New Zealand cities grow mostly through building houses on undeveloped land. But this removes fertile soil and undermines the food production and other ecological functions city dwellers depend on.
Quite how to gauge the size of a city – or where one ends and the next begins – is getting harder to determine. The 21st century belongs to the limitless city.
Growing fresh produce on the outskirts of a city reduces food miles and increases food security. But the foodbowls next to our our big cities are fast losing their land to urban growth.
Before the pandemic, our cities had a simple plan: let population growth drive economic activity. But the world is changing and the perpetual growth mindset has to change with it.
Australia’s big cities have grown rapidly and strains are showing. Yet the state of the urban environment has been rated good and stable due to local and state responses to these challenges.
The ‘exodus’ from capital cities amounts to 0.06% of their populations – similar to recent years – and people are still moving to the cities. What’s missing is growth driven by international migrants.
Australia lacks a coherent national approach to planning where settlement and growth happens. It’s time to take stock of our cities and regions and work together to improve outcomes across the nation.
The demands on land and resources from our fast-growing cities are unsustainable, as are the wastes they produce. Yet still our leaders act as if unlimited growth is possible.
Other countries are planning new cities using technological innovation to achieve more sustainable development. Such plans aren’t new for Australia, but existing city growth is the focus of attention.
Pacific island nations are often framed as remote atolls facing rising seas and cyclones. But their cities are growing fast, so are efforts to help the most climate-vulnerable people hitting the mark?
The focus on roads reflects the fact that this infrastructure program lags well behind the growth of our biggest cities, resulting in less-than-ideal transport patterns.
Population growth has pros and cons, and the Morrison government’s plan is less about a change in immigration numbers than about increasing the benefits and minimising the costs.
Capital city populations are growing twice as fast as the rest of Australia, because of the employment and business opportunities and lifestyle on offer to both new migrants and long-term residents.
City fringe foodbowls supply much of our fresh produce and can increase climate resilience by making better use of wastewater and organic waste. A new roadmap outlines how to protect these foodbowls.
Urban growth has had much less impact on commuting distances and times than media reports would suggest. The explanations include jobs being widely dispersed and residents’ adaptable decision-making.
The largest cities in Australia and the US are both the richest and the most likely to push out low-income earners. Having cities of all sizes will increase people’s choices of where to live and work.