With the revolt against Sydney’s break-neck population growth and declining liveability mushrooming, Urban Taskforce CEO, Chris Johnson, has penned a deluded opinion piece in LinkedIn (sent to The SMH) arguing that “Sydney can blend suburban and urban lifestyles at 8 million people”:
Sydney can grow from our current 5 million people to 8 million over 40 years if we manage the growth cleverly. We can keep most of the low rise suburbs if we graft a new urban lifestyle onto a series of transport centres. There are a growing number of people that now prefer a more urban cosmopolitan lifestyle. They want to live in apartments close to work, public transport and amenities.
In a recent article, Dick Smith asks “Do any of us really want to live in a city of 8 million?” but this is the size that London and New York are today. I suspect that many people in Sydney, particularly younger people, would be keen to have the amenities of these major cities with their museums, art galleries and an efficient metro rail system. Sydney’s population is ageing as the baby boomers get older and they need to be supported as they move out of work. The NSW Government issued 2015 Intergenerational Report: Australia in 2055 which indicated that with an ageing population and increasing health costs there will be less incoming earning workers to contribute to taxation. Clearly more hard working tax paying immigrants will be needed to support the state economy. Our growth as a city will challenge current lifestyles but through clever planning Sydney can blend the suburban way of living with an urban cosmopolitan lifestyle.
Righto, so according to Chris Johnson, Sydney will magically develop world class amenities like a tube-style rail system if it simply grows to the size of London and New York? How? And Who will pay?
Sydney has already experienced 15 years of hyper population growth and infrastructure has unambiguously been degraded and crush-loaded, as well as become increasing expensive to use (think toll roads). So what makes Chris Johnson believe that the situation will magically reverse over the next 35 years as Sydney’s population balloons to 8 million people?
Infrastructure Australia’s recent report clearly showed that liveability in Sydney will decline as the city’s population grows to 7.4 million people by 2046, irrespective of whether the city builds up like New York, sprawls-out like Los Angeles, or does a London-style combination. That is, traffic congestion will unambiguously worsen and access to jobs, schools, hospitals and green space will all decline:
Chris Johnson’s claim that Sydney “can keep most of the low rise suburbs if we graft a new urban lifestyle onto a series of transport centres” is also contradicted by the Urban Taskforce’s own data, which in December projected that Sydney will transform into a high-rise ‘battery chook’ city mid-century, whereby only one quarter of all homes will be detached houses:
The reality is that the Greater Sydney Commission’s plan for Sydney is to protect affluent areas from substantial development, while crush-loading already disadvantaged areas (mostly in the West):
So Sydney is facing a future whereby only the wealthy elite will be able to afford to live in a detached house with a backyard, while the ordinary folk are crammed into apartments.
Chris Johnson’s final argument that Sydney needs millions of migrants to pay for the retiring baby boomers’ health costs is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme and has been debunked numerous times by the Productivity Commission and elsewhere. Should Sydney hit 8 million people mid-century and today’s young migrants have grown old, what will be the Urban Taskforce’s solution then: to import a whole bunch of new migrants “to keep the population young” and a Sydney of 12-plus million people by the end of the century?
Chris Johnson has also forgotten the massive cost to the State Budget from catering for this projected explosion. All manner of infrastructure and services will need to be paid for, including new schools, hospitals, roads, public transport, sewerage systems, water desalination, etc. These costs will dwarf those that come from natural population ageing.
In any event, why not let the people of Sydney and Australia decide whether they want a ‘Big Australia’ of 40-plus million mid-century, and a Sydney and Melbourne of 8 million each. Let’s have a plebiscite on Australia’s future population.
