High-density hell

Every time I visit Melbourne CBD (every few months by train) I am reminded why I don’t like cities and certainly wouldn’t want to live there as a resident! It is noisy, stinky and increasingly crowded, not to mention unbearably hot in summer with all the asphalt and concrete smothering the ground, the streets claustrophobically overshadowed by towering buildings. And this is the city again voted world’s most livable! I shudder to think what less-livable cities are like.

A new resident to the CBD made the mistake of complaining about how noisy it was – the main offenders being music venues – and oh was he castigated, both in the article comments and elsewhere (Reddit’s mostly-younger members being a predictable example). Well, seeing as governments are pushing for higher-density cities, this sort of conflict is going to happen a lot, so I don’t know why those castigating him were so offended. Is there any law that says cities have to be noisy, aside from fatuous bullshit about noise contributing to “vibrancy”? A lot of what passes for “music” is just loud noise pollution and the environment is better off without it.

There was a quite vitriolic post on Reddit – Urban Sprawl now biggest impediment to Economy – where those who objected to high density/urban consolidation being touted as the ultimate solution to our woes got downvoted and called NIMBYers (the usual predictably tired insult). They are anti-backyards (a wasteful allotment of space according to their philosophy) and think everyone should live crammed into apartment towers with a park or two providing lonely oases of greenery. I have given up arguing with people of that mindset as they have a quasi-religious conviction that high-density is the only acceptable way to live. Not so – reducing population growth would enable people to live in detached houses with gardens and backyards, and contain urban sprawl – it would also ensure that land is retained for local food production. But this alternative solution is unthinkable to high-density advocates.

I also found disagreeable this later related post, You want housing up, not out? – the HD advocates (I really need a catchy name for them) want to brainwash children into their cult:

My idea is to use an art/design competition to harness the imaginations of older children and effectively use their drawings as covert propaganda for the type of places we want to exist, after steering their little minds towards what we want them to draw. It’ll be asking primary school children to draw how they foresee their dream Australian lifestyle, or dream city in X amount of years. What will streets and cities look like? How will people live?

This Sustainable Living webpage from NSW Save Our Suburbs gives arguments against urban consolidation. (They don’t, however, advocate restricting population growth; rather, they encourage regional decentralization.)

My little utopian vision is of cities being mostly depopulated, and people living in smaller regional towns, each having its own sustainable power and food supplies, and connected by high-speed rail and Internet. A slower, environmentally-friendly and more relaxed society. I would like to see a “small, smart and sustainable” future for Australia; I emphatically reject the “big Australia” and frantic unsustainable push for endless economic growth that currently has us trapped.

Collected letters

Another batch of letters from The Age, in response to the article linked to last entry about Planning Minister Matthew Guy. Most feel the same negativity toward him and the planning system as I do. I did not comment on the planning reforms site as I did not know what to say specifically about the topics – not qualified enough.

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.

Tower travesty

“Mega Melbourne plan for skyscrapers in suburbs”, H-S (also at The Age). The latest idiotic proposal from so-called Planning Minister Matthew Guy and others is, in response to Melbourne’s unwanted and unnecessary growth, to massively expand the central business district and encourage the construction high-rise towers (developers must be rubbing their hands in glee). Of course this will destroy what character the city has left and turn it into yet another ugly megalopolis like so many other cities. Melbourne was nicer before the building of concrete-glass-steel skyscrapers, when its main buildings were the comparatively modest brick or stone structures of only a few storeys.

Letters in response to the planning criticism in my previous entry, H-S, 17/2:

Planners need to listen

ANDREW MacLeod, of the Committee for Melbourne, thinks Barry Humphries shouldn’t comment on planning because he’s not qualified in the area (“Stars should butt out”, February 16).

Mr MacLeod has no qualifications in planning either. Nor do most members of his committee.

Regardless, qualified planners have made many mistakes: think of the inner-city “slum clearance” programs of the 1960s or the old Gas and Fuel buildings.

Planners tend to make worse mistakes when they stop listening to the community. As well as being more democratic, genuine public participation produces better planning because it forces planners to justify their proposals.

This reduces the likelihood that they will make mistakes.

Melbourne needs more people like Geoffrey Rush, Barry Humphries and Mary Drost, and more planners who are prepared to share power with the public.

– Dr Paul Mees, senior lecturer in urban planning, RMIT

Possums, Barry should be heard

BARRY Humphries is a celebrity because of his keen observation and ability to show people and places in a humorous light.

He is eminently qualified to have a view on planning matters in his suburb of origin. Humphries is not just a dilettante, as implied by Andrew MacLeod. Furthermore, civic-minded residents such as Mary Drost are an essential force in mitigating adverse changes in established suburbs.

Andrew Macleod seems to have forgotten the concept of democracy and actually contradicts himself in saying that Mrs Drost is selfish to attempt to preserve gardens for people other than herself!

– Jill Quirk, East Malvern

Livable – for now

Adelaide was voted Australia’s most livable city, with Sydney getting the most negative votes. Population growth has contributed to the latter, and Melbourne is not far behind in increasing unliveability. The surveyors were the Property Council of Australia, a body which has a vested interest in promoting growth. Adelaide has a comparatively small population – a major factor in its livability – but if the PCA has its way (one representative on a TV news report was all but foaming at the prospect of the city’s growth), the city too will be ruined by inflated house prices, overdevelopment and lagging infrastructure.

“Baillieu Government releases land for two new Melbourne suburbs”, Herald-Sun, 23/1. This gets me foaming at the mouth in rage – the Liberal Government is continuing the reckless growth policy of its predecessors. More open land (and carbon sinks) around Melbourne will be smothered in housing estates, contributing to the environmental degradation of the region. It won’t result in lower house prices, not with investors and developers looking to make profits. It also further jeopardizes the city’s food security, with arable land disappearing under housing estates.

“Population 7 Billion”, National Geographic, January 2011. An overview of the world’s population numbers, but the article optimistically suggests that reducing consumption and good old “human ingenuity” will solve our problems rather than reducing growth.

But one can also draw a different conclusion—that fixating on population numbers is not the best way to confront the future. People packed into slums need help, but the problem that needs solving is poverty and lack of infrastructure, not overpopulation. Giving every woman access to family planning services is a good idea—“the one strategy that can make the biggest difference to women’s lives,” Chandra calls it. But the most aggressive population control program imaginable will not save Bangladesh from sea level rise, Rwanda from another genocide, or all of us from our enormous environmental problems.

But aggressive control certainly would help mitigate such disasters! Only a totalitarian world government could implement such a policy, though.

“No 11 - and yes, it was the milkman”, H-S, 21/1. If this isn’t a flagrant abuse of government-funded IVF, I don’t know what is! 11 children – plus 3 from a previous marriage (natural or IVF is not stated) – and she still wants more. Apparently she’s got nothing better to do than contribute to overpopulation. Educated women supposedly want smaller families – that is one of the benefits stated for family planning aid in developing countries – but Australia appears to be going backward in that regard. Whether the children are “wanted” or not is irrelevant – her having so many is selfish and irresponsible. Removing government benefits for having 3 or more children (i.e. the 3rd child onward would not receive benefits) would prove a big disincentive, as well as providing IVF funding only for a woman’s first child. No government seems to have the courage to do that, however.

Victims of growth

Two examples of how human population growth is negatively impacting native fauna in Australia (who arguably have more right to the land than the foreign-born or -descended humans who now inhabit it).

“Fears cassowary may vanish”, The Age, 24/6. The habitat of endangered Cassowary birds in North Queensland is under threat from housing. This only adds to my hatred of greedy property developers and the politicians who give them free rein.

“Roo culling wrong, protesters say”, 7/7. Grey kangaroos are being shot for the annual cull in Canberra. Why?

The ACT’s parks director Russell Watkinson said culling was necessary to protect the environment.

“We have an overabundant number of eastern grey kangaroos,” he said, adding they were overpopulating areas after being hemmed in reserves because of urban development.

“The kangaroos are grazing the habitats of rare and endangered species down to bare earth.”

Start culling the humans who are overpopulating the area, instead!

Sometimes I imagine aliens visiting Earth and deciding to cull the human population for the exact same reasons as given in that article (replace the word “kangaroos” with “humans”). This would be a sort of cosmic karma!

Fat city

A short news article from the 10/6 The Age on a statement by MP Kelvin Thomson:

Melbourne growing obese: Labor MP

Federal Labor MP Kelvin Thomson has described Melbourne as “obese” in a scathing attack on the Victorian government’s decision to expand the urban boundary by thousands of hectares. “Melbourne is becoming an obese, hardened-artery parody of its former self. Extending the urban growth boundary is like a man rapidly gaining weight who thinks he can solve the problem by loosening his belt,” he said in a statement. He said the expansion would destroy nearly 7000 hectares of volcanic plains grassland, would add thousands of cars heading to the CBD every day, would create a massive infrastructure bill and contradicted the state government’s Melbourne 2030 planning blueprint. A planning amendment is before State Parliamentto expand Melbourne’s urban boundary by 43,600 hectares and allow for an estimated 134,000 new homes. It is expected to pass with the support of the opposition.

– Jason Dowling

A more detailed press release is reproduced at the PublicPopForum.

Melbourne is getting more unpleasant to live in as each year passes, the population increases and the city grows further like a cancer. Yet all the media can do is exult over rising real estate prices (good for investors and developers) and how the “building boom” supposedly benefits the economy. The Herald-Sun article below is an example (not available online):

More people, more homes: Victoria leads nation in building boom and urban sprawl

Outer suburbs in Victoria are booming with a mass of new homes built. Victoria is the growth capital of the country and in the past year has had four of the top five fastest-growing regions by population.

The Population and Residential Building Hotspots report by the Housing Industry Association showed Whittlesea north top the list with an incredible $484 million worth of new building approvals in 2008-09. There was 18 per cent population growth in Whittlesea north in the same period. Wyndham south took second place with 13 per cent growth, and Cardinia Pakenham and Melton east were fourth and fifth.

The HIA says Victoria has the fastest growing population, and building works must keep accelerating in areas of demand.

But a leading urban planner said the push to the fringes meant the gap between the “haves and have nots” was rapidly increasing. HIA Victorian executive director Gil King said there was no sign of boom suburb growth slowing.

“Victoria has had the nation’s fastest population growth, meaning demand for housing is higher than other states,” Ms King said. “It is crucial that the Victorian Government continues to introduce measures that aim at stimulating housing supply, including the promised expansion of the urban growth boundary.”

Senior urban planning lecturer at the University of Melbourne Dr Alan March said he was concerned about the low density of developments in growth areas and questioned how growth would spread. “One of the great problems we suffer in this growth is going into areas that are poorer in the levels of services that they have, compared to existing areas,” Dr March said. “And there’s not a great range of housing choice.”

Dr March said first home buyer grants were pushing prices up and there must be more assistance given to people in boom suburbs.

“If you look at data over the past 20 years, we are seeing a greater distance between the haves and have nots,” he said.

Of course the HIA wants more houses built as it profits their members! Never mind the damage to the environment. The fragile native volcanic grasslands that provide breathing space are being subsumed under a mass of housing – but most people tend to see these regions as “worthless” and open land that should be built over.

I get angry and despairing at this continuing destruction, enough so to hope for a firestorm to destroy the housing estates.

Housing greed

“Foreign home buyers backflip”, The Age, 24/4. The Federal Government reversed its baffling decision to allow foreign investors to buy homes in Australia unimpeded. Though I have to wonder if this is due in part to an election taking place later this year.

I am utterly sick of this country’s obsession with housing – more accurately, the property market being regarded as a form of wealth generation. A house is first and foremost a place to live in. I am also sick of living in what seems to be a semi-permanent construction zone, sick of the increasing overcrowding and overdevelopment that is making my neighborhood and many others stressful to live in, sick of the ugly monstrous houses that are blighting once-pleasant streets. This columnist expresses similar feelings:

Our suburbs are changing as swathes of properties are being bought by foreigners seeking a home purely as an investment. Because they’re investors, often they’re not personally interested in the communities they are buying into. For some there’s no respect for community, history or heritage. Perfectly good houses that come with large leafy gardens are being flattened to make way for massive mansions with tiny courtyards. Many of the buyers are families of overseas students, and other temporary residents who have little connection with the area they buy into. The real trouble is that we can’t turn back the clock. Daggy, but liveable – and affordable – houses are being razed and replaced by monstrosities that sometimes soar three storeys.

I honestly wish the property market would collapse. I want the quiet neighborhood back that I used to live in, want these ugly new houses razed. I would like to firebomb the housing estates spreading like cancers over what open land remains around Melbourne.

I have not been writing much out of such despair. I am powerless to do anything to stop this destruction.

A collection of letters from The Age:

10/4:

Population

In the year of biodiversity, Michelle Grattan writes an entire article on population without mentioning the word “environment”.

– Julia Thornton, Surrey Hills

Ever since huge numbers of immigrants have been arriving in Australia, the majority of the population has always been against their arrival. We are continuing the tradition.

– Con Vaitsas, Lakemba

Given the rapid population increase that is putting pressure on housing, hospitals and the transport network, what is the government’s policy on increasing the death rate?

– Roger Farrer, Hampton

Politicians asking wrong questions

If climate change represents the “greatest moral challenge of our time” then population growth represents the greatest moral foundational question of our time, especially considering Australia’s coal-fired per capita carbon emission rate. While we have a moral obligation to accept as many refugees as possible, immigration policy is another matter.

What is the ethic of poaching skills from developing countries? Unfortunately, politicians of both persuasions, in alliance with the business lobby, have pre-empted the outcome of any debate with the dubious premise that rapid population growth is both desirable and necessary, the only pertinent questions being where and when, not how and why.

Crowded cities, choked transit routes, pressure on food and water resources and a general loss of public amenity are just a few likely problems that, according to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, represent challenges we can rise above if “we do it properly”. Do it properly? Hmmm, let’s have a look at the evidence so far. Two words say it all. River Murray.

– Dave Mack, Macclesfield, SA

Growth end in itself

A point largely overlooked in the debate is that growth has become an end in itself akin to a religious belief. Once, economic growth was a means to the end of meeting people’s needs. Now growth is an end in itself and population growth is the means, feeding it through increases in consumption and the labour force.

Many years ago anthropologist Professor Bill Stanner compared this worship of growth to a cargo cult in which he said “God is goods, and the GNP the outward and visible sign of his glory and his power”. He could have added “and to hell with the environment”.

– Geoff Mosley, Hurstbridge

Lower family size

The human population explosion is about more than crowded Melbourne trams; it’s a global issue, and I commend Kevin Rudd for reversing John Howard’s policy of denying aid to overseas family planning programs. Rudd pledged up to $15 million over four years to such programs. This means, for example, that East Timor – which now has to import food – might have a chance of lowering its average family size of seven children. It’s also more likely the mother will not die giving birth to her final baby.

Tony Abbott must talk about his policy on aid to family planning and maternal health programs for our neighbours.

– Pamela Lloyd, West Brunswick

Start slowing now

That majority of Australians who are happy with a population of 30 million but not happy with 36 million needs to recognise that unless we put policies in place now, the population isn’t somehow going to slow down at 29.5 million and stop at 30. The bigger it gets the faster it grows, so we need to start slowing down now.

Incidentally, when we reach 30 million there will be the same amount of water as there is now so we’ll need to get used to having about a third less water each. As we will also have reduced our total carbon emissions by then, too, we will have to cut them further by another third.

– Graham Parton, Stanley

Cut complacency

Michelle Grattan’s comments on the broader solution to managing Australia’s population are concerning (Comment, 9/4). The argument for “sustainability” earned a half-paragraph, with reasoning that we will simply work something out. We live in one of the driest countries. Australians do not need encouragement to be complacent.

– Angus Carter, Albert Park

11/4:

Less is more

What welcome news you bring. The Rudd government is going to consider population levels seriously, hopefully as part of a long-term strategy for a sustainable Australia. I believe a population of 20-25 million is a good target. This will allow infrastructure to catch up with demand, environmental degradation to be curtailed, housing pressures to ease, greenhouse gas targets to be met, adequate water resources to be found – the list goes on. Our addiction to raw growth must be changed to an enthusiasm for sustainable development, putting quality before quantity.

– Gordon Payne, South Fremantle

26/4:

Welfare for well-off

While it is heartening that the government has reversed its foreign investment real estate policy (“Foreign home buyers backflip”, The Age, 24/4), it needs to do much more if it is serious about tackling the issues of affordability and access.

Our housing system is increasingly divisive and continues to lock an increasing number of people out of home ownership and into relatively insecure rental arrangements. It is appalling that government policies support this and the wealth creation of an increasingly small proportion of the population – property investors and real estate agents.

Negative gearing and other tax perks that drive demand and inflate prices are a form of welfare. It is perverse that taxpayers are subsidising those who least need assistance, reinforcing social and economic exclusion in the process. Surely the government is responsible for the welfare of all its citizens?

– Sonia Martin, Camberwell

Insensitive agents

Estate agent Adam Gillon might get a “warm, fuzzy feeling” about overseas property buyers being at his auctions (The Age, 24/4) but he clearly doesn’t have adult children like myself who feel hopeless and dejected about ever being able to get into the property market.

In the current real estate climate it is insensitive comments like Gillon’s that give real estate agents a poor reputation.

– Diana Holten, Surrey Hills

Shrinking towns

A thread at MetaFilter, “Wolves, neo-Nazis and Germany’s population crash”, had links to articles about towns facing demographic collapse (in this case, parts of Detroit being bulldozed into farmland, and some towns in East Germany being deserted). I can’t see this as a bad thing (and bear in mind that the world’s population continues to increase inexorably). There’s a comment comparing population control to eugenics:

Exactly. More evil has been done in fear of a Malthusian crisis than has ever occurred from a Malthusian crisis. The Irish Potato Famine was partly a result of British policy that allowed it to occur – while millions died, the Brits exported food from Ireland – all those starving people were a “natural” purging of over-population, they thought, Malthus said so! Many other examples of self-fulfilling Malthusian prophecies. A lot of modern-day environmentalism is (uncomfortably) rooted in Malthus and Eugenics. One can see it even in some of the posts in this thread – it’s hard to touch Demographics without sounding like a colonial-era racists, so much of what we take as common truth is actually a holdover from 18th and 19th century racist and colonial mindsets.

There hasn’t been 7 billion people in the world before, though, so such a crisis is only a matter of time. A more informed comment:

One of the worst consequences of the imminent population peak would be if we lost our nerve and started encouraging more reproduction.

We’re – that is to say, all of humanity in general – is poised to dodge a bullet, if we don’t (in some sense literally) fuck it up.

Population growth cannot continue forever. We’ve pulled a bunch of neat stunts to keep the unprecedented population boom triggered by the Industrial Revolution going, but they have come at extremely high ecological cost. Those bills are just starting to come due, in the form of anthropogenic climate change, topsoil depletion, salinification, aquifer and groundwater depletion, soil and ocean nitrification…it’s a long list.

It would be incredibly stupid to encourage people to breed in order to preserve economic systems that were stupidly premised on continual population growth, rather than fixing those economic systems to cope with decline. A growing population is nothing to brag about.

We’ve held off Mr. Malthus for centuries and in all likelihood we can probably do it for a few more, with sufficient cleverness: built a ton of nuclear reactors, bioengineer salt-tolerant crops, desalinate seawater when the groundwater runs out, learn to love carp. Climate change might require some desperate measures, since it seems doubtful we’ll resist the temptation of all that coal and shale oil…I wouldn’t want to own real estate in Bangladesh. But most of our current problems probably can be solved, at least individually.

But many of those “solutions” will inevitably create their own problems – just as the Haber-Bosch process, which saved first Europe and later Asia from famine in the 20th century has created a host of problems that we’re going to need to tackle in the 21st – and there will be other, completely new issues. More and more balls to juggle, and we only need to drop one to create a true disaster.

So the question is not whether we can keep the whole growth mess trucking along for another century or so, the question is why would we want to. Why, when we have it within our reach to go another route: let the population begin to slowly decrease, while using productivity gains to maintain and spread the standard of living that right now only a small minority of humanity can hope to have.

If there is one thing – one single thing – that Western civilization has figured out in the late 20th century, it seems to be a way to stop population expansion without going down the traditional, bloody paths of war or famine. Women’s rights, reliable contraception, secularism, environmental awareness, retirement systems – whatever the magic ingredients are, they seem to finally be working.

It absolutely floors me that there are people who, when faced with what looks to me like the triumph, the saving grace of high-impact technological civilization in the face of so many obvious downsides and failings, so much oppression and industrialized death, want to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by encouraging people – paying them outright, in some cases – to have more babies. Insanity.

My suburb, and city, are experiencing just the opposite – a demographic explosion. Traffic is horrendous; we seem to live in a semi-permanent construction zone due to constant demolition of houses and gardens with big ugly crowded dwellings built to replace them; violent crime and vandalism are increasing drastically no thanks to a higher population of ill-disciplined youths. For me, all this is extremely unpleasant and stressful. I find myself fantasizing about much of humanity being decimated by some virus epidemic; or of waking up one day to find all other humans had disappeared. Of course I would not last long either, but at least my environment would be peaceful in the interim. I want this chaos to end, to be destroyed.

Letter, The Age, 22/3:

We all pay a high price for growth

Alan Davies called for a more evidence-based analysis of the issues associated with growth (“Problems with fringe-dwelling are peripheral”, The Age, 19/3). He failed to offer any evidence that growth, either by sprawl or infill, improves any aspect of our lives.

Although Davies regards it as trivial, urban development claims more arable land globally than desertification, salination and erosion put together. Ten per cent of all arable land was lost to development in the 15 years to 2000. Australia’s high-quality horticultural soils are scarce and mostly localised, not coincidentally, near (or now under) our major cities.

The only argument for population growth is economic, but it benefits few at the cost of the many. A Florida study found that every dollar of benefit generated by new development cost between $1.38 and $1.72 for required additional services.

Another Florida report found that the fastest growing counties had the highest growth in taxes — to pay for all the infrastructure. The costs of growth, in environment, lifestyle, climate change or even just cold, hard cash, are much greater than the costs of ageing.

– Jane O’Sullivan, Chelmer, Qld

Crowding us in

“Two good to be true”, H-S, 14/3. Some scientific evidence demonstrating that smaller families (one or two children) are better for parents’ health!

“Overpopulation the great unmentionable in Queensland politics”, Courier Mail, 16/3. Queensland is one of the most populous states and the strain is showing (as with Victoria), yet its deluded politicians still promote growth.

One of the comments below that article:

Well, SCOTTY OF QLD, have you ever lived in China? Or that skyscraper capital of the world, Hong Kong? Have you any idea what effect it has on people’s psyche to live like crabs in a basket? To constantly fight over resources and space? To bring up children in a tiny flat situated a hundred or more feet up in the air? Nah, I thought not. Well, you might want to live like that, but I’m damned sure I don’t want to. Nor do I want this for my kids and grandkids. Instead of comparing Australia with Third World countries (and saying, god forbid! that we should ape them), why not look at examples of intelligent population and lifestyle and resources management, such as we see in the Scandinavian countries? It is not our fault if countries choose to overpopulate. Likewise, it is simply RUBBISH to say that if overpopuilated Third World countries can scrape along, Australia (which has more than 76% desert, in case you hadn’t realised!) should be able to manage a huge population too. Why do you think migrants want to come here? To escape the overcrowded, chaotic countries they are leaving behind – duh!

Various developers have been making the usual alarmist statements about housing and land shortages (of course, they stand to profit from this). In “High-rise push to halt urban sprawl”, 16/3, some are promoting high-rise towers as a solution – not a desirable one for reasons stated in the comment above. I certainly don’t want Melbourne and its suburbs to end up as nightmarishly crowded concrete canyons. “Australia faces housing affordability ‘time bomb’: developer”, 17/3 – another developer pushes for smaller and more dense housing. There is only so much land, and covering it with housing estates is not acceptable – open space is necessary for environmental and mental health reasons. Crowding people into towers is not acceptable either.

Greens leader Bob Brown is pushing for a population strategy inquiry – at last his party seems to have realized it is a simmering issue that won’t go away.

“For a new generation, Alpha will be better”, The Age, 20/3. The generation born this year has been dubbed Alpha. Their future could be difficult, and shows how misguided encouraging a high birth rate is – it means more strain on resources, and competition for jobs.

The last of the Alphas will be born in 2024. Australian National University head of demographics Peter McDonald says they may be our biggest generation yet. He says the number of births could be higher in the future because of large numbers of migrants having babies.

In 2050, when the eldest Alphas turn 40, the population is predicted to reach 35 million. Professor McDonald refers to the “echo effect” – if there is a larger population that will trigger another baby boom because there are more people to have babies. Mr McCrindle, however, predicts one in three Alpha females will not have children. Professor McDonald says the bigger generations generally face greater competition in the labour force, but with Australia’s skills shortage this is less of an issue.

“The aging population scare debunked” at PublicPopForum. Quoted below:

Pamela Kinnear’s 2001 study for the Australia Institute, “Population Aging: Crisis or Transition?” concludes:

Conclusion: Alarm over the ‘ageing crisis’ is not justified by the evidence. The transition to an older population can be facilitated by promoting the well-documented benefits that accrue in societies that have equitable access for all citizens to healthcare, education, employment and retirement income. Policies should also focus on overcoming discriminatory attitudes to older people, ensuring security of employment over the life-course, and making a commitment to gender equity in both public and private spheres. Population ageing is not a threat to Australia’s future but an opportunity to ensure decent living standards for all.

Judith Healy’s Study for the Australia Institute 2004, “The Benefits of an Aging Population”:

Far from being net receivers of help and support, older people are, in fact, net providers, at least up to the age of 75 years. They provide childcare, financial, practical and emotional assistance to family members including helping people outside the household with the tasks of daily living. Such unpaid caring and voluntary work adds up to a significant proportion of GDP, around seven per cent on some measures (Ranzijn et al. 2002; De Vaus et al. 2003). Grandparenting has become an important social role in an age when people tend to have more living parents than children. Not only does it benefit grandparents themselves who find that grandparenthood is an important aspect of their lives, but it also appears to benefit grandchildren substantially.

In addition, it is likely that older communities will be more law-abiding communities since older people are less inclined to commit crimes against property and people. The Australian Institute of Criminology (2002b) estimates that homicide rates will fall by around 16 per cent between now and 2050 and there is likely to be less crime altogether resulting in substantial savings in prison and policing costs in the future. Older people are involved in the community as active members of clubs with a large Melbourne survey reporting that one-third of men and one quarter of women aged 55-75 years belonged to a sporting club (Howe and Donath, 1997). They also attend musical concerts, theatres and art galleries more frequent ly than younger people, read more and visit libraries more often. Thus it is probable that the arts will benefit from an older Australia.

Letter from the H-S, 19/3:

I agree with Ian Thomas (50/50, March 17), the world should be practising zero (or even negative) population growth. Governments promote population expansion purely for monetary reasons, not the environment. The world cannot sustain such a large population.

– J. Meulblok, Buckley

Collected letters

The articles linked in my 14/1 entry generated a flurry of letters to The Age. (I did not send one as I seem to have fallen out of favor – the last few I emailed were not published.)

15/1:

Migration’s drain on public purse

Michael Danby justifies our having the highest per capita immigration program by saying it brings in extra tax revenue (Comment, 14/1). A single year of migration like 2008, he claims, can “add more than $800 million to the tax base in the first year”. So what? If this is to be Danby’s economic case for high migration, then surely he needs to ask: do recent immigrants contribute more to the public purse in taxes than they take from it in direct costs and subsidies?

Back in the 1990s, answering this question set the economist Russell Matthews a massive task of disaggregation. His findings are discussed in my book This Tired Brown Land. Professor Matthews found it took the average immigrant about 10 years to become (like the average older resident) a net contributor to the public purse; and the highest costs occurred in the first two or three years after arrival. It seems that the average net cost to the public purse per immigrant back then was some $34,500 – a result so unwelcome to the government that it never funded a follow-up study.

The most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics figure for annual net migration is 285,000. A very rough calculation suggests this intake might be a net cost to the taxpayer of $9.7 billion – without counting environmental costs or the loss of urban amenities through crowding.

– Mark O’Connor, Lyneham, ACT

Cancer that kills the host

I do not feel reassured that Michael Danby and his parliamentary committee colleagues believe we can cope with population growth. Population policy in this country does not consider the greater good of existing citizens or the long-term suitability of a higher population, but is driven by what suits the electoral cycle and vested interests.

The Government’s contention that Australia was unique in avoiding the global financial crisis does not mention that it was largely on the back of increased demand from population growth. This growth is also artificially propping up house prices, now considered among the highest in the Western world. Business naturally wants more consuming units for its products. The biggest cheerleaders are developers and builders, with the Master Builders Association (“Green wedges lost in the woods”, Online, 14/1) implying that building more McMansions in the urban wastelands on the fringe of the city is an altruistic public service.

It is time citizens demanded a voice on this issue, which is being decided behind closed doors. We live in a mostly desert land that is getting hotter and drier. Experience tells us that governments never provide good planning and appropriate infrastructure to support a higher population, only ad-hoc freeways and energy-guzzling desalination plants as an afterthought. Growth should not always be the goal. The only thing that keeps growing is a cancer – until it kills its host.

– Chris Owens, Lysterfield South

Fix the problems first

How out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Victorians is the MBA? It is interested first and foremost in builders making money. It says it supports a larger population because Victoria should sustain more people. Why should it? So the MBA can build more houses and make more money? Victorians do not want continuing urban expansion and do not want to be battery hens locked up in tiny apartments. The MBA dismisses congestion and scarce resources as a management issue despite the fact that it is a huge problem with no solution in sight. I would like the MBA to first sort out these problems and then it can push for the population to grow ad-infinitum. Probably until the whole country is covered with housing.

– Greg Delaney, Amaroo, ACT

Growth that is gentle

Proponents of perpetual growth may not realise that we do not have to abandon all growth. While unchecked economic/population growth is not sustainable, we can indulge ourselves in intellectual growth, humanitarian growth, growth in compassion, demolishing the poverty industry and dissolving the billionaires’ club. The list is endless. This generates employment and income and is gentle on the environment.

– Margit Alm, Eltham

On the home front

While I concur in general with Terry Barnes about consumerism (Comment, 13/1), I do not agree with his convoluted solution to limit the size of houses by imposing a surcharge based on floor space per person.

The problem of the ever-increasing size of private residences has been created in part by the tax-free status of owner-occupied houses irrespective of size or market value. This has resulted in the family home being the best “investment” one can have and in reality forms part of one’s superannuation.

A quick reality check would be for the Federal Government to introduce a capital gains tax on properties over a nominated value, say, $1 million, which would change with inflation. This would no doubt lead to loud dissent by the better off, but would create a fairer system.

– Barry Robinson, McCrae

Recipe for high debt

Let’s debate what is really contributing to rising household debt and not just consider fringe issues such as McMansions and entertainment systems.

In 1996, approximately 30 per cent of an average weekly income was needed to pay off a 25-year mortgage on a median-priced house bought by first home buyers in Australia. This figure was more than 80 per cent in 2008 and will probably be higher again this year. The increasing size of new houses does not explain these figures.

Stopping this debt madness will require tough medicine, including removal of an unfair taxation system and supply policies. Ironically, people who have enough money to buy houses enjoy significant tax benefits on capital gains; what’s more, if it is an investment, the taxpayer helps finance it through negative gearing.

Couple this with a cut in the supply of public housing and a rising population, and you have a recipe for spiralling housing costs and rising household debt.

– Linda Brownstein, Wangaratta

Michael Danby’s view that population growth is required to “maintain our generous care of seniors” (Comment, 14/1) fails to acknowledge that such growth generates future dependency by new generations of seniors, in greater numbers, who will in turn require a growing population to support them.

– Luke Hooper, Northcote

16/1:

Michael Danby (Comment, 14/1) believes we can manage our environment while continuing to grow our population. In medical terms this is called palliative care.

– Kyle Matheson, Mont Albert

Just because economic gurus don’t know how we can grow richer without a simplistic growth in population doesn’t mean it is impossible.

– Guido Stavenuiter, Balmain

“ ‘Don’t pander to greenies’ ”, The Age, 31/12/2009. I sent a letter in response to this, but it wasn’t published:

Mr. Gadiel’s objection to “extreme environment groups“ being enabled to challenge governments in court is hardly surprising, seeing as he is part of the property development industry – a group not known for its regard for the environment or residents’ rights. Hopefully the law changes that reduce the court costs for activists will be implemented, making it more difficult for greedy developers to get their way.

Some that were:

1/1:

Brownwashing the environment debate

Comments by property development group Urban Taskforce Australia (The Age, 31/12) demonstrate the importance of looking beyond the intemperate views of such groups in developing government policy.

Aaron Gadiel provided a scaremongering assessment of recommendations in the Hawke review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. He suggests that reinstating provisions that remove cost barriers to parties seeking injunctions against environmentally contentious projects will “drench Australia in American-style litigation culture”.

However, only four such injunctions were granted under the act from 1999 to 2007, before the provisions were repealed.

It is disingenuous of UTA to paint environmental groups as not-in-my-backyard activists. Most serious environmental litigation is undertaken by those with more altruistic motivations such as species protection and safeguarding the planet for future generations. This may be contrasted with not-in-my-back-pocket industry groups, which, acting on behalf of their constituent members, are principally concerned with financial returns.

Removing cost barriers to the courts promotes access to justice opportunities, enhances scrutiny of government decision-making, and has potential to advance the rule of law in an area that the scientific community suggests will determine the future of the planet.

– Gregor Hupser, Public Interest Law Clearing House (Vic), Melbourne

Bring it on

Aaron Gadiel complains that legislative changes would give people who want to complain more of a voice in court, reducing “opportunities for Australia to get the urban development it needs”. Bring it on. I’d love to see what happens when locals have as much say as people whose only interest in the community is to make money from the community and leave.

– Graham Parton, Stanley

David vs. Goliath

“Bushland owners to fight bid for overpass”, The Age, 11/1. The owners of a heritage-listed bushland property are to fight the State Government’s compulsory land acquisition for a freeway bypass (mentioned in my 16/12/2009 entry). I really hope they can win as the Brumby Government are environmental vandals. The Save The Pines! website is a support group.

A letter, 12/1:

Warped priorities

I sympathise with Simon and Joyce Welsh whose heritage-listed property, Westerfield, has been compulsorily acquired for the Frankston bypass (The Age, 11/1). It seems the State Government is hell-bent on destroying ecosystems and remnant habitat for the sake of its sacred freeways and other developments. Local governments, too, collude with developers to mount unrelenting attacks on the environment. Apparently all that is required to tear down a “protected” tree in the suburbs, for example, is for a developer to apply for a permit. The result is an increasing loss of habitat as vegetation makes way for McMansions. We need governments who have greater vision than building freeways, lining the pockets of developers or hosting events.

– Tim Hartnett, Mont Albert North

Much of Victoria’s wilderness has been destroyed already – the forests that once covered it decimated since the arrival of European settlers – so it is vital that remnant bushland be preserved.

Back in 2006 a 400-year-old River Red Gum was felled to make way for a freeway. I will quote my 23/6/2006 journey entry from then:

Another tree murdered! This one a 400-year-old River Red Gum:

Tree was there first, but it had to go

Liam Houlihan, 23 June 2006

A 400-year-old tree that threatened to stump the Eastlink tollway has been chopped down by road builders. Dandenong council rallied to save the ancient River Red Gum, but was refused a last-ditch attempt for heritage protection.

Eastlink builders felled the tree about 9 a.m. yesterday, clearing the way for work to continue on the Dandenong Southern Bypass. Road builder Thiess John Holland said there was no feasible way to save the tree, near Hammond Rd, Dandenong South.

Dandenong Council admitted an oversight meant they had failed to protect it earlier. “I feel very sad today,” said Cr. John Kelly, who led the push to save the tree. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get our interim heritage order.” He said he was now pushing for the council to investigate whether there were similar old trees needing protection.

The tree was lopped just two days after its plight came to public attention.

“That might have quickened the process up,” Cr. Kelly said.

The main body of the tree was lifted onto a truck by a crane yesterday afternoon to be taken to council offices. It may be made into sculptures or art or erected in the ground with a plaque.

A tree that had been growing long before the first European settlers arrived here is now no more, no thanks to heartless developers and the overpopulated state’s insatiable need for more roads. It was rather isolated, the only tree near a busy road and housing developments. Perhaps it was once surrounded by forest.

This cartoon by Mark Knight provides some perspective:

Growing like a cancer

Everytime I see that Victorian Government Transport “Plan” ad on TV (YouTube parody version), I want to throw something at it! “Victoria is growing” the voiceover man cheerily says – well, that’s not a good thing, is it? Life is getting very stressful for those living here. The Govt. merely seems obsessed with scarring the landscape with yet more freeways.

“Labour has been ‘maladroit’ in immigration policy, admits Home Secretary Alan Johnson”, Daily Mail, 2/11. A politician somewhat grudgingly admits that the U.K.’s immigration rate has had negative effects.

“Backyard blitz puts Aussie lifestyle under threat”, The Age, 15/4. An English professor is dismayed by the reduction of backyard size of Australian homes. Backyard vegetation also provides shelter for local birds.

“City’s population explosion threatens urban devastation”, The Age, 5/11. This article only concentrates on how to accommodate a large population, rather than trying to prevent such growth. It is not inevitable if governments have the will to combat it!

“Time to take in hand the birds in the bush”, The Age, 5/11. Native birdlife is diminishing rapidly in Victoria, due to land clearing and urbanization, both caused by population growth. The Brumby Government’s thoughtless approval of vegetation clearing around properties is not helping.

The Age letters:

1/11:

Perish the thought

In response to Peter Munro’s article “The big squeezy” (25/10) – do we really want 35 million Australians by 2050? There was a time when our nation’s leaders cried: “Populate or perish!” That cry is now public policy at state and federal level. The planet is racing towards the tipping point for oil reserves, potable water supplies and unstoppable climate change. We live in a society so accustomed to having it all we should update our national pledge to bring it in line with the logical outcome: “Populate AND perish!”

– Michael Virant, Kensington

That article portrays a grim view of Melbourne’s future, assuming that population growth is inevitable. Its liveability will be destroyed if this becomes reality.

Herald-Sun letters:

7/9:

I’m 32 and lived in the one street in Croydon for 31 of those years.

I remember thinking as a child that there was so much space in Croydon. Not so now.

In the past few years I’ve seen townhouses popping up everywhere. I’m starting to feel hemmed in, in my own street.

Croydon, I love you. But you’re changing, and I don’t believe it’s for the better. I think it’s time I left.

– Nola Wernicke, Croydon

Unfortunately, the problem of overdevelopment is afflicting all suburbs, so moving is not really a solution, unless you go somewhere in the country – but then there is the problem there of lack of transport and facilities (such as medical care).

24/9:

We need more people pointing out the impossibility of reconciling increased population, current affluence and a healthy environment. Something’s got to give.

– Beverly Broadbent, East Brighton

3/11:

Hidden agenda on migrants

Australia’s population has been growing and growing over the past decade, and all we hear from our political leaders is either silence or what a great thing population growth is, never mind the environment or the cost of building new housing and infrastructure. The Labor and Liberal parties pretend to make a fuss about a few hundred boat people, but at the same time they are opening the door to hundreds of thousands of so-called skilled migrants. Their tough stance against asylum seekers is really just a way of disguising from the public their pro-immigration and pro-population growth policies.

– Lynne Skinner, Kangaroo Flat

6/11:

Get off the fake grass

The idea that fake grass is better for the environment than real grass is a myth that continues to be enthusiastically promoted by people with vested interests. The logic goes that synthetic turf doesn’t need to be watered or mown and is therefore the obvious choice for ecologically aware gardeners. However, fake grass is a petro-chemical product that takes a long time to break down – unlike real, living, organic grass. In addition, the manufacture and transportation of synthetic grass creates carbon, whereas real grass absorbs it. Artificial grass also damages the soil underneath it and creates an inhospitable environment for the life that thrives in and around real grass, such as insects, worms and birds. While real grass may not be perfect, it is surely a better option than synthetic turf.

– Virginia van Engelen, Port Fairy

Garden-hater

“Deceptive green of suburban gardens”, The Age, 19/9. Opinion piece by a Robert Nelson, who thinks that suburban gardens are environmentally-unfriendly because they take up space and encourage urban sprawl. So his “solution” is, predictably, to do away with planning regulations and cram housing together as much as possible.

With fewer private gardens, less water would be used and the streets would have people in them, with shops and cafes at ground level rather than the great Australian emptiness of our suburbs, where – as Baudrillard said of Los Angeles – you feel like a delinquent if you aren’t in a car.

Australians speak fondly of preserving the established character of their neighbourhoods and jealously guard against the alien aesthetics of large edifices occupying the full block. Their defence of the leafy ambience is an understandable NIMBY reaction; but it’s also a parochial immaturity that we must grow out of.

Mate, you’ve got it wrong – gardens provide habitat for birds and animals, help cool the microclimates surrounding houses and streets, absorb CO₂ and make the urban landscape pleasanter. The solution to urban sprawl is containing population growth – then residents do not have to endure high-density living. There is nothing “immature” about opposing high-density developments.

Some letters from today’s The Age in response (also to the population growth prediction articles):

Balancing green with buildings

Robert Nelson’s piece (“Deceptive green of suburban gardens”, Comment & Debate, 18/9) is welcome. An alternative theme came to me: gardening in the leftover land between monstrous houses and their boundaries.

When I was growing up in the 1950s, the aspirational house was 12 to 14 squares (110 to 130 square metres) for the family of five. Now it is something like 22 to 40 squares for three to four people. Monash University, where Dr. Nelson teaches, once reinforced that “green dream” when the attraction of open space was a reason why people enrolled there. Now its Clayton campus struggles to “green” the leftover bits between its building ambitions. Unfortunately, the market has not embraced the inspirational approach of balancing green with buildings. How long does it take to change culture?

– Paul Thompson, landscape architect, Mooroolbark

Urban deserts only add to social stress

Robert Nelson’s proposal for saving the planet by abolishing suburban gardens is misguided. It takes no account of the environmental and social benefits of gardens, especially those with native plants. Even inner-city gardens provide habitats for native birds, lizards and insects.

They help provide cooler environments in summer, especially when houses are shaded by trees. They can be used to grow fruit and vegetables and keep poultry, thereby reducing reliance on the air-polluting transportation of food. And they encourage healthy outdoor activities that are less polluting than energy-powered indoor pastimes.

Turning our suburbs into urban deserts will only add to social stress, causing more of us to move to the countryside. Better technology, urban planning and a smaller human population are the solutions.

– Jason Foster, Mirboo North

Preserving our link to the land

Robert Nelson’s critique of the suburban garden lifestyle is shortsighted. He rightly draws our attention to the high cost of our low-density suburbs in the form of massive use of cars and the pollution they cause, but fails to consider their role in the future. In a no-growth society, the journey to work will be greatly reduced and much of it will be by public transport, foot or bike. Gardens will come into their own, not only as pleasant places to be but where we grow a substantial portion of our own food.

It is true that the creation of the suburbs had an aesthetic motive, but it involved a deep-seated reaction to high-density living based on thousands of years of living more closely with the land. Surely that relationship is worth conserving.

– Geoff Mosley, Hurstbridge

So many ways to reduce emissions

So, Robert Nelson wants to abolish the setbacks and sun-lit gardens of Melbourne, still one of the world’s most liveable cities, to make it more like London, New York and Seoul – far from the most liveable cities. Amazing. The reason he gives is that sprawl generates car travel, which produces greenhouse emissions. Yet such brutalising of Melbourne’s cherished green areas will take decades to strongly affect the world’s climate.

Dr. Nelson seems blissfully unaware of the plethora of suggestions to reduce emissions more quickly and with less damage to our city’s wonderful, hard-won features. These include appropriate public transport, transit lanes, reducing the number of children driven to school, green cars, incentives for employers who hire workers living nearby, harnessing the solar, wind and water recycling potential that exists within suburban backyards, local food, staggered working hours, telecommuting, high-standard bike paths and urban forestry.

A little more open-minded, lateral thinking and less vandalism, please.

– Ray Wyatt, Balwyn North

Curbing the sprawl

The editorial, “35 million Australians? Start preparing now” (19/9), provided an insightful overview of a looming catastrophe. Melbourne 2030 provided a sustainable alternative to the relentless urban sprawl. It had the potential to address congestion problems, facilitate public transport and encourage people to be less car-dependent, as well as enable the development of vibrant and dense communities. But it involved significant change.

Unfortunately, rather than engaging with the community, providing leadership and comprehensive back-up, it was delivered as a fait accompli. As a result, it was easy for powerful, single-interest groups and local government to scuttle the changes. In this instance, all parties must work together to find solutions. The problem is that there are no robust public forums where urban change can be debated and resolved. The Age’s intention to lead the debate is welcome.

– David Rayson, Albert Park

High-risk approach

Your editorial perpetuates the myth that an ever-increasing population is required so there will be enough workers to support retired people. However, its premise is false.

We have educated, skilled workers aged over 45 who are deemed “too old” by prejudiced employers. Proportionally, there are more older people than in previous generations, because they are living longer. Many are willing and able to work after a retirement age suitable for life expectancies a century ago.

Real wealth per head has doubled in the past 40 years and will probably continue on this trajectory. We will be able to afford a larger non-working population and still indulge in the waste of mass consumerism. Industries such as construction advocate increasing our population because it profits from building more sprawling suburbs and related infrastructure. The money would be better spent providing first-class housing, schools, hospitals and transport for the current population and investing in high-tech export industries. Taking 30 million immigrants from Asia, Africa or Europe will have no significant effect on those massively populated continents but would devastate Australia’s fragile ecology.

– Philip Shehan, Brunswick

Impeach Brumby!

That expresses the exasperation and frustration I feel with the current Victorian Government. Planning issues have been in the news again this week, and the Brumby Government (especially Planning Minister Justin Madden) continue to force their overcrowding and overdevelopment agenda, irrespective of how residents feel. Some articles from The Age:

• “Brumby tackled on urban sprawl”, 9/6. The “Green Wedge” zones supposed to retain open space are to be developed to accommodate a projected population of 5 million in Melbourne and surrounding suburbs. The Open Letter from councils is reproduced below.
• “Wedge politics”, 9/6. Some of the open areas are part of the diminishing Victorian Volcanic Plains Grasslands and include some of the last remnants of the plains grasslands, which are being smothered under housing estates.
• “Threat to grab power off councils”, 13/6. Justin Madden – whom I have come to despise (and the building industry as well), and who has been Planning Minister for far too long – is to override councils’ decisions on planning.

This Labor Government is just as bad as the previous Liberal Government under Jeff Kennett (who began the planning reforms that have led to this); I would not vote for either of them.

Dear Sirs,

Governments have to make difficult decisions. We understand that. However recent planning reforms have gone too far. In the past few months your Government has:

1. Introduced legislation to deprive local communities of their normal rights to have their own elected Councillors make decisions on development applications in their larger shopping centers;
2. Planned to appoint a government-dominated committee to
   1. make decisions,
   2. require local residents to write a blank cheque to pay for the committee, and
   3. demand Councils pay the cost of defending the committee’s decisions even where residents and Councillors may strongly oppose these decisions.
3. Removed the rights of residents, Councils and VCAT to make decisions on development applications which are deemed important economy-boosting opportunities. The normal rights of residents have been taken away. Applications are now decided behind closed doors.
4. Removed both the rights of residents to be advised of applications next door to them, and to express concern about applications involving social housing and private schools where government funding is involved.

These measures demolish the cornerstone of this state’s planning system – the rights of residents to have a say about their neighborhood. These rights are at the very heart of our democratic system of governance. The use of the economic downturn to justify the denial of these fundamental rights is short-term thinking with disasterous long-term consequences. How can communities have any confidence in a planning system where the ends justify the means?

It is time to reinstate residents’ rights. It is time to return democratic planning processes to the people who elected you to respect and protect those rights in our society.

All of this is attributable to a growing population. If the Federal and State Governments would have the foresight to restrict Australia’s population growth such pressures would be alleviated, but they are hopelessly addicted to growth.

“Australia turns back the clock to baby boomer era”, The Age, 5/6. A dismaying report of the current high rate of Australia’s population growth, due to both immigration and birth rate increase.

“The Top 10 Most Absurd Time Covers of The Past 40 Years”, Reason Online. This site has a byline of “free minds and free markets” which sounds suspiciously like it is a Libertarian site. №8 is “August 6, 1984: The Population Curse”, reproduced below:

Why So Worried? Using an upcoming U.N. conference in Mexico City as its hook, Time engages in some Paul Ehrlich-style doom-mongering about overpopulation.

Cue Ominous Music: “The consequences of a failure to bring the world’s population growth under control are frightening. They could include widespread hunger and joblessness, accompanied by environmental devastation and cancerous urban growth. Politically, the outcome could be heightened global instability, violence and authoritarianism.”

Oh, Just Settle Down: Since Time’s 1984 cover story, the world’s population has increased from 4.75 billion to 6.78 billion people. This year, the World Bank’s Poverty Analysis reported, “Living standards have risen dramatically over the last decades. The proportion of the developing world’s population living in extreme economic poverty…has fallen from 52 percent in 1981 to 26 percent in 2005… Infant mortality rates in low- and middle-income countries have fallen from 87 per 1,000 live births in 1980 to 54 in 2006. Life expectancy in [low and middle-income] countries has risen from 60 to 66 between 1980 and 2006.” According to the peace advocacy group Ploughshares, the number of armed conflicts across the globe has generally been in decline since the mid-1990s (PDF). As for “authoritarianism,” with the fall of the Soviet empire, a far greater percentage of the global population lived under such regimes in 1984 than do today. Even the massive population in China is freer (if not actually “free”) than it was in 1984.

Well, we are already seeing the consequences of overpopulation (hunger, joblessness, environmental devastation, etc.), so what reality are the article writers living in?

“Pop the Pill and think of England”, New Statesman, 4/11/2002. An older article that explains why an aging and declining population is not something to be feared.

Brumby the Dictator (continued…)

“Brumby’s planning law bypass”, The Age, 21/5; “Constructing a city behind closed doors”, 20/5. The Brumby State Government continues to change planning laws under the excuse of creating jobs, without caring what impact this will have on the residents who have to endure ugly and inappropriate development. Some letters from today’s The Age:

Residents left to deal with fallout

Having spent a day at VCAT this week and many hours preparing a submission in support of our council, which had refused a permit for a box apartment block for an otherwise single-dwelling residential street, we are dismayed at what may be built under the State Government’s takeover of planning regulations.

We argued that kitchens with no natural light and, in some cases, no space for a fridge, were not acceptable; that bedrooms with no direct natural light were not acceptable; that apartments requiring large inputs of energy to keep them liveable in summer and winter were not acceptable in this age of climate change; and that a basement car park on flood-prone land was inappropriate. We argued that the loss of privacy to neighbours, the lack of open space and myriad design faults had undesired social consequences.

And yet all this developer has to do is declare the least desirable unit as “social housing” and the plans will be rubber-stamped by the Planning Minister.

And who has to live with the fallout? Not the developer who walks away with his rich profits, not the Government ministers and bureaucrats who allowed this “development”, but the local residents who have to share their overstretched or non-existent community support services and put up with the eyesore dominating the previously pretty street.

When do we start labelling the Brumby Government as the second coming of Jeff?

– David and Lauren Gates, Notting Hill

Exemption scandal

As a town planner I would usually embrace Mr. Brumby’s fast-tracking of social housing. However, an examination of the details of the provisions highlights that the removal of these projects from the public realm is scandalous.

To qualify for the “social housing” exemption and be excluded from public participation and comment, there is no need to provide a minimum percentage of social housing. Indeed, since the announcement, a number of planning consultancies have begun offering to help commercial residential projects through the “social housing exemptions”.

Mr. Madden, a 100-unit commercial residential project with two social housing units is not social housing, but rather a “wolf scantily dressed in lamb’s clothing”.

– David Vorchheimer, Brighton

Long-term damage

Under the excuse of creating jobs, John Brumby is sacrificing democracy to increase his developer mates’ profits. This Government has been waiting for an excuse to bring in centralised planning, to get it out of the hands of councils and the dreaded residents. The real worry of this takeover is the long-term damage it will do to Melbourne and the state. Allowing developers to do what they want will change the face of Melbourne forever in a very short time and residents and their elected councils will be impotent.

– Mary Drost, convener, Planning Backlash, Camberwell

Bulldozing strategy

The latest bulldozing attempt by the Brumby-Madden behemoth reminds me of Albert Speers’ vision of a new Berlin – nothing must stand in its way. But instead of a misguided grand vision of a fascist state, we have a botched smorgasbord of developments that will be subject to abuse by those who will profit from them. There will be token amounts of social housing or educational institutions but in the end, the much bandied-about investment in infrastructure will be dominated by commercial profit rather than public good.

Your editorial (21/5) has accurately predicted the beginning of the end of an otherwise reasonably successful government. Like everything else, the notion of power has a way of corrupting the minds of well-meaning politicians.

– Alex Njoo, St Kilda

Perhaps frustrated residents can resort to illegal means to combat such developments, such as burning them!

“City’s growth boundary expanded”, The Age, 20/5. Melbourne continues to expand outward over the grassy plains like a metastasing cancer. The Planning Minister, Justin Madden, conveniently found that:

“We now know the grasslands are not as prolific in this area as originally thought,” he said in a written statement. This allowed the Government to look at a larger area for land use and transport.

I would like to see Madden given a public lynching! He has been Planning Minister for far too long and is corrupt and incompetent.

Published letters (not mine)

My letter to the Sunday Age last week did not get published, but some others did, all very critical of that ridiculous opinion piece (26/4/2009 entry). I will reproduce them below:

One-child policy may not be enough

Chris Berg’s response to reported comments of Sandra Kanck and a one-child policy was facile, ignorant and unscientific (“Depopulate and die of boredom”, 26/4).

Whether or not we like trees or crowds is utterly irrelevant to how many people this country can sustain. What is relevant is how much food can be grown in an energy-constrained world facing temperatures of up to six degrees higher by the end of the century.

Has Berg even heard about peak oil? Is he not aware that if and when we get even four degrees warming, we can kiss Australian agriculture goodbye?

Sandra Kanck certainly said we may have to consider a one-child policy. That may be what we will have to have if we do not stop our population exploding right now.

And exploding it is, with 1 million being added every three years or less. She mentioned 7 million in response to a question of what was an ecologically sustainable population for Australia. Given that many leading scientists are now saying the world can only support 1 or 2 billion, or less than a third of the current population, Australia having 7 million fits with that.

Even 7 million, however, may be too many in a post-oil world.

– Jenny Goldie, president, Canberra region branch, Sustainable Population Australia Inc

“Surprising”, really?

Chris Berg’s repulsive piece on Australian depopulation not only suffers from a lack of research, but trivialises a serious issue. Is it really “surprising” that this is an issue for people in a country where urban sprawl and extreme water shortages have become the norm, Mr. Berg? And as for your fear that depopulation will lessen the stock list of your boutique supermarket: many of the world’s “boring” places have given birth to beautiful things. Ricky Gervais (suburban Reading), single malt whisky (Scottish Highlands), pesto (my Nana’s kitchen).

Without crap places, there would be no shining gems for your “cultured” world to pillage.

– Madeline Farrugia, Abbotsford

Great minds v Berg

The world’s most respected scientists, including Sir David Attenborough, David Suzuki and Australian of the Year Tim Flannery, all agree: the world is overpopulated. I’ll take their views over Chris Berg’s any day.

With Australian oil production barely meeting half our needs and world prices on the way back up, and with water restrictions in cities and irrigators having to watch crops die, and with all the uncertainty of climate change, it beggars belief that an intelligent person could claim that this country needs to increase its population lest we “die of boredom”!

– James Ward, Adelaide

Look around the world

Chris Berg should spin the globe and examine Antarctica, the Sahara, the Gobi, northern Siberia, the Andes and several oceans patiently awaiting the blessings of civilisation.

– Brian Spittle, Gooseberry Hill, WA

Standing room only

Chris Berg writes that “over and over, we have demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to innovate our way out of any theoretical ‘limit to growth’ ”. It takes only simple maths to work out that continued growth of anything is insustainable. Yes, Australia is a big country with a small population. At present we are growing at 1.2 per cent per year, which doesn’t sound much. If we continue on this path, by the year 2700 we will have 1000 people per square kilometre, including the deserts. By year 3440, we would have one person per square metre – standing room only.

– Peter Seligman, Essendon

Logic, please

Chris Berg shows that we do not need a particular size population to be bored, we just need the Institute of Public Affairs. They have a template for it. Once you read one IPA article, you’ve read them all. They make the same assumption – private better than public, economic and population growth good, anything “socialist” bad, and that people who challenge these assumptions are deserving of insult, scorn, derision and a range of other put-downs.

Read the IPA articles and look for a well put-together, logical argument. You won’t find one, just the same repeated “template”: abuse, ridicule, cheap jokes and a little benevolent paternalism.

– Robert Yates, Diamond Creek

A Herald-Sun letter also mentioned my last one to the paper (30/4/2009 entry):

Our gardens are our haven

I could not agree more with readers Suzanne McHale and Mary Drost (Your Say, April 30). I too deplore the destruction of lovely houses and beautiful gardens through bad urban planning. The prospect of ugly, high- rise apartments eating up the rest of our leafy suburbs fills me with horror. Throw in the issue of inadequate infrastructure and a population growing too fast, and Melbourne’s future looks bleak indeed.

The majority of people cannot wish to live crammed cheek by jowl in tiny boxes in hideous apartments, surrounded by people. I know I certainly don’t.

Melbourne must retain its parks and gardens (including the backyard variety) and nature strips. Leave us our precious open spaces, or we’ll all go crazy. The Labor Government’s insidious 2030 policy, in collusion with developers, signais the further decline of once beautiful Melbourne.

– Brigid Guymer, Blackburn

Crowded city is maddening

It appears insane we are planning to have another million people in Melbourne when our water supply is not only dwindling, but is under threat. The issue of population growth is one that we seem to ignore and which must have an impact on the issues of sustainability of resources, infrastructure, the environment and climate change.

– Joan Lynn, Williamstown

He cannot be serious!

“Planning expert says Melbourne must destroy leafy eastern suburbs”, Herald-Sun, 29/4. Seems to be a week for dumb articles, as this outrageous proposal was published today: Jason Black, the president of the Planning Institute of Australia’s Victorian division, put forward a proposal that Melbourne’s eastern suburbs (which have a lot of established trees and vegetation) be forcibly acquired, demolished and replaced with high-density housing.

Mr. Black says spacious suburban blocks should be leveled and the homes replaced with three to six-storey apartment buildings. Mr. Black said at a Melbourne planning summit yesterday: “We need to realise that some of the fundamentals driving the Government’s 2030 development plan have changed and we need to rethink how we’re going to go about delivering some of the objectives and the vision.” The conference heard that metropolitan Melbourne would need an extra 850,000 new homes by 2036 if fertility and immigration levels remained the same.

[…]

But Dr. Bob Birrell, a Monash University population and urban research expert, said compulsory acquisition of middle suburban properties would not be acceptable. “I think this (redevelopment) would be a nightmare for people that live there and they would see it as expropriating them in order facilitate someone else’s growth objective and I could see why they would be so testy,” he said.

A letter I sent to the H-S (don’t know if it will be published):

Jason Black can surely not be serious in proposing to destroy the pleasant leafy suburbs that help make Melbourne liveable, and replace them with hideous cramped high-rise apartments (“Planning expert says Melbourne must destroy leafy eastern suburbs”, 29/4) – any government that tried that strategy would face a citizens’ revolution! Far better to restrict population growth so that housing demand is lessened and amenity can be preserved, though that would not please the greedy developers and construction industry.

It’s bad enough that this increasingly dictatorial government is intending to override councils’ decisions in order to fast-track planning and construction (“Brumby sidelines councils”, The Age, 16/4) – I wish enough people would get motivated to instigate a revolt and overthrow this government!

Grim future

There was a published reply to my 21/2 letter in yesterday’s The Age from someone who disagreed with me:

Liveable for all

Susanne McHale [Grrr! You spelled my name wrong – it’s Suzanne with a z!] (Letters, 21/2) talks about liveability and the destruction of once-pleasant leafy suburbs. I’m not a developer and I have no economic interest in building. But you have to balance the fact that we have more people than houses in this city – already enormous in area for its population. We don’t need to talk about public transport and road congestion, do we?

The population will keep growing, with or without incentives. I support green and open spaces, good architectural design, and also a liveable city for most of its population, not just for the people in inner suburbs or the rich eastern suburbs. They can put it any way they want, but this is NIMBYism at its best.

– Sebastian Topet, Ivanhoe

Well, if the government makes an effort to restrict population growth, housing shortages won’t be such an issue! Also, the point I was making (perhaps not very clearly?) is that so many modern houses are huge and ugly – well, refer back to my letter. I wouldn’t have such a problem with development if houses were reasonably-sized (preferably single-storey), left ample room for vegetation (not those barren “designer gardens”) and had environmentally-friendly features such as solar power, water tanks, insulation and so on. But too many houses don’t – they are just ostentatious “McMansions” for people to show off in.

Another letter from the same day:

It’s in the plan(ning)

THE “modernisation of our state” (Letters, 23/2) is a matter of judgement. There are legitimately conflicting views as to what it should entail.

The denigration of citizen input as representing a NIMBY mentality reflects a political culture that has eroded any semblance of democratic process in urban planning in Melbourne.

Since the abolition of the Board of Works in 1982 and the neutering of councils in the 1990s, planning power has essentially been centralised with the planning minister – an easy target for property developers. Can the executive director of the Master Builders name any OECD country where local government and citizenry are as marginalised in land use planning as in Victoria?

– Angela Munro, Carlton North

A letter from today’s Sydney Morning Herald which makes a good point about the unsustainability of economic growth:

Growth fetish drives us to environmental disaster

The admission that worldwide carbon emissions will continue to rise despite the economic downturn, as reported on ABC radio yesterday, comes as no surprise. The seldom quoted correlation between economic growth, population growth and emissions growth will guarantee this.

With governments all over the world single-mindedly focused on expanding their economies, any new technologies will be able only to slow the rate of emissions growth. While desirable, that won’t save our bacon.

The unwillingness of politicians, business groups, academics and media commentators to acknowledge the absurdity of continuous growth is chilling. Possibly all are too frightened to admit that we have based our entire civilisation on a concept that has no credibility.

The transition to an economic system based on stable levels of production and consumption will be full of challenges, but continuing with the intellectually bankrupt system of endless growth can only hasten our headlong rush to environmental disaster.

The greenhouse charade that parades before us day after day, with a cast of well-scripted actors offering proclamations of how to keep the economy growing while reducing emissions, reminds me of the courtiers who complimented the naked emperor on his new suit of clothes.

So pervasive is the acceptance of continuous growth that it is almost impossible to conceive that so many people could be wrong about the wisdom of this system. In the end it was a young boy who pointed to the emperor and laughed out loud.

Sometimes I feel like that boy, but I am not laughing.

– Kris Spike, Castle Hill

Various governments’ “solution” to the credit crisis and economic downturn is merely more of the same: financially bail out the institutions who got their countries into this mess, and continue with the unsusainable policies of encouraging economic growth! The world’s growing population is the basic problem: all these people need to have jobs, but there are simply not enough (cannot be enough), so there will be increasing social unrest.

“The Vanishing Face of Gaia”, Times Online, 22/2. Review of a new book by James Lovelock.

Now in his 90th year, and still dauntlessly proclaiming unpalatable truths, James Lovelock is the closest thing we have to an Old Testament prophet, though his deity is not Jehovah but Gaia, his concept of planet earth. In his latest book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia, he warns, as he has before, that global warming is probably irreversible, and that once a tipping point is reached change to a new climate may be rapid. The Earth’s landmasses will be largely destroyed by flood and drought, and most of the world’s seven billion inhabitants will not survive. All this should make for a bleak read, yet Lovelock writes with such challenge that the effect is strangely exhilarating.

[…]

With his grandchildren, his American wife Sandy, and his 35 acres of woodland, wild orchids and badger setts “given back to Gaia”, he emerges as a happy, kindly man. Yet he does not always seem fully alive to the horrors that must ensue when the starving, terror-crazed masses of climate refugees arrive in the earth’s few remaining “lifeboats”, one of which, he believes, will be Britain. Observing that “genocide by tribal mobs is as natural as breathing”, and anticipating a “massive natural cull of humanity”, he seems to hark back to the scientifically detached Lovelock calmly eating his blood omelette. Yet he is still imagining ways to save civilisation – synthetic foodstuffs; a carbon-fibre disc orbiting the sun to protect us from its heat – and he has been allocated a seat on Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, so that he may at last see Gaia from space. Let us hope she is still habitable when he gets back.

I also feel that it is too late to prevent the upcoming environmental catastrophe; that “carbon trading” and all other efforts are useless token gestures, if continued population growth continues. By century’s end there will have been a massive environmental collapse and extinction of many species that will be very unpleasant for humanity. In 2050 I will turn 80, and I dread to contemplate what Earth will be like then. Younger generations will ask, “Why didn’t you do something to change things when you could?” and the only answer will be, “Governments would not listen.”

“A 10,000-year misunderstanding”, ABC News, 12/5/2008, says that only the discovery of fossil fuels (which are not unlimited) and agricultural developments has enabled such explosive population growth, but this cannot go on forever.

On April 14, 2008 we heard Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank, calling for a crash program of food production increases to stave off the approach of famine. How many times does he think we can pull new “productivity rabbits” out of the hat when soil resources of the planet continue to be degraded to produce more food for the irresponsibly breeding horde?

At the core of our problems today has been our unwillingness to see the relationship between the population numbers that we have built up since the advent of cultivation agriculture, and the sustainability problems that we have been sidestepping for 10,000 years.

Many keen thinkers have understood that the driver enabling our numbers to shoot so far over long-term carrying capacity has been the one-time gift of fossil fuels, and that this overshoot has resulted in our rampant destruction of the biosphere. The global human population, before the start of the fossil-fuel revolution, was about 1 billion, while it is now about 6.7 billion and rising. These holistic thinkers suggest that without oil, the earth will only support about 2-3 billion people.

Their forward thinking has not yet included an understanding of the thesis that the other major factor that has enabled our numbers to shoot so far over long-term carrying capacity has been the one-time gift of erodible soils and the vast store of nutrients they contained – until we began to irreversibly mine them about 10,000 years ago with cultivation agriculture.

“Animal Extinction – the greatest threat to mankind”, The Independent, 30/4/2007: an alarming article on the mass extinction of species silently taking place around us – the sixth in the history of Earth (the fifth being the dinosaurs) – much of it due to human activity.

We now understand that the majority of life on Earth has never been – and will never be – known to us. In a staggering forecast, Wilson predicts that our present course will lead to the extinction of half of all plant and animal species by 2100. You probably had no idea. Few do. A poll by the American Museum of Natural History finds that seven in 10 biologists believe that mass extinction poses a colossal threat to human existence, a more serious environmental problem than even its contributor, global warming; and that the dangers of mass extinction are woefully underestimated by almost everyone outside science.

[…]

All these disappearing species are part of a fragile membrane of organisms wrapped around the Earth so thinly, writes Wilson, that it “cannot be seen edgewise from a space shuttle, yet so internally complex that most species composing it remain undiscovered”. We owe everything to this membrane of life. Literally everything. The air we breathe. The food we eat. The materials of our homes, clothes, books, computers, medicines. Goods and services that we can’t even imagine we’ll someday need will come from species we have yet to identify. The proverbial cure for cancer. The genetic fountain of youth. Immortality. Mortality. The living membrane we so recklessly destroy is existence itself.

It seems that humans will only try to do something about this when it is already too late…what is needed is a radical change in lifestyles, the economic system, social structure (and a reduction in human population); to systems that are more sustainable than the current orthodoxy of endless consumption. I hope the grim prospective future of humans fighting for declining resources in a devastated and barren world can be averted, but I am not optimistic.

This may all be “doom-mongering”, but isn’t it better to be safe than sorry? I do have despairing thoughts that, though there are many people concerned about overpopulation, this is a lost cause – few if any influential people in power (i.e. governments, corporations) are similarly concerned, and just wish to continue “business as usual” though this is destructive to the planet and humanity’s ultimate survival.