their own food supplies and not expect to be able to strip other countries for these (again, population growth is a cause of this).

“PM has to think big on population, warns Treasury”, 14/11/2010. With dreary inevitability it looks as though the Prime Minister will not hold to her election promise of reviewing Australia’s population policy. A big Australia is not inevitable; the government could take measures to restrict growth.