Tens of thousands of upmarket dwellings have been added to the inner cities of Melbourne and Sydney over the past 20 years, with no reduction in prices across the board. The property developers’ argument that we have to build more because that’s the only way to make housing more affordable has been repeatedly refuted by years of careful research. A hefty vacancy tax – much greater than the Victorian rate of 1 per cent of property value, while NSW still has none for Australian owners – would lead to many more homes being released onto the market. Think tank Prosper Australia has for years demonstrated shocking numbers of vacant dwellings unavailable for rent. Nearly 600,000 were in Victoria and New South Wales. Before designating land for yet more housing estates, for example, let’s consider that a million homes – 10 per cent of Australia’s housing stock – were empty on census night last year. Rethink what we build and whyĪdapting to global environmental conditions means rethinking not just what and how we build, but why. We can invest in research and development and maintain wealth through innovation and production, rather than the eternal consumption of land.
We can support our local hospitality and cultural venues better, and increase intercity and interstate patronage. And our renewable energy capacity is unlimited. The manufacturing sector still has a base to build on and provide many more of the products Australians need. Our education sector remains eminently exportable online and via existing overseas campuses. Their biomedical capabilities are among the world’s best. We can make better use of local resources and produce much more of what we need here.Īustralian cities have very good bones. Cities don’t have to get bigger to evolve, and sooner or later all will have to reckon with the concept of degrowth.Īustralia must become less reliant on imports of skilled workers, students, tourists and materials. Now is not the time for anyone to announce that their city will become “ bigger and better”. Melbourne and Sydney’s showcase regeneration projects at Docklands and Barangaroo are more dismal and deserted than ever. Meanwhile, the towers thrown up in the heady years of growth are ha l f-empty and cracking, poorly ventilated, reliant on central air conditioning and not built for more extreme weather or low energy consumption. Birth rates are falling across the developed world, online international education is improving, and research suggests pandemics will persist while cities encroach on the habitats of so many other species.
The drivers of population growth are more uncertain and we can no longer depend on global mobility at pre-pandemic levels. Expectations of a renewed influx of students, workers and tourists from overseas are based more on hope, however, than reason. The city plan presumes a return to Australia’s high population growth of the 2000s. The city council is understandably anxious to attract people back to the centre. The plan neither questions the rationale for growth nor, apparently, the deeper effects of the pandemic. It’s continuing on a course mapped out in the post-recession 1990s, when Australian governments focused on building on or digging up our great expanses. Property development is the single largest contributor to Victorian and New South Wales government revenues.įor example, the City of Melbourne’s draft spatial plan proposes new suburbs to the west and north. The need to house more people is used to justify expansion out and up, but it is the rates, taxes and duties that flow from land transfers and construction that drive the endless development of Melbourne and Sydney in particular. Australian cities are good at growing – for decades their states have relied on it.
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