Some may not need a car but most of us do need a car...It is needed to carry stuff & save time.
Also, how often can you play a musical instrument & do many other activities in higher densities?....
Also, most people in a fairly affluent society like Oz need plenty of built space....
This shoe box living is totally inferior & people are forced to do it because they can't afford better.
The reason they can't afford better is only due to bad laws....there is plenty of land in Australia & low density buildings can be done cheaply.
The Govt ought to just get back to putting in the services & let people responsibly do what they like with their property.

William,

Some people will still lead lifestyles that require a car, and that is fine. But you have to consider that there are so many people out there that use a car, when really they should be able to walk, ride or catch public transport. Current planning practices are not allowing for that in most cases.

People are still able to be creative and play instruments at higher densities. Design outcomes for housing and public facilities allow for this.

Being an affluent country does not mean that we are entitled to more built space. If anything, we should be demonstrating with the incredible resources and knowledge that we have that we can live more sustainably, and more responsibly with a little bit less. Our actions are directly responsible for future generations to come.

It is wrong to suggest that people are forced to live in "shoe boxes". People have many options in Australia (it is housing policy to offer diversity), and housing size and price is often directly proportionate to how far the dwelling is from services. If you want a bit more space, be prepared to live a bit further from services. Conversely, if you want access to everything, be prepared to live in a smaller dwelling.

Just because there is plenty of land does not give us the right to plan unsustainably on it. Being a responsible authority, the Government cannot let people 'choose' if they want to live sustainably because it is likely that many will not make that decision for themselves anytime soon. The Government needs to act with a scope larger than individual houses and neighbourhoods, and look at cities as a whole. Unfortunately for us and the generations to come, crunch time is quickly approaching...

William Bruce's arguments are almost all totally and verifiably false.
First the argument is NOT about car ownership but car dependency. (Which leads to the occupants of sprawl having two or even three cars.) The energy inefficiency of modern independent housing is shocking but just as bad is the car dependency that means endless driving for just about everything from commuting to work, school dropoffs, shopping and leisure.
Second, it is absurd (as per Jane Rawson's comment) to make claims for what you can do in "sprawl" versus high-density inner-cities. As if the millions who live in Paris, New York City (especially Manhattan) or any number of other highly desirable world cities, somehow are constrained in their activities!
Third, it is not a question of differentially taxing those who "choose" to live in sprawl but allowing the real public costs of that lifestyle to be applied. Roads, electricity, water and sewage are all vastly more expensive--often by factors of 20 or more--to provide in these new exurbs than in compact developments.

Bruce's mention of "super fast Nuke powered trains" however, may reveal him to be merely trolling for mischief.

No, population growth is not the biggest problem on Earth. Our consumption and the resultant pollution, waste and damage to natural systems are far bigger problems that, if dealt with in a meaningful way, would greatly alleviate many of the issues related to population growth.

If all of us continue to insist on living a lifestyle that is unsustainable and refuse to give up our cars and suburban quater acre, then further congestion, pollution, resource depletion and all of the stresses and problems that go with that will only continue to increase.

It's interesting that you mention China as a bicycle-riding nation because the truth is, most Chinese have given up their bicycles and now drive cars. This is why there is added emphasis and added pressure on western societies to alter their practices and why resource depletion is becoming a global issue.

On China, even with your "gaff" the average Chinese carbon emission is much lower than the rest of the world. Even in the big cities which now have terrible traffic congestion and so have made bicycling less practical and certainly less popular, all these cities are building mass transit at a phenomenal rate. Shanghai will soon have the world's biggest Metro system. In addition, as in the west, traffic congestion becomes a major driver to use alternatives, and in fact the latest rage is electric-assisted bicycles. Although the Chinese seem hell-bent on repeating all the West's and in particular the American experiment of car-based transport, one also has some faith that they will see the error in this strategy (which is really industrial rather than city planning like the American model) and in addition to building mass transit, will also reconstruct a bike-friendly environment, especially with the popularity of these new bikes. We might yet get to see a return of 9 million bicycles in Beijing!

Byron.
Of course China is catching up. But the argument is not about people (anywhere) getting more prosperous but whether these same people will be putting a higher strain on the environment if they are living in dense cities versus suburban or exurban developments.

This is at the heart of Tony Recsei's sleight of hand. It is a very misleading and I would have to say dishonest approach--or at the least non-scientific. If you take one of his high-earners taking lots of airplane flights and put him in the exurban environment does he take fewer flights? NO. (And he spends a lot more energy getting to and from airports.)

And as to consumption I would have to say that when you do the proper comparisons (see below) I believe those living in true high-density inner cities consume quite a lot less than suburbanites. And--importantly--are no worse off for it. As David Owen described (in Green Metropolis) when he moved from lower Manhattan to semi-rural upstate, within months he ended up going from zero to 3 cars and over the years his garage filled up with stuff, most of which hardly got used but was both purchased and kept simply because he had the space to do so. Turns out a substantial proportion of all suburban garages no longer store cars but "stuff". And of course the weird fact that in some years the highest-growth form of "housing" has been storage sites!

So, by "proper" I mean that all these comparisons within Australia are largely meaningless. As I wrote in another post here, there are very few high-density areas to do the correct comparison which is why you have to go to true high-density cities elsewhere in the western world. I do not accept the statistic that dwellers in high-density inner-cities drive almost the same, but in Australia such a comparison is, again, largely meaningless since our mass transit is so lamentable.
Even the modern apartments getting build by the dozen are, IMO, not especially well designed for low-energy or comfort; mostly because of the glass curtain walls which in our climate almost ensure unnecessarily high use of aircon.

It appears to me that a dishonest and/or non-scientific approach is to ignore the evidence that greenhouse gas emissions at point of consumption are greatest in high-density with regard to the most important variables - purchases, household energy consumption and embodied energy. There is no evidence that high-density is superior environmentally. Relying on anecdotes is no substitute.

As a public health policy person who is also involved in community planning issues, there is a lot about this discussion that I find concerning. I guess if I were looking for a discussion that epitomised how people gravitate towards findings that support the position that they want to advocate, this would be a pretty good example. Or maybe it just shows that these issues are incredibly complex and the jury is still out. However...I can't let the comments about Manhattan go unchallenged: in short, attributing the body weight of Manhattanites to increased walking is just too simplistic. Consider: you are less likely to be confronted with opportunities to buy unhealthy snacks in Manhattan than in other places [http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/manhattan_snack_lack_b5VvHCEq3qUrvsZG5OMzoM]. Also, Manhattan has one of the highest income profiles of any place in the US; a median age of 36; 48% of households are individuals only; only 17% are households with children under the age of 18 (the overall % in the US as a whole was reported to be 46% - I have seen much lower figures, but nothing as low as 17%). Manhattan also has a highly educated population and, as numerous pop-sociology articles attest, a lot of women who take body image and health (perhaps in that order) very seriously, to the point of obsession. In trawling through stuff on planning & health, it is impossible not to be struck by the emphasis on opportunities for incidental and recreational physical activity, when the increase in obesity has been reputably attributed more to changes in food and drink consumption than to reductions in physical activity. The 'greater density' mantra tends to manifest itself in tiny kitchens and an absence of useable private outdoor space, resulting in default options such as reliance on fast food/processed food and leisure time in front of screens, with 'walking' destinations consisting of bars, restaurants, and movie theatres. In contrast, suburbanites have better access to fresh, healthy food (often farmers' markets), kitchens more conductive to preparing food, and better access to both private and public outdoor space. People walk where they feel safe, and the social aspects of many suburban neighbourhoods encourage both walking and social inclusion. All of these behavioural and structural factors are incredibly complex, and more qualitative research about the way we live is likely to shed more light on the interplay of these factors.

Tony,

You are misusing the GHG numbers you've quoted from ACF research, AGAIN.

As you are already aware, a direct quote from Charles Berger, Director of Strategic Ideas at the ACF states, "Yes, the ecological footprint of Australians living in urban centres is very substantially higher than for Australians living in suburban or regional areas. This is largely a consequence of higher wealth and higher consumption patterns in inner-city areas in Australia, rather than having anything to do with urban form per se.

The findings are quite challenging for some environmentalists. In particular, they suggest that merely increasing urban densities and using public transport will not necessarily reduce total or per-capita ecological footprints. In Australia, wealthy inner city residents are driving less than others, but have increased consumption in nearly every other category of goods and services. Whatever savings are being achieved by bicycling and walking are being more than counterbalanced by increased airplane flights, food, clothing, and much else besides."

http://www.planetizen.com/node/42941

For everyone reading along, more info on this topic is available here: http://www.planetizen.com/node/42679

There is good reason to refer to the ACF figures. Even taking wealth out of the equation there is no evidence that greenhouse gas emissions are less in high-density. Household energy use in high-rise per person is nearly double what it is in single residential. The embodied energy is also much more. The paper on which the ACF number are based shows that using regression analysis to attempt to isolate variables influencing household emissions, finds that density, as an isolated variable, has practically no effect on total energy requirements. The paper also finds that density has little effect on the per person energy requirement for mobility and automotive fuel consumption. With regard to the Planetizen references, see my rebuttal http://www.planetizen.com/node/42927

The explanation for these findings probably partly arises from lower occupancy rates in high-rise compared to single-residential and the use of elevators, clothes dryers, air-conditioners and common lighted areas such as parking garages and foyers. Most studies do not include this latter important element, simply because they are based upon consumer bills which do not include common consumption. In addition there is the greater energy per resident required to construct high-rise. It is also possible that people, confined within the four walls of a unit, tend to travel out more.

Looking towards the future, if we are to reduce our urban energy and water footprint by individually collecting localised solar energy and rainwater it appears reasonable that this will only be practical for dwellings that have a large roof area per inhabitant. That means low density.

"Only a tiny fraction of this variety can be located within Manhattan."

That is an extraordinary thing to say.
Universities: Not only is the western world's largest university (NYU) there and in a terrific environment (Jane Jacobs Washington Square famously saved from the clutches of Robert Moses who wanted to build a freeway thru it). But also the oldest (disputed with Harvard) Columbia U. and another very prestigious one Rockafeller) and Cornell and I am sure others I have forgotten.

Of course one of the world's most famous sports venues is in the heart of the city (Madison Sq Gardens) and the main Yankees baseball ground is just across the river, and the US Open tennis championship is in Queens.

Most specialty stores will be in Manhattan. (You seem to forget that there are several million who live in Manhattan and even more who commute in each day--the market is vastly bigger than any given site in the other boroughs.) On the other hand--and this is a delicious factoid--there is not a single WalMart within NYC! (Is that what you consider a specialty store?) Even better the specialty stores tend to congregate, thus you get all the camera and electronics stores in a compact area on 34th street (I think, or is it 42nd?).

Further this is true for most other big dense cities. It was certainly the case for Paris. French Open is in Bois de Boulogne (western edge and formally part of "Paris", ie. intra-muros), Bercy Palais de OmniSport (for sport and big music concerts), of course most of the famous universities and hospitals (though there are some newer ones in outer suburbs) and wow, the specialty shops in Paris! Certainly not in the banlieu. And the beauty is that I could walk to all of these if I wished. Or use Metro. Or these days use a Velib bike for free.

As to "shoehorn", first it turns out most suburbanites do not use all that glorious space except much of the excess is used to store "stuff". I think more and more people realize that this compulsion to accumulate more and more stuff is not correlated with fulfillment, indeed quite possibly the opposite. Their increasingly small yards are used less and less (and often hard-paved anyway) and in a typical week only 6% of children (9-13 y) play outside (US stats). This is why inner-city kids actually spend more time outside, walking and using public parks.
So, in the above scenario I am not necessarily comparing middling older suburbs with generous yards etc but focussing on the growth suburbs/exurbs--because this is the focus of the central argument: are these people, (and then the overall public good--efficient deployment of resources on utilities, transport etc) better served by building more sprawl or, yes, compact and "smart" growth developments based around public transport?

None of this proves Manhattan is stand-alone and self-sufficient and not interdependent on greater New York.

In your initial reply I thought you were referring to my opening statement “Manhattan cannot be used as a model for a complete Australian city. It has an aggregation of many unique entities such as head offices that are best located near each other. It cannot be seen as an independent entity, excised from the larger New York urban area, as the areas are interdependent.”

This is the crux of the argument relating to the suggestion that Australian cities should be modeled on Manhattan. This is not possible geometrically. Perhaps a geometrically possible model is Hong Kong.
One needs to get the facts correct. The New York area (NY-NJ-CT) has a population density of 1800 people per square kilometer, less than that of Sydney which is 2000.

Byron,
Not sure about that (hi-rise versus medium-rise). But I think the more important point, that I think is actually a serious point for Australia, is that Paris is the densest city in the western world. It achieves this by having a pretty uniform height of 6 to 8 floors with only a few (well, a few dozen) hi-rise of max 31 floors (predominantly in the 13th arrondissement and Grenelle just downstream from the Eiffel tower). By "Paris" one means the "old" city inside the old city walls which was turned into the Peripherique highway in the 60s (thus "intra-muros"). It has about 2.3 million residents. (I have never figured out if the calculation includes the two huge parks (Boulogne & Vincennes) which are kinda outre-muros but which technically are included in Paris' administration.)

So the point being that most, not all, people would accept Paris as being a pretty nice place to live; or at the least meeting appropriate standards which we may not agree on in places like China, HK or Tokyo. But it drives me to expletives when almost all commentators in Australia (eg. *Dick Smith, Bob Carr) present the choice as either the quarter acre (hah, long gone) or high-rise (which these days can mean 72 floors which is the height of Soleil just finishing in Brisbane. No it's not and it doesn't help the argument by propagating such idiocy.

*I had a bit of a spray against these blokes:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/04/07/population-in-australia-2050-versus-1950/

I think it speaks volumes that you want to choose the part of "New York" that better suits your argument--for no better reason that it suits your argument.

I choose to use either NYC (the 5 boroughs, about 8.1 million people) or one borough the typifies high-density living in a western society, namely Manhattan which has a density of 67,000/sq mile =25,868/sq km =259 per hectare. This is 800 times the American average.

I choose it not because it proves my arguments (which it does) but because it (and Paris, Barcelona etc) is the closest to the model of housing that has proven itself. (Note, contrary to what some real estate agencies might want Australians to believe by describing hi-rise as "Manhattan style", most people there live in lowrise, though not as high a fraction as in Paris that is almost all 6 to 8 floors). That does not mean I would propose such densities for Australia (except in pockets) because inevitably we would have more space between buildings and more (small) parks etc. But, again, the point is that lots of people have either lived in those cities (me, for example) or visited them enough to know that they are great cities re quality of life--indeed they are much better cities to live in than visit as a tourist.

But your choice, whether NY "area" or Sydney "inner city", does not focus on the whole issue being discussed: high-density housing. Try getting the figures for, say Fitzroy+Collingwood, which is closer to the model I would promote.

Re-post from elsewhere:

Just checked some figures. (Just thinking aloud here.)
Paris has 2.21 million people and its total area is 105.4 km2 which gives a density of 20,980 per km2; the area excluding bois de Boulogne and bois de Vincennes is 87 km2 which gives a density of 25,417 per km2.

This is surprising because Manhattan is actually higher at 25,686 per km2. (Of course the city comparison use all 5 boroughs of NYC.) It is a minor point but I did the calc exclude the big parks (or bois) because they are not properly within Paris, they are like hernias bulging out of the SE and NW corners. (Whereas Central Park is surrounded by the city.) The bois were only annexed to the city in 1929.
..............
Anyway, putting the particular buzz of NYC to one side, most people would say that living per se is better in Paris, and that Paris has an undeniable grace and style, a lot of which derives from its human-scale buildings. I think a large part of the Upper West side is nicer than many other parts of Manhattan for exactly this reason: other than the buildings bordering the park it is mostly of lower and uniform height. In some ways the Eixample of Barcelona is somewhat better designed than Paris (as it should be, it was farmland when planned): the "super-blocks" defined by the main street structure have chamfered corners that creates greater openness and airyness.

David, haven't you noticed that a lot of those improvements to city living are happening. And urban water use is a tiny fraction of water used for other purposes (most is agricultural, then industrial), and Australian urbanites are quite frugal with water use. None more so than those in high-density. (But yes it can and will improve, oh well maybe not with all these conservative governments in power now.) No one is going to disagree about the stupidity of desal plants.

As to scooters, do you know that motorbikes are far more polluting than cars even accounting for motor size? Obviously not CO2 but more serious pollutants like NOx, because they are not subject to the same regulatory controls. No, we really need to build urban environments to encourage people to walk or cycle.

Thanks Michael, I have noticed that a lot of the changes I advocate are proceeding. [Perhaps I could become a politician; they're brilliant at making big speeches, 'taking the initiative' by announcing that the nation should start doing something that people have already started.]

The fact remains that cities are a huge drain on water in their regions (up to 500 km radius). The major reason for this is what's called "inter-basin transfers"; that's where water is extracted from one catchment and directed elsewhere. Agricultural use of water within a basin removes less water from the basin, but it does contaminate water returning to the river with sediment, fertilisers, etc.

As and when thermal power stations are shut down, there will also be substantial quantities of water once more available for the environment.

The "mobility scooters" which I mention are of the four-wheeled battery-powered variety, quite common in the town in which I live (high population of elderly/retired people); I apologise for not making this clear.

Where is the proof that Australians in high-density are the most frugal with water use? The following study showed that per capita water consumption in units was practically the same as in separate houses:

Water Use and the Built Environment: Patterns of Water
Consumption in Sydney, Patrick Troy, Darren Holloway and Bill Randolph, City Futures Research Centre, Research Paper No. 1, December 2005

You're not comparing the correct things. Like I have said before those studies include all those inner suburbs which do not do things much differently to outer suburbs. They wash their cars and water their gardens, even hose off their paths and houses (though not so much in Brisbane anymore after the water restrictions).

In true high-density city living my statement absolutely is true. Again you really have to go to outside of Australia for valid comparisons and data. I cannot put my hand on it right now but I remember that Manhattan uses much less water than anywhere else. What I did find is this on power:
"New York city residents, with an average of 4,696 kilowatt-hours per household per year, already consume less electricity than the residents of any other part of the country. The average Dallas household, by contrast, uses 16,116 kwH, more than three times as much." And that does not include transport energy.

Surely when one uses the best information available that is comparing “the correct things”. What is “true high-density city living”? A figment of the imagination?

Do the New York electricity consumption figures include the common consumption of the block of apartments such as for lifts and common area lighting? In Sydney amounts to an additional 80% or so of the individual apartment consumption and is frequently ignored by surveys.

" lifts and common area lighting? In Sydney amounts to an additional 80% or so of the individual apartment consumption"

Do you seriously believe that? It is complete b.s. (Unless it really states that the building's total communal electricity consumption was 80% of any single apartment---also seems unlikely.) It is simply lacking credibility. (Lifts do add a fair expense to Body Corporate charges but that is the high cost of breakdowns, services and regular OHS accreditation they have.)

When I read stuff like that (as a scientist) I just know the authors of whatever report is being cited is being dishonest--they are striving as hard as possible towards a predetermined objective. Lifts are actually the most efficient passenger vehicles in the world, because they are lightweight structures, are counter-weighted and have little friction. Also in the kind of low-rise I promote for high-density development a lot of people do not use them, especially when descending. (Paradoxically lifts use more energy when descending because the counter-weight--which is designed to roughly match the maximum capacity of the lift--has to be hauled up.)