Rapid population growth - and its consequences

Two ironies emerge from all this. First, those voices most loudly in support of continued rapid population growth are also those least likely to bear responsibility for the consequences. Think apartment developer Harry Triguboff: high growth helps demand for more apartments but he isn't around for discussions on hospital or school shortages, rising congestion, over stretched energy infrastructure or water shortages. It's also true that people with financial security (high income earners) are best placed to insulate themselves from the adverse consequences of rapid growth: they simply pay more, where demand exceeds supply. Whether that is private health, private education, well located real estate … money talks and buys your way out of problems if you have enough of it.

The other irony is that the density mantra was originally intended to make use of under-utilised urban infrastructure, most typically in inner urban areas which were at risk of "hollowing out" (as happened widely in the US). With falling inner urban school enrolments, for example, it made sense to increase the local density to make better use of existing infrastructure than build entirely new infrastructure on urban outskirts. But that's no longer true. A new vertical school in an established urban area targeted for more density is vastly more expensive than a "traditional" build; retrofitting below ground infrastructure (sewer and water) in existing locations is more costly than in new areas; apartments are more expensive to build than detached houses; building tunnels (whether for public or private transport) below existing areas is a great deal more expensive than surface networks in new areas… and on it goes.

In adopting the density model to accommodate rapid increases in population, we have now not only committed to a more expensive urban form, but one that also takes longer to deliver.

Hardly the formula for enhancing standards of living in a rapid growth scenario? Surely we either moderate our rates of growth, or we adopt new models? Or, as the Planning Institute has sensibly suggested, we adopt a national settlement policy that ties the Federal Government – whose immigration policies are driving record growth – to the local consequences of that rapid growth.