Housing vs. farmland

“The fertile fringe”, The Age, 26/5. Melbourne’s future food security was the focus of this in-depth article on the weekend. The inexorable spread of population-growth-spurred housing developments are consuming the fertile farmlands around Melbourne like fast-growing cancers. It shows an utter lack of foresight and planning from State governments, who seem only concerned with shoehorning in as many people as possible rather than trying to stabilize population growth, and the influence of greedy developers who are only concerned about making profits. Another growing threat is coal-seam gas and other mineral mining developments.

Australia initially seems to be a big continent with lots of space, but – as has to be pointed out again and again – much of it is desert with little fertile land, as this article extract notes:

We are being cautioned, however, against complacency. The Prime Minister’s own Science Engineering and Innovation Council has warned that Australia’s food capacity faces a challenges with a population forecast to rise to 40 million as fertile land is undermined by factors such as land degradation such as salination, and urbanisation.

Australia is one of the driest continents on earth. Its soils are ancient and depleted, and just 6 per cent of its total area, 45 million hectares, is arable land. Most intensive agriculture occurs on the fertile soil on a relatively thin strip of land along the coastal fringe. It is an area heavily and increasingly contested.

Australia is also among the most urbanised countries on earth, with the vast bulk of its population huddled on this coastal strip, their homes competing for space with farms, roads, factories, offices, shops, car parks, golf courses, native forests, plantation forests, native grasslands and national parks. Victoria is the most densely populated state, with more than 1500 new residents arriving weekly.

Under the same coastal band are vast seams of brown coal that have provided the fuel to power Victoria for decades and are now being eyed for additional uses, including gas. […]

In his many journeys to and from Melbourne, Vizzarri often ponders what has been lost under the housing and industrial estates he passes. “Australia is a big country,” he observes, “but all its people are concentrated on the eastern seaboard and that’s also where our best land is. I’d prefer that food going to Melbourne is produced on the outskirts; it was once upon a time.”

(If you were paranoid, you’d think it were some conspiracy to make Australia dependent upon imported food.)

You certainly can’t say that authorities and businesses have not been warned. But they seem to prefer to stick their heads in the sand and pretend we can carry on with this reckless growth and development indefinitely with no consequences.

Contrast this to the idiotic statement PM Julia Gillard made a few weeks ago that “We can be food bowl of Asia”; also “No reason why we can’t become a global food superpower”.

We know that global demand for food will escalate dramatically in the coming years, as the world population heads for 9 billion, while scarce resources of arable land and fresh water will become even more scarce. It isn’t just about sheer numbers, however, it’s about the changing nature of these populations.

In China, it’s planned that a further 350 million people will move – the largest internal migration in human history - from the countryside to the cities by 2030. This means fewer farmers and more consumers. Of the 580 million people living in south-east Asia, a quarter do not yet have access to electricity. As an Asian middle-class rises, with its associated consumer needs, the demand for food, energy and other resources is going to dramatically escalate.

As a planet and as a nation, we don’t have a choice – we simply must do much more than is being done to help feed a hungry world, and notwithstanding the obvious challenges and the doomsayers, we believe that we can.

WTF? I don’t see it as our responsibility to feed that region or any other if countries can’t or won’t contain their population growth. They should take responsibility for their own self-inflicted problems, not expect other countries to bail them out.

Letters in response, 28/5:

Rats in a cage

“Police called to more than 100 disputes every day”, Herald-Sun, 29/5 (copy URL into Google search, click on link results to get around paywall). This was the headline for yesterday, the article saying that “Overcrowding is being blamed for rising neighbourhood violence”. Well, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to come to that conclusion!

The 000 [emergency] hotline sent police to almost 42,000 neighbourhood disputes in Melbourne and Geelong postcodes - a 12 per cent jump in a year. Violence and ugly verbal feuds between neighbours are as common as family disputes, the focus of a decade-long police campaign. Police have less power to intervene in neighbour disputes. Residents have told of incidents including vicious verbal abuse and terrifying attacks with knives, fireworks and slingshots, often after complaining about noisy parties or local hoons. Freedom of Information data obtained by the Herald Sun reveals the most crowded and fastest-growing suburbs are most affected. […]

Sgt Amanda Napier, of St Kilda police, said “paper thin walls” in overcrowded suburbs drove residents to the brink. “The incidents in St Kilda I think would be attributed to the fact that there are so many flats which have paper thin walls and any sort of noise can be heard,” she said. Dandenong police Sgt Paddy Hayes said alcohol often fuelled noisy parties and fights. He said it was an issue in growth areas such as Casey, where housing density meant residents were “living on top of each other”.

Some cultures, such as that of Japan, have adapted social behaviors that enable their populations to live high density without too much conflict (though I suspect frustration comes out in other ways). Australian culture, however, likes its space, and the crowding and urban density resulting from sustained population growth is driving many mad (myself included). I will link yet again to an article from a few years ago, “London’s a rat hole”:

His scathing assessment was being submitted to the main opposition Conservative Party’s policy group focusing on quality of life. “Putting 10 million aggressive hominids into close proximity and inviting them to engage in serial acts of competitive individualism … for jobs, schools or parking spaces, could not be considered a reasonable idea,” Bayley said. “You put rats in claustrophobic circumstances and they become homosexual, murderous and cannibalistic in no time at all. Instead humans find ingenious solutions, underground car parks, coffee shops, Chinese takeaways, one-man buses, cycle lanes, tall buildings.”

H-S letter in response, 30/5:

Overcrowding so bad for society

IT is to be expected that all this overcrowding and high-density housing being forced on us is causing social problems (“Battle in the burbs”, May 29).

All you need to do is go back to the famous study of the behaviour of rats when forced to live in overcrowded conditions. The more overcrowded, the more aggressive they became. We behave much the same as the rats.

We all need a bit of space around us to keep our sanity and balance. The more packed-in they make our city, the more the police will be called on. When will any government wake up?

– Mary Drost, convener, Planning Backlash Inc

Battery-hen living

“Hong Kong’s High-Density Housing & Cramped Living Conditions”, ChinaSMACK.com, 23/5 (via Kotaku). These are a series of photos showing the incredibly cramped living conditions that are normal for that city. To my view it looks rather hellish, though I suppose someone who grew up there would regard it as normal. I guess such cramped apartments are preferable to being homeless, but it seems a very Nature-deprived way of living – humans did not evolve to live like termites. I can’t imagine such conditions as being good for their long-term health. Many regard such dense living as desirable for its supposed reduced “ecological footprint”, but the people in the buildings still need all their supplies brought in from elsewhere. I would hate to have to climb up and down hundreds of stairs, or rely on lifts, just to go outside! If a fire took hold in one of those apartments, it would be a major disaster if the residents could not access fire escapes.

A recent Daily Mail article shows the even more nightmarish-looking Kowloon Walled City in China before its (thankful) demolition, an unplanned, unregulated and claustrophobic rabbit warren housing 50,000 or so residents. I don’t envy the children growing up there! They would undoubtedly have many health problems, given China’s pollution, and be very Nature-deprived if they never went outside its walls. The io9 sci-fi site mentioned the place a few times – a few commenters there seem to have romanticized views of the place as it resembled a science fiction dystopia.

Families are squeezed together in tiny apartments, with all their possessions crowding the rooms. (I have to admit that my increasingly cluttered bedroom does not look too different! But at least I can go outside into the backyard or for a walk around the streets.)

“No room for a view”, The Age, 14/5. Melbourne CBD residents are increasingly facing a problem with overshadowing from the many tall apartments being erected, though on a much smaller scale than Hong Kong. Planning here is generally poorly-thought out, with developers given far too many concessions. Problem is that most cities have not been planned properly from their inception and have grown in a messy organic fashion over the decades or centuries – Kowloon was an extreme example of this – so new developments are shoehorned in as best city planners can.

“Population clock shows Japan faces extinction in 1000 years”, 13/5. Yet another alarmist article concerning Japan’s ageing and declining population! It seems to have become a favorite trope. Given their advances in technology (somewhat exaggerated in a satirical Onion article from 2007, “Earthquake Sets Japan Back To 2147”), perhaps they will have robot helpers by then, and people won’t stop having children altogether, so the article is just silly. A couple of letters in response, 16/5:

Falling population

ANYONE who has battled crowds on Tokyo’s trains will welcome the news that Japan’s population is declining (“Population clock shows Japan faces extinction in 1000 years”, theage.com.au, 13/5). Japan is an overcrowded country with few natural resources, and its population needs to decline.

As for disappearing altogether, it’s not going to happen. When the population gets close to what is deemed ecologically sustainable, all the government needs to do is introduce baby bonuses to boost the fertility rate. After the baby bonus was introduced here, our fertility rate went from 1.7 to 1.9.

As for ageing, look at the Okinawans. They live to a ripe old age and are largely independent as they age. Other Japanese can do the same once they are given a bit of space and fresh air – splendid side effects of a lower population.

– Jenny Goldie, Michelago, NSW

Act on East Timor

IT’S good to see the “urgent” matter of the extrapolated extinction of the Japanese race in 1000 years being raised.

But we never hear about the doubling of the population of East Timor (an infertile and seasonally dry country already food-insecure) within 25 years due to unwanted and preventable births happening now.

The Japanese may well decide to have more children – for example, when an average couple can afford a home with more than one bedroom. In the meantime, they have everything to gain from population shrinkage. The East Timorese, on the other hand …

– Jane O’Sullivan, Chelmer, Queensland

Addendum: Letter from MP Kelvin Thompson regarding Melbourne’s sorry excuse for high-rise planning, 27/5:

THE article “Chasing the sun among high-rises a heated issue” (20/5) raises very important issues about Melbourne’s headlong rush to high-rise.

The loss of sunlight is a very important point. As is the fact that high-density high-rise buildings have big carbon footprints, consume more energy, generate more pollution and detract public amenity through the large shadows they cast. The proliferation of high-rise development is threatening not only our environment, but also our social fabric.

I am a fan of the suburban backyard. I believe children who grow up in concrete jungles are subject to more bullying and are more vulnerable to traps such as crime and drugs. What do you call a kid in a backyard? A free range kid. I think free range kids have a better time of it than battery kids. The more high-rise developments that are shoved down the throats of local communities, the more our communities will be suffocated.

– KELVIN THOMSON, MP, Federal Member for Wills