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.

Melbourne in 2050: unlivable

“Still liveable?”, The Age, 22/11. This in-depth article looks at the rapid growth of Melbourne – predicted at the current rate to reach 6.4 million in 2050 – and the failure of the State Government to keep up with the infrastructure required to support such numbers. New suburbs are being built on what was once farmland at great distances from the CBD, and the residents there have virtually nothing in the form of access to public transport. The current planning system favors developers at the expense of livability issues, and there is no move to change this. Of course, the basic problem is the relentless population growth the city has been inundated with – and neither State nor Federal Governments appear willing to tackle this issue by reducing the too-high immigration rate, and discouraging the high birth rate – too radical for our growth-based economy to contemplate. One academic quoted in the article does not believe population growth is a problem:

The state government’s 20-minute city proposal is “a complete pipedream”, says Carolyn Whitzman, associate professor in urban planning at Melbourne University. “Whether Melbourne has 4 million or 6 million people, we’re not travelling in a particularly equitable direction,” she says. “I don’t necessarily see population growth as a bad thing, it just has to be managed properly. Currently, we live in a socially divided and environmentally unsustainable city.”

Realistically, population growth is almost never “managed properly” – certainly not by Australian governments – and with most cutting funding such management is even more unlikely.

From a commenter in a related article:

Still more articles agonising about strategies for adapting Melbourne’s moribund infrastructure to cope with future population explosion, all predicated on the unspoken and unchallenged assumption that population growth is inevitable and sacred. None of the learned commentators and politicians dares mention the obvious solution – limiting population growth, which could be done with social pressure on parents to limit family sizes, and governments limiting immigration. Why the collective dread of mentioning this obvious fact?

– boxchester, Melbourne, November 22, 2012, 11:48AM

I feel like starting a Mattew Guy hate page on Facebook or something! The Planning Minister comes across as arrogant and condescending in his statements, such as this opinion piece: “The metropolis our forefathers built will continue to be vibrant and exciting”, H-S, 22/11, a relentlessly optimistic extolling of Melbourne’s continous expansion. (I would like to declare a fatwa on the word vibrant …) He is of the opinion that huge skyscrapers make a city “sophisticated” – “Mr Guy dismissed those who complain about over-development, saying: ‘If Melbourne is too successful, maybe they should move to Adelaide’.” (source) – presumably Adelaide is not yet wrecked as Melbourne? “Taller buildings, he said, were a symbol of a growing nation, a strong economy and can ‘define a city’.” (source) He wrote a rather patronizing opinion piece in today’s Herald-Sun: “The metropolis our forefathers built will continue to be vibrant and exciting” (behind a paywall, reproduced below):

Planning for destruction

“The Planning Guy” – profile of Victorian Liberal Government Planning Minister, Matthew Guy. I thought that previous Labor Minister Justin Madden was bad, but this one is far worse. The radical planning changes he is pushing through will give virtual free rein to developers and ruin Melbourne’s established suburbs by continuing overdevelopment and overcrowding, and pave over much of the remaining green spaces. Even Lady April Hamer, the widowed wife of the creator of the Green Wedges areas (ironically from the Liberal party of then), was moved to speak out last month against the changes. There is more commentary on the issue at (We) Can Do Better.

An article from yesterday’s Herald-Sun (not online that I could find) reported that immigration had increased alarmingly:

Big leap in migrant numbers

AN influx of New Zealanders and foreign students has forced the Federal Government to sharply increase its immigration estimates. Net overseas migration has reached about 217,000 people a year — about 25,000 more than was predicted a few months ago. It means the so-called Big Australia target of 36 million by 2050 could be reached much earlier because the estimate is based on average net annual migration of only 184,000.

New Immigration Department data reveals a net influx of 39,000 foreign students for the year to September — more than double the number predicted by the department in a May report.

The net number of New Zealanders arriving has hit 31,300, compared with 17,900 predicted in May. New Zealand and Australian citizens have the unrestricted right to migrate between each other’s borders.

Monash University migration expert Dr Bob Birrell said yesterday the rising number of Kiwi arrivals was a worry in a contracting job market. “It’s unlikely that we need this influx — the sooner we regulate it the better,” Dr Birrell said.

There have been hundreds of job losses from various industries this year in Victoria alone – many from long-established businesses going under – so where are all these newcomers going to find work? It will mean extra competition with those already here. The population growth also increases demand for housing and public services (transport, health), both of which are not keeping pace.

An article from The Age last month, “54,000 refugees, no questions asked”, 22/8, reported that:

AUSTRALIA is facing a flood of economic refugees. But the big numbers aren’t from the north, they are from the across the Tasman where Statistics New Zealand yesterday announced the biggest exodus to Australia on record.

An extraordinary 53,900 New Zealanders moved to Australia in the year to July – around the entire population of New Plymouth, New Zealand’s 11^th biggest city.

[…]

The Closer Economic Relations agreement with New Zealand means Australia is unable to control its trans-Tasman border. It is required to accept as permanent or long-term residents as many of New Zealand’s 4.4 million residents as want to move here. If present trends continue Australia’s annual intake from New Zealand will exceed 100,000 within five years. New Zealand has had no net arrivals over the past year.

It is definitely time to rethink that agreement! The exchange seems to be mostly one-way.

A H-S letter, 4/9:

Jobs going to foreigners

FOREIGN workers on controversial 457 visas have taken 13,680 jobs in Victoria at a time of increasing unemployment, job losses and double-figure youth unemployment in some areas.

Many Victorians are facing tough times.

Why then are jobs going to “temporary” foreign workers?

There’s nothing more permanent than a temporary worker, with many of them ultimately applying for PR and adding to population pressure.

Our Government imagined our economy would surge and grow, even in non-mining states.

This is not happening, and we have more skilled people than jobs and housing.

Employers can simply get the cheaper option of foreign workers instead of investing in, and training, willing Australians needing jobs. It’s a betrayal.

– Vivienne Ortega, Heidelberg Heights

Those who oppose these policies predictably get demonized as xenophobic – this opinion piece in The Australian, “Our future is as Asia’s nation of immigration” espouses the “need” for a big Australia; being a pro-business and pro-growth paper these type of articles are typical.

Gillard is the Adelaide Pom, wanting to freeze-frame the nation. The focus groups tell her to slow population growth, which is code for talking down the immigration intake. She has yet to confront voters with Australia’s need for more people.

[…]

Our future in Asia is as the world’s best immigration nation, that is, as Australians. But we need more, not fewer, Chinese and Indians to want to live across the country to prove it.

So according to that view, Australia should serve as a relief valve for extremely overpopulated countries. We can thus farewell the country’s livability if such growth continues.

If you’re thinking of moving to Melbourne …

Please don’t! That’s my reaction when I see threads on that topic on forums such as r/Melbourne, though I refrain from saying thus as I will inevitably get downvoted. I might sound churlish, but almost 1000 people a week are arriving, as reported in The Age and Herald-Sun today: “Growth pains on the city’s fringe” and “Booming in the ’burbs” – the latter reproduced below as it is not online:

THE booming outer suburbs have helped Melbourne post the biggest population gain of any capital city in the past decade. Almost 650,000 extra residents moved to Melbourne in the 10 years to June last year, pushing the total population up 18 per cent to a whopping 4.17 million. Census figures released yesterday show the top five areas for growth nationwide were all on Melbourne’s outskirts.

South Morang recorded the biggest increase, with the number of residents up 32,200. Point Cook, Caroline Springs and Tarneit in the west followed with growth figures of more than 20,000.

Demographer with id Consulting, Glenn Capuano, said affordable housing within 25km of Melbourne’s centre was helping lure residents from Sydney, where prices were much more expensive. An economic downturn in southeast Queensland was also behind the influx. It is expected to push Melbourne’s population to five million by 2025.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed inner-city development was further fuelling the population increase. The Docklands recorded the state’s fastest growth, with the area’s population almost 40 times higher than it was in 2001. Taylors Hill, Cairnlea, Point Cook and Tarneit were the next fastest.

Property Council of Australia (Victoria) executive director Jennifer Cunich said more infrastructure was needed for Melbourne to keep pace with its rapid growth. Ms Cunich said toll roads and government partnerships with the private sector were among ways to accelerate investment.

Rachel Mcminimee, who moved to Tarneit from the Dandenongs with husband John 10 years ago, said access to work and the city were big drawcards.

Melbourne’s population gains dwarfed increases in the state’s regional population, which rose about 6 per cent to 1.37 million.

Perth was the nation’s fastest growing capital, with the population up 26 percent, ahead of Brisbane. In NSW, 75 per cent of the state’s population growth was in Sydney. The city now has a population of 4.61 million.

Road traffic has become horrendous and infrastructure is simply not coping – and governments will never manage to catch-up with the unwanted growth. I have lived here all my life and can emphatically assert that quality of life is eroding rapidly and the crowding is extremely stressful and anger-inducing. We are not yet at the level of crowding of megacities of the world, but it seems that government and business wants to make Melbourne that way.

Cancerous cities

A collection of images published at Wired.com and The Atlantic Cities shows various satellite photos of cities by NASA’s Landsat satellite system – two images of each, from decades ago and more recent. All cities have grown alarmingly, deadly grey concrete swallowing up the green and brown land. It is disturbing to look at and realize how much pressure population growth is placing upon the landscape. Growth advocates love to counter with the argument that city densities should be increased by building upward rather than sprawling outward, but not everyone wants to live crammed into small apartments like battery hens. By keeping populations low people can have it both ways – minimize city spread and live in single houses with backyards.

Collected letters

Herald-Sun, 25/6:

Population alert

THE clowns are again reiterating climate-change nonsense, this time in Brazil. A waste of time and effort.

Who will be the ring master and both espouse and support our planet’s main problem, overpopulation? Poland has dispensed with the warming nonsense and others will follow. Nothing we do will affect the planet other than reducing population.

Please, one world leader stand up and promote population reduction. I know the Chinese are. Where in the developed world is the fortitude for the same? Your top hat awaits.

– Tim Stafford, Mt Eliza

27/6:

Tax welcomed

AS SOMEONE fortunate enough to have received a scientific education to university level, I do not feel we have a right to ignore environmental concerns in our quest for future existence on this planet.

It does concern me that various high-profile columnists espouse a mantra of continued population and economic growth, with their costs of unsustainable consumption and environmental change.

I for one do sleep more soundly at night with the thought that our government is implementing a carbon tax, no matter how ineffectual, as it is a start to recognising something that seems increasingly to be affecting us all.

Maybe it is time we all became more scientifically literate.

– Jim Royston, Heidelberg

Three weeks ago, the Victorian Bailleu government announced it would be rezoning yet more valuable farmland and green wedges around outer Melbourne for housing to accommodate the ever-growing population. Various developers, many of whom are lobbyists, will benefit, but the environment certainly won’t. A later article noted that “Urban spread poses new threat to endangered frogs”, but the government apparently does not care – for them, growth must come at any cost. I can feel only despair and anger at being so powerless to stop this destruction.

The Age, 14/6:

Boundary is a rubbery concept

DOES the state government have a mandate to open up thousands of hectares of green wedge land and farmland (“Government shifts green wedge boundary”, The Age, 13/6) for housing on the metropolitan fringe? Where is the democratic consultation and what are the long-term benefits of its plans?

What Planning Minister Matthew Guy considers “anomalies” were actually planned by the Hamer government to prevent Melbourne becoming a monolith of housing and concrete. There’s no “logic” in grabbing thousands of hectares of “logical inclusion” from green wedges, but there is pure greed for growth.

This extension of the urban boundary will be the fourth time it has been shifted since the Bracks government introduced it in 2002, so there’s no real boundary - it’s an imaginary rubbery line that expands with market forces and urban obesity.

When no one is in charge of properly regulating natural resources, cities grow in ways that are utterly unpredictable and without regard to optimising resources. Nature functions on balance, and perpetual growth is not natural. We could suffer the same fate as any other species whose habitat is destroyed by the blind pursuit of excesses.

– Vivienne Ortega, Heidelberg Heights

Try before you buy

PERHAPS there should be a scheme to allow people to try living on Melbourne’s furthest fringes for a week or so to see before they buy if they have the mental and physical stamina it takes. Try for a week driving to work on a scarcely moving freeway. Or be at the station by 7 a.m. to get a park and a spot to stand up in the train for 40 kilometres to the city.

Try booking your child into kinder or school and have a look at the sheer size of such educational facilities. (Note that size does not always equate with quality). Sit for hours in the only hospital’s emergency department. It is looking less and less appealing isn’t it? Perhaps we should encourage the Planning Minister and Premier to live such a week. It might make them less keen to jam more and more people into the city’s under-resourced fringe.

– Clancy Briggs, Berwick

Toxic consequences

IF I approached the state government with a planning proposal that would not only increase the cost of food, but also the levels of respiratory disease and other health problems, I would be quite rightly shown the door.

But this is what will transpire with the Baillieu government’s vision for greater urban sprawl and freeway development, concreting over Melbourne’s green wedges and farming belt to increase the costs of fresh produce and the levels of atmospheric toxicity.

The market will now capriciously determine all the worst possible scenarios, favouring short-term housing booms over long-term food security, freeways to the exclusion of rail infrastructure.

You’d think that with a degree in architecture, Ted Baillieu would possess some environmental sensibility that might embrace state decentralisation and a respect for the primacy of planning, but it seems not.

– John Ashton, Fitzroy North

A new model sorely needed

PLANNING Minister Matthew Guy says 37,000 lots of land will be developed over 30 years to house more than 100,000 people. This might boost the housing industry, but once the houses are built, there are no guarantees of employment near or far from the houses.

An economy largely dependent on land tax and stamp duty means perpetually being strangled by the challenges of meeting the costs of urban infrastructure, creating jobs in a declining job market, and relying on the cash flows generated by continually stretching the urban boundary. A report by National Australia Bank on Victoria’s health says the state faces challenges as the worst performing state, and that’s despite churning out more houses and land than we can currently sell. We obviously need a new economic paradigm not dependent on paving over irreplaceable open space just to create more empty houses.

– Jenny Warfe, Dromana

Housing vs. farmland

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letters in response, 28/5:

Please go away

This is my reaction to yet another series of articles in today’s The Age that almost celebrate Melbourne’s extensive and excessive population growth.

“It’s my kind of town, say 666,000 new Melburnians”. That’s how many people have been added in the last decade. No wonder transport and infrastructure are near collapse. This growth has been deliberately encouraged by politicians and businessmen in the name of profit. Melbourne used to be a fairly pleasant place to live – at least, in comparison to many other cities – but this livability is being increasingly eroded. I am angry and fed up with the situation, but I am not in a position to move, and there is nowhere else to go in any case.

“Melbourne struggling as population booms to more than five million by 2025 and 6.5 million by 2050”, H-S, 25/3. A similar article from last week (the Google search page links get around the annoying recently-introduced paywall for now). Here are the alarming statistics:

Humans vs. kangaroos

Last night an ABC documentary, Kangaroo Mob, was screened, about the increasing competition for living space between kangaroos and humans in Canberra. Predictably the kangaroos are on the losing end, their habitat being eroded by the expansion of housing estates over grassland. The comments about supposed kangaroo overpopulation in the narrative could equally be applied to humans! I kept envisioning some aliens coming to Earth and deciding to “hold an annual cull to ‘manage’ the problem by keeping [human] numbers at ‘sustainable levels’ ”! To quote from a PDF from the documentary site.) We certainly would not like it if that were done to us. I previously mentioned the hypocrisy around animal culls in my 7/7/2010 entry.

I was infuriated at a news item on ABC TV last night (I don’t have a link) about how property developers are lobbying the Bailleu government to remove environmental controls and release more land around Melbourne for development. They are loathesome parasites who care only about making profit, no matter at what cost to the environment. An article in The Age today, “Native grasslands suffer ‘death by a thousand cuts’  ”, describes the threat to the remaining volcanic plains grasslands around Melbourne which are a valuable ecosystem but are viewed by many as open space to be built over.

Letter in The Age, 20/2:

OUR number plates should now read “Victoria – a property developer’s paradise”.

– Margaret Ludowyk, Brunswick

Land grab

“Farm sale just like winning Lotto”, H-S. This is a dismaying trend around Melbourne and other cities, of farmers selling off valuable arable land to developers. They obviously don’t care about what will happen to their land or the environment (some of the land was initially put aside for native grassland); they are only greedily focused on short-term gain. We will all suffer for this in the future, and indeed are doing so now as the city relentlessly continues its cancerous population and urban growth.

“Celebrity heritage protesters should butt out of planning issues, says lobbyist”, H-S. The Committee for Melbourne chief executive criticized celebrities for supporting anti-development groups. The CFM is essentially a front for developers and business, neither who have interest in preserving the amenity of neighborhoods. A comment I sent in:

Developers are doing a lot more to “ruin the future of Melbourne for the future population” with their ugly high-density apartment towers! Residents should have every right to defend the livability of their suburbs, and if celebrities can aid them, so much the better.

“Brace yourself, highways to hell coming”, 5/2. Population growth and inadequate public transport are seeing freeways frequently gridlocked with increasing traffic. All the Government can think to do is scar the landscape with more roads, not tackle the problem at its source.

Collected letters

Yet another round up of letters, mostly from The Age, on population and urban planning issues:

Paving over Victoria

The continuing development and destruction of Victoria’s green spaces leaves me (and many others) in a frustrated rage. The current Government continues this policy, wanting to put up for development the Green Wedges around Melbourne – corridors established over 3 decades ago to provide some environmental breathing space. Unfortunately the deliberate encouraging of population growth (approximately 90 000 people a year) has these areas under threat. The Planning Minister, Matthew Guy, is proving as developer-friendly as his predecessor, Justin Madden, was. Some recent articles from The Age:

• “Review threatens to destroy ‘Melbourne’s lungs’ ”, 30/7
• “Open spaces to shrink as Melbourne grows”, 8/8 – public parks are also under threat.

Some letters:

Victoria: open borders

“Interstate raiders buying up Melbourne properties”, 2/4. More unwelcome competition for housing – but Premier Ted Bailleu reveals his true colors in this remark:

Despite pressure on housing affordability from rapid population growth, Premier Ted Baillieu said he was not about to close Victoria’s borders. He said he would never “put up the stop sign” to curb population growth, but warned Victorians will have to “endure” the problems of a growth rate that saw Melbourne increase by more than 1500 people a week last financial year. “You’d like to think, in government, that you could invest for the future. We’ll be investing to catch [up] because the previous Labor government allowed Victoria to fall behind,” he said.

Well, Melbourne is ruined. No hope from him, then, of curbing growth – just the opposite, continuing the insane growth mania begun by Jeff Kennett’s government and continued by Labor. Melbourne’s population is closing in on Sydney’s.

I wonder if one solution might be to introduce some sort of residential permit – that if a person wishes to live in Melbourne, they would need to apply; if there were no room they would be refused. Preference would be given to Australian citizens, and then long-term residents of the city first. The State Government should, ideally, refuse to issue any more land releases to developers, and set a firm boundary to limit expansion. I doubt anyone would have the courage to take those measures, though – there would be an outcry of “We should be able to live where ever we want!” A hotel, though, can’t accommodate an infinite number of people, and neither can a city – not if it is to stay liveable rather than turn into an overcrowded slum.

Trying to get people to move to regional centers is no solution – these are often poorly serviced and, despite vague Government assurances, will remain so for a long time. Most people thus tend to want to live in well-serviced areas, which the established regions of Melbourne provide. Successive governments have done a poor job of managing growth – it is a game of catch-up, and they never quite manage to.

Dick Smith suggested that families be discouraged from having more than two children, though the Herald-Sun article linked was something of a misquote, according to this post at PublicPopForum. Some clueless fool did respond:

MacroPlan economist Brian Haratsis said Mr Smith was an alarmist. A population of 40 million was inevitable and that “the only choice is if we want a really big Australia of 40 million to 80 million”. He said population debate in Australia had been stolen by “anti-growth people with a Green sentiment”.

80 million? What has he been smoking? Much of Australia is infertile desert, so populations are mainly limited to thin strips of land along the coastline. Where is he planning to fit them all, and where will their food come from?

Collected letters

A lengthy backlog of printed letters from mostly The Age, collected from the last 3 months, on overpopulation, overdevelopment and property planning issues. Unfortunately, none of the few I sent were published.

(I just found out how to make cuts so I don’t clog up the front page with long entries!)

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.

Collected letters

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

Land grab

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

Some articles from The Age on this topic:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8 million too many

“Time for Melbourne to think about its population surge”, Herald-Sun, 19/10. An alarming prediction that a population of 8 million in Melbourne is inevitable by 2060. A “business think-tank” is promoting such growth.

Committee for Melbourne chief executive Andrew MacLeod said a doubling of Melbourne’s population over the next 50 years was a “normal” rate of growth. He slammed suggestions the city’s population spurt should be capped, rejecting arguments by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and activist Dick Smith that Australia didn’t have the infrastructure to cope. A population cap was one of the “greatest threats” to Melbourne’s future as it would allow governments turn a blind eye to the reality of growth.

Well he is deluded (and greedy) – a lot of residents don’t want such a huge population as the city is under serious strain from its current numbers. Growth is not inevitable; governments have it in their power to contain it. Excessive growth is by far a greater threat to Melbourne’s future livability.

Demographer Bernard Salt also weighs in with his usual inane generalizations – does anyone take him seriously?

H-S letter, 20/10:

I have a question for Bernard Salt, who says Melbourne has the capacity to double in size.

London and Paris may have eight million people now, but what do they also have?

Answer: brilliant metros, undergrounds and vast, efficient commuter rail lines (plus lots of water).

They also have thousands of unhappy people trying to emigrate to Australia. Go figure.

– Sheila Walkington, Mornington

“Plan for hundreds of kilometres of new freeways”, The Age, 11/10. Governments seem to be obsessed with building roads, and the current State Government is no exception. This proposed plan will scar the landscape with yet more freeways, adding to pollution and will not lessen traffic congestion. There seems to be no enthusiasm for building railways instead, which would have less environmental impact.

“The Yarra monster is killing us”, 23/8. Melbourne (and Sydney) are sucking up resources.

“Melbourne is a parasite economy,” says Bob Birrell, the doyen of immigration and population studies in Australia. “Increasingly, the fiscal dividend from Australia’s mineral boom is having to be distributed to Victoria to pay for the needs of Melbourne’s population boom. That’s why the Victorian Premier, John Brumby, is constantly having to go cap-in-hand to the federal government for assistance.”

But the mining boom involves scarring the landscape with open-cut mines to strip the land of minerals, so it is parasitical in its own way. Both types of economies are unsustainable and environmentally damaging in the long term.

• Labor’s immigration net intake of 270,000 people last year drove a multiplicity of stresses, which forced the “big Australia” debate:
• By far the greatest beneficiaries of high immigration are the immigrants, not the resident population.
• High immigration lowers per capita productivity growth, a key to sustainable growth.
• It retards the growth of per capita wealth. It accelerates the rate of food importation. (Australia imported a record $8.5 billion worth of food in 2008-09.)
• It accelerates the increase in urban overcrowding and traffic congestion.
• It increases Australia’s greenhouse emissions, per capita.
• It makes it unlikely Australia can meet its targets of greenhouse gas emission reduction.
• It lowers Australia’s food security.

In short, there is nothing good about high immigration rates.

Collected letters

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

Myopic fools

“City to ‘grow’ 134,000 homes on farmland”, The Age, 30/7. I was infuriated enough to send a letter to the paper, but so far it hasn’t been published:

The Brumby Government and Opposition have demonstrated that they are nothing but environmental vandals in thrall to greedy developers by allowing expansion of Melbourne’s urban boundaries. Their short-sighted stupidity of allowing more open farmland to vanish under housing just beggars belief, as it threatens the city’s future food security and will increase pollution.

Letters in response:

31/7:

Victorians a rum lot

Well, it’s official. As we have suspected, state planning is not informed by sound policy and community interest but by big developers.

Liberal and Labor MPs have agreed to cover more than 4000 hectares of our highly productive horticultural land with tar and cement (“Green land cut back as Melbourne grows much, much bigger”, Online, 29/7)

So much for “allow[ing] time to assess the social conditions in new communities on the perimeter of the city” (“Gazing beyond the fringe”, The Age, 6/1).

So much for the advice of Australian agriculture, energy and environment specialist Julian Cribb, who believes we must stop building on arable land because future worldwide food shortages will make even climate change pale into insignificance by comparison.

Out with commonsense and democracy and in with political expediency. If it’s true we get the government we deserve, Victorians must be a rum lot.

– Rosalie Counsell, Harkaway

Housing on urban fringes is not cheap

The state government and the opposition are deluded in believing that housing on our urban fringes is cheap. Most of this proposed housing development is kilometres from train lines, and buses, where available, are slow and infrequent.

Casey and Manningham are examples of municipalities where families average more than two cars to get to work, schools, shopping, health and recreation services. The cost of running even two cars in the outer and fringe suburbs is $400,000 over 20 years; three cars is $600,000, according to our national motoring organisations. These costs will rise as oil prices increase and governments impose emission taxes.

Another cost the government and opposition have forgotten is the $100 billion required to service 134,000 new dwellings, mostly from the public purse. No wonder the land bankers and political donors are laughing.

– Brian Buckley, North Carlton

Some earlier collected letters:

11/7:

Big isn’t better

Regarding “Size does matter, Doyle tells PM” (4/7): Cr. Doyle stated “Sydney and New South Wales are losing people”. This is not the case. Sydney continues to grow at 50,000 people a year, according to the ABS. Perhaps the councillor means Sydney is not growing as fast as Melbourne. If the councillor sees the population rates of the cities as a competition, I am happy to have Melbourne win! Who wants higher density, less public space and fewer resources per person?

– Nicholas Car, Hornsby

Crowding not the answer

Melbourne’s lord mayor, Robert Doyle, argues for the inevitability of population growth.

Overseas immigration contributes nearly two-thirds of national population growth and can be changed almost instantly by federal ministerial decision. There is absolutely nothing inevitable about immigration-fuelled population growth.

Population growth benefits the few while the vast majority pay the costs in reduced housing affordability, congestion and pollution.

– Jenny Goldie, Michelago, NSW

14/7:

Population reform

Tim Colebatch’s article (The Age, 13/7) on Australia’s complementary problems of involuntary under-employment and our skills shortage is a valuable contribution to the public debate on population policy.

I endorse Labor MP Kelvin Thomson’s 14-point plan for population reform. Components include increased funding to tertiary and vocational education, while reducing skilled immigration, and funded by the nearly $3 billion that could be saved by ceasing the baby bonus and limiting child support payments to only the first two children of any couple.

– Kit James, Melbourne

28/7:

Why small is better

In the long term, freeways and buildings are not important. Our quality of life depends on good health, education, access to housing, open space and a healthy environment. The money spent on resource-sapping infrastructure for rampant population growth would be better invested in providing better quality services for a smaller number of people.

– Jennie Epstein, Little River

27/9:

Inequitable scheme

My wife is due to have our third child in January. She recently went back to work after taking unpaid maternity leave after the birth of our second child.

Under the government’s paid parental leave scheme, she will not be eligible for any payment. The rules state: “The primary carer must be in paid work and have been engaged in work continuously for at least 10 of the 13 months prior to the expected birth or adoption of the child, and undertaken at least 330 hours of paid work in the 10 month period”.

While I appreciate the need for such rules, they exclude families such as mine where our only error was to have our children too close together. Other than to take maternity leave, my wife has worked full-time and continuously since completing her education.

– Richard Morris, Viewbank

[If you are having financial trouble, why the hell are you having a third child? You are selfish in expecting government handouts to support this.]

Mr. Abbott, some single, childless people – even women – know what a struggle it is to raise a mortgage and pay grocery bills.

– Patricia Watkinson, Hawthorn East

H-S, 25/7:

City has become too clogged

Several years ago I bemoaned the loss of parkland as grand sporting blots on the landscape were developed to the southeast of the city.

Now it’s even worse. Once you could see the river from Flinders St. Once you could see the river and the city from the Bolte Bridge. Once I felt comfortable in the city.

No more.

You ask why there is an increase in crime in the city? I would suggest that the systematic enclosure of a once-proud and open city is partly to fault. Let there be space and let us cherish that space.

Australia is not Singapore or Hong Kong, but our decision-makers are trying to make us exactly that, and I resent and reject that.

– David Becroft, Mulwala

The io9 sci-fi site had an entry about a short story, Amaryllis, that I found a bit irritating as it is about the theme of rebelling against the system – in this case, one that has instigated population growth control. I previously mentioned a series of novels with a similar theme (16/7/2009 entry). I commented:

The main character struck me as selfish – putting her own wants ahead of others and the society she lives in, never mind how it might affect or inconvenience them. So I could only feel irritation, not sympathy – she would deserve whatever punishment they might mete out.