The lack of planning and foresight to cope with the never-ending population (immigration) deluge into Australia’s big cities never ceases to amaze. After a conga-line of reports about overcrowding across roads, public transport, schools and hospitals, now we hear that Melbourne is running well short of sporting grounds:
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said the supply of sports grounds and facilities, especially for junior clubs, was way behind the city’s rampant population growth…
“Suburban and regional sport clubs are being squeezed by enormous population growth,” Mr Guy said.
“Our local sports grounds and courts need urgent upgrades including building new female change rooms…
This was precisely the outcome noted in Infrastructure Australia’s recent report, which projected that liveability in Melbourne would be crushed as the city’s population reaches 7.3 million by 2046, with traffic congestion worsening and access to jobs, schools, hospitals and green space all declining relative to today:
As shown above, the percentage of residents with “access to any green space” will fall from 38% currently to between 31% and 33% by 2046 under all build-out scenarios. And this does not account for the extra congestion and loss of amenity as millions more people use what is essentially a fixed resource.
The equation is simple: running a mass immigration ‘Big Australia’ program means incumbent residents will spend more time lost in traffic, spend more on (smaller) housing, receive less public services (e.g. health and education), will have access to less open space, and will experience lower overall living standards.
The solution is also simple: lower immigration back to historical levels of less than 100,000 people a year and stop Melbourne and Sydney from transforming into Asian-style mega cities:
