Many people think a population policy is about control – like the one-child policy in China, for instance. But modern population policies are about population-well-being.
Density is an idea sold to us by corporate developers who want to build on every last bit of green space. To fully enjoy our city now and for the future, we need more public green space.
As Toronto hurtles towards its population dense future, the making of significant green communities for its waterfront needs to be urgently considered.
The bigger Melbourne gets, the more attractive it becomes.
from shutterstock.com
In the 70s, Whitlam tried to build new, big cities. But this was too costly. Now the most viable solution for Australia’s population woes is to make existing cities bigger.
Most of Australia’s population is concentrated in big cities like Sydney and Melbourne.
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Planners have long tried to determine the ideal city size, and ideas have evolved with changing circumstances. But a good city depends more on the way it’s managed than on how many people it holds.
Purse seiner fishing in the Indian Ocean. Footprint estimates do not assess how sustainably resources such as fisheries are managed.
Jiri Rezac
August 1, 2018 is ‘Earth Overshoot Day,’ a date coined by the nonprofit Global Footprint Network to publicize overuse of Earth’s resources. But their estimates actually understate the problem.
Cutting immigration to Australia will impact the country’s demographic composition, with consequences for the working age population and income tax base.
Andrew Seaman/Unsplash
Politicians across the spectrum have at some point targeted immigration as a contributor to out-of-control population growth. But would reducing, or banning, immigration take pressure off cities?
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson says Australia has ‘run away rates of immigration’.
MICK TSIKAS/AAP
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said Australia is “the highest-growing country in the world”, with population growth “double than a lot of other countries”. Is that right?
Slums like this one in Rio de Janeiro embody the problems Paul Ehrlich warned of in ‘The Population Bomb.’
dany13
Fifty years ago biologist Paul Ehrlich published ‘The Population Bomb,’ an apocalyptic warning that overcrowding would lead to wars and famine. Here’s what the book got right and wrong.
Historic investments in green open space along the Yarra created a legacy of liveability in Melbourne.
Ispas Vlad/Shutterstock
Australian cities are experiencing the third big wave of growth in their history. The response in the past was planning and investment in green infrastructure, and it’s time to do the same again.
Bob Carr has a decades-long record of opposition to a ‘big Australia’.
AAP/Dan Himbrechts
Australian government environmental funding has decreased by a third since 2013. At the same time, Australia is experiencing massive species loss as funding for the sector dries up.
French President Emmanuel Macron during his visit to French counter-terrorism forces in northern Mali, in May.
EPA/Christophe Petit Tesson
Fire is part of the ecology in much of California, but recent wildfires have caused much more damage than past burns of similar size. A fire ecologist points to two key factors: winds and population growth.
Census figures show remote Indigenous communities are falling behind.
AAP
Gilles Pison, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (MNHN)
There’s no reason why small families shouldn’t become the norm in Africa. But this will depend on improving education opportunities for women and improving birth control policies.
Many people in culturally diverse populations in Western Sydney have lived in Australia for many years, if not several generations.
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Reasoned debates on sustainable migration intake levels are important. But transport and health infrastructure shortfalls in Western Sydney won’t be solved by reactive anti-immigration attitudes.
Our national wellbeing probably peaked with Australia’s population at roughly 15 million in the 1970s, when this photo was taken in Hunters Hill, Sydney.
John Ward/flickr
Australia’s GPI, a broad measure of national wellbeing, has stalled since 1974. So what has been the point of huge population and GDP growth since then if we and our environment are no better off?
Tokyo, seen here from the Skytree tower, is home to more people than any other city on Earth but has managed to remain highly liveable.
Brendan Barrett
Financial benefits are behind the development industry’s push for a continuous rapid population growth. But our poorly planned cities are ill-prepared and already struggling.
A couple of months isn’t enough to say the housing market is cooling.
AAP/ Tracey Nearmy