Mega Cities with Few People and Fewer Ideas
27 June 2009
The Victorian Government has recently released plans, which will see the city grow from 4 to 6 million people and be 120KM in length. This will make Melbourne larger than both London and New York, yet have a quarter of the population.
Sydney has similar plans for expansion, to the point where we will not know where Wollongong starts and Sydney ends. Such plans I believe are incredibly short sighted, particularly since little of the necessary infrastructure is planned to be built to accommodate these extra people. Melbourne has little water, has not built a new railway line for over 80 years and has just one bridge, the Westgate, which links the CBD to half of its suburbs. Sydney’s transport system is the butt of most jokes related to the state’s incompetent government and its power supply system needs major upgrading.
Why government is not making a serious effort to de-centralise the nation’s population defies belief. Such a move would contain land prices, reduce cost of living pressures and contain the rampant congestion. It could start by moving our universities into regional areas, something which is done extensively in the USA and the UK. It could also headquarter government departments in regional areas (why the NSW National Parks Service is headquartered in central Sydney I will never understand). Government should also put firm boundaries on our capital cities’ limits. This is what London and Dublin have done to great effect to stop urban sprawl and Australia is perfectly positioned to do this. Melbourne is surrounded with numerous country towns within a 200km radius of it, and Sydney is in a similar position.
Concerted government efforts regarding de-centralisation is what opened up America, it even created Los Vegas! It is only through strong political will however that any of these benefits can be realised. All we receive at the moment is more of the same and the ultimately unviable response of simply pushing our cities’ boundaries further out.