With the Transforming Transport Summit just a few weeks away, the chief executive of Transport Australia asked presenters of the Emerging Leaders session for their take on the key issues for the future. What he found was:
“They want an industry shift toward cities built for people over cars, long term funding that outlasts election cycles, a connected network that breaks down planning silos, a culture that considers safety before shovels hit the ground, and a true career with opportunities to grow.”
Transport Australia’s motto is “We champion an integrated and sustainable transport system for a prosperous Australia”. That is a common cause for Australia to seek but will it favour “cities built for people over cars”. Let’s see what they come up with as the net zero transition frames everything “sustainable” and it’s hard to see this happening without embracing density as well as infrastructure that enables where density is best.
“High rise” is cast as the villain in many Australian cities, while the infrastructure hungry, car dependent sprawl that actually drives our affordability, congestion and emissions crises slips away largely unchallenged.
Perth, one of the lowest density cities in the developed world, is now in a multi front housing emergency – rent stress, price escalation, labour shortages and construction bottlenecks – yet we still behave as though the answer lies in more detached homes on ever longer fringes.
The numbers are stark. Perth has added hundreds of thousands of people while leaving the inner and middle ring comparatively under developed, with apartments making up only a tiny share of the dwelling stock. Much of the growth has been pushed to the metropolitan edge, despite longstanding infill targets and repeated warnings from planners and researchers about the costs of this pattern – costs that will be paid for decades in longer commutes, higher infrastructure bills and higher household transport costs. Fringe houses are not “cheap” once you include the roads, pipes, power, schools and health services they rely on, and the two or three cars most households need to function there.
So when Western Australian Greens leader Brad Pettitt asked online whether anyone can name a high?rise people actually like, the flood of reactions tells us less about tall buildings than about our collective failure to talk about the real trade offs. Many of the negative responses confuse height with bad design: wind tunnels, overshadowed streets, poor interfaces with neighbours, or towers dumped in car dominated locations without the transit, services or public realm that make density work.
Sprawling, car dependent suburbs lock in high per capita energy use and emissions, while higher density transit oriented and walkable fabrics dramatically reduce both. That is not an abstract theoretical point – it shows up in real household budgets and in government balance sheets. Cities that rely heavily on fringe expansion pay more, forever, for infrastructure and services stretched over too much land.
High rise in Australia is often seen to be anything over 4 storeys. Globally 4-12 storeys is mid rise and this is probably enough for us to reverse the sprawl and redevelop in a way that can be popular and can be done.
There are some very good examples of mid rise emerging in all Australian cities. In Perth’s western suburbs there is Claremont on the Park, and a few high rise at Subiaco Station, along Stirling Highway in Peppermint Grove and around Canning Bridge. But the rhetoric from the construction companies suggests that Perth can only do highly expensive mid rise and high rise for retiring baby boomers. Anywhere else just won’t work.
Most urban development in Melbourne and Sydney is now either mid rise or high rise around train and tram stations as they are by far the biggest market demand. They don’t seem to have the same financial problem in building up rather than out that we have in Perth.
Why is it that we are the only part of Australia having this issue and indeed across the world? The global norm for construction in cities is to build around 40 per cent mid rise and 4 per cent high rise, though many Asian cities are much higher than that. The European approach is mostly mid rise.
The rhetoric from the minister for planning in WA is that he would like to see mid and high density housing in well located parts of the city, rather than on the fringe. But how do we make it happen? What are the secrets in Melbourne and Sydney?
As a community we have been accepting more and more density in Perth as the alternative areas on the fringe are becoming poorer and in a future of highly vulnerable petrol and diesel supplies, which we have just had a taste of, the need for density will become more like other cities.
How can we hasten this? We have too often allowed strategic planning and statutory regulations that only favour urban sprawl. This is a government problem with the state having all the necessary power to fix it, but the process must work with local governments and local communities.
Even the mayor of Cottesloe is now saying “density is good” after 50 years of her city opposing any redevelopment on obvious sites for density, e.g. around Cottesloe station.
So, every Australian city needs a new plan that responds to this fourth oil crisis as we did very little after the first three. Together we need a strong partnership between government, developers and communities to embrace mid rise and high rise in areas that are ready for redevelopment.