23 million and counting

Australia’s population officially reached 23 million on 23 April; a milestone that was generally reported positively. The population is small compared to many other countries (as is pointed out with tedious regularity), but Australia does not have a great amount of habitable land, so most of the population tends to live along the coastline, and much of that is clumped into the major cities.

Melbourne is, unfortunately, leading the nation’s population growth, and the negative effects of this are ever increasing: chronic traffic congestion (is it a coincidence that road rage is on the increase?), increased housing prices, inappropriate high-density developments in suburbs, pressure on health care, public transport and other services … the list goes on. Little if anything about this manic growth is for the better. From my perspective – I live in a suburb of Melbourne – quality of life is definitely deteriorating and the stress from this is continual. The State Government makes nebulous promises about improving infrastructure, but at the same time they cut funding.

Much of that infrastructure seems to only involve building more environmentally-destructive roads – an example being this brief report from my local newspaper (also online):

Plants face chop

ENDANGERED vegetation will be removed to make way for the new Dingley bypass, despite objections from green groups.

Greater Dandenong Council has given VicRoads the go-ahead to rip out a large old tree and vegetation, classified as “of very high conservation significance”, from the 0.19ha swampy woodland in the Westall Rd reserve.

Four environmental groups have slammed the unadvertised proposal. They say an overpass should be built to protect them.

Engineering services director Bruce Rendall said the proposal was not advertised because no third party would suffer.

It is similar to the Westerfield heritage woodlands being bulldozed through in 2010 (see 10/7/2010, 24/10/2010 entries) for the Frankston bypass. Native bushland continues to be razed for so-called “progress” and one feels so powerless and frustrated that it can’t be stopped. The Australian Aborigines lived here for 40,000 years or more, but in all that vast span of time they never did as much damage as did the arrival of European settlers in the last 200 years. The estimated population of Aborigines before settlement/invasion was around a million or so – something the fragile landscape here could cope with.

Some recent letters:

My published letter – 22/2

Got a letter published at long last, though only in my local paper (various ones sent to the major papers were not published – maybe they are tired of me!). It was in response to a letter in the previous week’s paper, commenting on “ ‘Jungle’ fear on units in Bentleigh”, about yet another unwanted housing overdevelopment of a local site. The letter was slightly edited – wonder why the [bracketed] phrase was removed?

I am a longtime Bentleigh resident, and am dismayed to see the ugly new developments now blighting almost every street. Houses and pleasant gardens are demolished every week to make way for massive monstrosities, and my suburb, like many others, seems to have become a permanent construction zone [with uncaring developers apparently given free rein by council and planning laws]. The ongoing destruction is highly stressful and is destroying what made the suburb livable.

The Glen Eira Council have also been holding Community Plan Consultations where residents can voice their concerns over local issues until 29 February. I posted in the online forum (as “Suzanne”). I don’t know how effective it will be, or if this is only a token gesture to give the appearance of responding to community concerns. A lot of this is over ongoing overdevelopment (no thanks to Melbourne’s unwanted population growth, which is outside of Council control) and inappropriate development. The council just seems to “rubber-stamp” new developments without caring what impact these have. I hate to think what my suburb and others will look like in another decade – its once-pleasant amenity is relentlessly being destroyed.