ESD-Concentrate Housing Near Transport Not Urban Fringes
Community Buyouts For ABC Learning Centres?
November 12, 2008Help The Kids Help The Turtles in SA Lakes And Lower Murray
November 16, 2008Did you see the Business Age article ‘Who says it’s cheaper to build in Woop Woop?’ Professor Peter Newman of Perth’s Curtin Uni has research proving the failure of the ‘old’ economy’s fixation on cars and building on the edge of town.
Advice To Councils, Planners And Transport Experts:
“BUILDING houses on empty land at the edge of town will always be cheaper than building an apartment block in an urban area. But if you assume that most people in the outer suburbs drive to work, and therefore get little exercise, produce more greenhouse gases and have more health problems, the costs to government could be much greater.”
Peter’s research shows that governments could save up to $85,000 per new housing lot over 50 years if they concentrated development on existing urban areas close to transport.
Urban Sprawl Fuelled Sub-Prime Crisis
“Urban sprawl in the US helped fuel the subprime credit crisis — people could afford houses thanks to subprime loans, but they struggled to afford transport, petrol, food and other necessities because ‘they lived in the middle of nowhere’…
Research showed that savings in transport and infrastructure spending for 1000 dwellings were about $86 million up-front for infrastructure and $250 million for 50 years’ worth of ongoing transport costs. Of course, this assumes governments will actually provide the infrastructure and services it has promised in outer suburbs.”
A Challenge On Inactivity/Obesity Grounds
Exercise in an inner-city apartment block would of course be limited and a challenge was launched on the basis that other research showed people in fringe developments had a higher risk of obesity-related diseases because of inactivity, which equated to $4.23 million in health costs over 50 years per 1000 lots.
BUT
Couldn’t these housing developments be required to include sporting facilities?
2 Comments
I keep hearing this nonsense from academics in ivory towers.
Let’s take this stupidity to its logical conclusion
These clowns would have us in Mile high skyscrapers concentrated in the centre of an industrial complex or better still have the factories on the lower floors.
This way we could all be good little robots going to work and going home without leaving the building in and endless cycle of cost effective slavery.
A very brief summary something like this;
Basement: Body burning and re-cycling remains crematorium
“Going up” Ground floor to floor 20, Food production, indoor intensive farming.
Floors 20 to 30 Packaging and wrapping of local and imported goods.
Floors 30 to 40 General Shopping bulky goods. Free delivery by elevator.
Floors 40 to 50 Restaurants and café’s to discover neighbours.
Floors 50 to 200 Housing units.
All units have automated pantries and refrigerators that produce shopping lists for delivery via air pipe system direct from store room to unit. All groceries and vegetables are in cylindrical packaging to fit the air-pipe delivery system.
The packaging is re-cyclic able and goes back down in another tube system.
The building is self-energy neutral via solar windows and re-cycles all water and sewerage that you drink again and again. Not ever needing to leave the building the outside world has returned to its jungle state. A greenies dream.
Every occupant is permanently sick because of the lack of exercise, irradiated sterilised and vitamin depleted food and chemical treated water.
All units have 3D Skype virtual reality super screens so nobody needs to travel anywhere so all cars and aeroplanes have been re-cycled into building materials.
Holidays are taken in the virtual reality room with spray on suntan.
Rabbit living here we come.
The mind freaks at the very concept.
Cars are here to stay, even if they eventually run on batteries, get used to it
An interesting article, its good to see someone considering social and health aspects that always seem “to hard to measure” when it comes to difficult issues such as urban sprawl.
I like the comment “old economies” a good way to describe urban development in Australia that is really resistant to change. We live in rapidly changing times and Australia has grown to a point where we cannot all live in the ‘old economies’ style anymore, yet my (the younger generations) are going to be the ones footing the bill for the Baby boomers health and medical legacy… Do we have a choice but to live a more Eurpoean style existance given the obvious economic, health and environmental constraints of the future?