I HATE to point out the obvious, but . . . . Sorry, I actually like to point out the obvious, especially when few others are willing to do so. Have you noticed the rise and rise of the buzz word “sustainability”?
Now we have the “sustainable city” or “working to make our city more sustainable”.
Let’s be up front. There has not been, and probably never will be, such a thing as a sustainable city.
From ancient times military commanders have understood this. This is why they laid siege to cities. Stop anything from going and out of a city and the population eventually dies – as events in many cities from Jericho to Stalingrad reveal.
Canberra, one of the best-planned cities in the world, never has been and never will be “sustainable”. It will always rely on food, clothing and the material for shelter coming from without.
Sure, a city like Canberra will always send things and services out to the surrounding area in return, but it will never be sustainable. But you can make it better.
Act Chief Minister Jon Stanhope has now called upon the citizenry for ideas about the city’s future. And I must declare an interest here. I am one of a group of people selected in “Canberra 2030 – Time to Talk” to champion the cause of citizens talking about what shape their city should take in the next 20 years.
Perhaps I was asked because I have rabbited on in newspaper columns about questions of the city’s future over the past several decades and even written a book about Canberra: Canberra, Australia’s National Capital. (The glossy colour version is out of print, but the text is on my website.)
Here are a few matters that Canberrans, or indeed any city dweller, should ask themselves about their city.
The old common-law view of land ownership was that an owner could do whatever he liked with the land but was strictly liable for damage that anyone could prove was caused anything that escaped from it.
Belching gas in to the air was not one of those things. Nor was blocking sunlight. Nor was the noise associated with running a pub.
We have since ameliorated this. Planners have rightly assigned some areas in towns and cities for some uses and other areas for other uses for the greater good of all. Residents can expect not to live next to a factory in a planned city like Canberra, or indeed, most cities in the developed world.
So far so good.
In the first 60 years of Canberra’s history (1913-1973) land was abundant. It was so abundant that it could be given away. Governments, indeed, put roads, electricity, water and sewerage in and still gave it away. The Australian Government wanted to attract people to Canberra in the same way as the US Government wanted to attract people to Oklahoma. They did it in the same way – by giving land away cheap.
The land was so cheap that many people came. The planners stuck to their model of generous block size, generous allocation of land for public use: parks, churches, verges, wide roads, community use and so on.
Now, Canberra is a vast city – 50 kilometres from far south to furthest north.
It is slightly bigger in area than the five boroughs of New York – 814 square kilometres against New York’s 786 square kilometres. If Canberra had the same population density as New York it would have 8.7 million people.
But it would be more like Calcutta than New York because whereas New York has a rich hinterland and the vast Hudson River, Canberra has smaller agricultural riches and a trickling creek called the Molonglo River. If Canberra had 8.7 million people (and the rest of Australia remained static), Australia would be a net food importer. A Canberra of 8.7 million would not have enough water.
I mention this extreme – plausible because New York has that density – to provoke argument about how big Canberra should be and what steps if any should be taken to make it bigger or smaller or to stay the same.
There are obvious benefits to a city of some size. Division of labour results in a full range of medical, legal, architectural, educational, cultural and other services and goods that is not available in smaller places. Equally, there are compromises about the density of living, building heights, and transport options and costs.
These are serious questions. Governments can influence the outcome to a degree. But a myriad of individual decisions can have their effect, too. As can a considered voice among Canberrans.
Of course, we maybe talking to the wrong government. Canberra’s population fate is largely in the hands of the Federal Government which dictates the immigration program. And ultimately population more than anything else will determine how liveable the city is.
We might have to make some population assumptions and base proposals on them. In any event, we have some choices.
Should we push into the National Capital Open Space System (the green belts between the five towns) before we push into agricultural land on Canberra’s outskirts. Or should we quartantine both from development? What would that mean for smaller green spaces within the city envelope?
Should we allow more storeys in parts of the city? If so, how many and where? Should we allow “dentistry” development when redevelopment only happens as individual older dwellings are sold? Or should we insist inner-city redevelopment is done in whole slabs?
How prescriptive should the rules be for new dwellings? What should those rules be?
How should we finance educational, medical and cultural facilities? What priorities should we have?
What transport system should we aim for? Do we spend more millions on freeways or will we accept some transitional pain while we move to more public transport? Light rail? Or do we hope for cheap electric cars? Buses? If we are spending $100 million a year on buses, why not go the whole hog and make them free and treble parking fees in the city.
How do we deal with the “skills shortage” or “ageing population”?
Can we use the tax system more imaginatively, say, by imposing a large death duty that will drive the aging population interstate or, say, by young tradespeople tax incentives?
Would it be wise to expect government get on with it and get the right answers?
Over to you.
More details on Time to Talk are here: www.canberra2030.org.au
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times on 4 September 2010