Problems with fringe-dwelling are peripheral (OpEd in The Age)
Posted: March 19, 2010 Filed under: Planning | Tags: fringe-dwelling, peripheral, sprawl, suburbs, The Age 4 CommentsI have an OpEd in The Age this morning which the editor has titled Problems with fringe-dwelling are peripheral. That’s quite clever! My OpEd seeks to cut through the hyperbole and examine the issue of sprawl dispassionately and logically. Unfortunately this time The Age doesn’t appear to have made provision for people to make comments – that’s usually a lot of fun. (EDIT 1: I see that The Age has now activated the comments section but its after midday so I suspect the horse has bolted. Edit 2: see further post on sources here)
More on My School
Posted: March 18, 2010 Filed under: Education, justice, health | Tags: Education, justice, health, Gillard, ICSEA, My School, NAPLAN 1 CommentFollowing up on my comments about My School on 5 March, Limitations of My School, there is great post by Sam Wylie on Core Economics today, School performance data. While he doesn’t address my issue of concern (the accuracy of the social profiling methodology used for comparison purposes), he makes a number of other good points. In particular, I thought his closing, where he addresses the issue of league tables, was well put:
“In the matter of school testing there is always the presentation of an argument that parents and the press will not interpret the data correctly. The people can’t be trusted. How often does that idea come up in different spheres? We shouldn’t devolve power or information to individual households because they cannot be trusted not to abuse it. Those types of arguments are always based on the protection of private interest (teaching unions) or elitism”.
The jobs are already in the suburbs
Posted: March 18, 2010 Filed under: Employment | Tags: commuting, Employment, Jobs, Project Melbourne, sprawl, suburbs, The Age, The Great Divide 2 CommentsThere was another good story published in The Age yesterday as part of the continuing series, Project Melbourne: Towards a Sustainable City. Titled The Great Divide, it compares living in a CBD apartment with outer suburban living.
However there is a point where the writer, Julie Szego, goes too far. She contends that outer suburban living “depends on jobs becoming a reality. If jobs don’t come to the suburbs, roads will remain choked and families time-poor”.
The idea that there are few jobs in the suburbs is a common misconception with important policy implications.
The reality is that around 72% of all jobs in Melbourne are located at a distance greater than 5 km from the CBD. Half of all jobs are more than 13 km from the CBD.
Destinations of Casey commuters
And these aren’t all low-skill, low-pay jobs either. The majority of jobs in Melbourne occupied by graduates are located more than 5 km from the CBD.
This misunderstanding of the geography of employment is also displayed in the first feature written for The Age’s current Project Melbourne series. That article, titled The Outer Limits, made the claim that “of those jobs that are available (in fringe suburbs), a higher percentage are blue-collar”.
The idea that suburban jobs are mostly in low skill occupations seems to be another popular misconception.
In fact, only 9% of jobs located more than 40 km from the CBD are in the Manufacturing sector, compared to 14% for all of Melbourne. If the definition of blue collar is extended to include jobs in the Wholesale, Transport and Construction sectors, the respective figures for the fringe and metropolitan area are 26% and 31%. What the fringe areas actually do have is a higher proportion of jobs than the metropolitan average in the high-skill education and health sectors.
It is not in any event clear why having more ‘blue collar’ jobs would be a disadvantage compared, say, to having an over-representation of retailing jobs. Many jobs in the modern Manufacturing and Construction industries are highly skilled and involve interacting with complex technologies and systems.
The main issues associated with employment in Melbourne can be explored in this presentation I gave last year at a cultural industries seminar at Qld University of Technology, Jobs in the Suburbs.
The contention in Julie Szego’s article that outer suburban roads are “choked” probably depends on one’s definition of what constitutes congestion. Most outer suburban residents travel locally – for example, 70% of trips by residents of the City of Casey are to destinations located in either Casey itself or the adjacent City of Cardinia (the corresponding figure for Cardinia is 83%). Read the rest of this entry »
Increasing multi unit housing supply
Posted: March 17, 2010 Filed under: Planning | Tags: housing supply, Inner city, Melbourne, multi unit housing, Project Melbourne, sprawl, suburbs, The Age 4 CommentsThere’s a feature in yesterday’s issue of The Age, The Outer Limits (clever title!), which is the first shot in a new series the newspaper is publishing under the banner, Project Melbourne: Towards a Sustainable City, on the challenges facing Melbourne as it hurtles towards a projected population of seven million sometime around 2050.
One of the key themes developed in the article is the need to increase the proportion of new dwellings constructed within the existing urban fabric rather than on the urban fringe. Another key theme is the need to increase housing affordability across all price segments.
I’m a strong supporter of these priorities. We do need to lessen the constraints on new construction in the suburbs but not, as The Age implies, because sprawl is intrinsically bad – it’s deficiencies are greatly exaggerated. Rather, the key reason is to increase affordability.
Most Melburnites want to live within established areas where they’re closer to everything else that’s going on in the city. They can do their grocery shopping and get their hair done anywhere, but living closer in usually means greater proximity to family, work and major sporting, cultural and entertainment facilities.
Contrary to much of the rhetoric on this issue, most households looking to settle in established areas do not have the option of locating in the buzzy inner city. It’s way too expensive. Redevelopment opportunities are constrained by heritage protection, by high property values, by highly organised resident opposition and by small lot sizes that are difficult to assemble into viable redevelopment opportunities. The inner city is also much smaller than most commentators realise – only 8% of Melbourne’s population live within 5 km of the CBD despite the considerable growth experienced in this region over the last 15-20 years. Read the rest of this entry »
Where cars might be heading
Posted: March 17, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic | Tags: electric vehicles, MIT Media Lab, Ryan Chin, shared use vehicle Leave a commentI’ve previously written in The Age (Efficiency the key to car culture) about the need to speed up the shift to smaller, lighter more environmentally friendly vehicles. This electric two passenger shared use vehicle designed at the MIT Media Lab gives an idea of where cars might be going in the immediate future. Read the rest of this entry »
Question time
Posted: March 16, 2010 Filed under: Miscellaneous | Tags: Melbourne Town Hall, nuclear power, questions Leave a commentMy son and I attended the great debate at Melbourne Town Hall on March 4 where the proposition under debate was “that Australia should embrace nuclear power”. After the panellists finished speaking, the moderator invited questions from the floor. That experience made me especially interested in this posting on Tyler Cowen’s Marginal Revolution blog – why do people ask questions at public events? According to Tyler, “the ‘really want to know’ motive is not absent altogether but I really doubt if it is primary”. As a consultant myself, I think there should be a separate “marketing” category, too.
Does sprawl cause obesity?
Posted: March 15, 2010 Filed under: Education, justice, health, Planning | Tags: CBD, diet, Inner city, Melbourne, obesity, Public Transport Users Association, Suburban sprawl, Zhao 6 CommentsI’m unconvinced by the argument that suburban sprawl is obesity’s best friend. I’m equally suspicious that higher density living is justified as a sensible response to obesity, as this story in the Sydney Morning Herald, How City Living Fights the Waistband Sprawl, contends.
It’s not that I doubt there’s a correlation between obesity and distance from the city centre. The SMH story reports University of NSW researchers as finding that “those living in the outer suburbs were 30 to 50 per cent more at risk of being overweight and 40 to 60 per cent less likely to be physically active than their inner-city counterparts”.
Nor do I doubt that the physical environment might have some role. After all, 13% of inner city residents in Melbourne walk to work compared to just 1% in the outer suburbs.
But how much of this difference is due to low density living? Is the relationship causal?
Even at first glance, weight gain seems to me to be much more sensitive to what you eat than what you do (or don’t do). For example, you have to walk the dog for an hour and a half, or cycle for an hour, to burn off the calories in just one Big Mac. Isn’t it likely that all those suburban families eat more fast food than inner city latte sippers?
So differences in diet are probably a much more significant factor explaining obesity than low density living. Read the rest of this entry »
If all of the USA (and Australia) were at the density of Brooklyn
Posted: March 14, 2010 Filed under: Planning | Tags: Australia, Brooklyn, density, infographic, Melbourne, New Hampshire, one-big-neighbourhood, Population, USA Leave a commentIf the entire population of the USA were housed at the same density as Brooklyn, it would all fit in New Hampshire with space left over! See more on this infographic here. I calculate that the entire population of Australia could be accommodated at the same density as Brooklyn within a radius of about 25Km from the centre of Melbourne – the boundary in the south east, for example, would be around the intersection of the Monash Freeway and the East Link freeway. That would leave a lot of space left over! Read the rest of this entry »
Electricity generation – renewables vs nuclear
Posted: March 14, 2010 Filed under: Energy & GHG | Tags: Melbourne Town Hall, Molly Olsen, nuclear power, renewables, Ziggy Switkowski Leave a commentIn my post on 10 March, We need to be more strategic about how we tackle greenhouse gas, I argued that we should give priority to making electricity carbon-free ahead of other actions like investing heavily in public transport. The post attracted a comment from Matt. For those who didn’t read it, he left an interesting link to beyond zero emissions on the potential for renewables to replace coal in generating electricity. Here’s more detail.
I attended the public debate in Melbourne Town Hall on 4 March where the proposition on the table was “that we should embrace nuclear power”. Here therefore in the interests of balance is a link to Brave New climate, which makes the case for nuclear.
Toyota’s ‘sudden acceleration’ problem may be driver error
Posted: March 13, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic | Tags: Megan McArdle, sudden acceleration, The Atlantic, toyota 1 CommentThere are lots of Toyotas in Melbourne and we even have a factory that builds them. It is therefore of great interest to note that Toyota’s mysterious problems in the US with sudden acceleration, wonky electronics and floor mats, may actually be the result of driver error. Megan McArdle writes today in The Atlantic, How Real are the Defects in Toyota’s Cars?, that it may be older, shorter and immigrant drivers that made the errors, not Toyota’s engineers. Read the rest of this entry »
More on rail link to airport
Posted: March 13, 2010 Filed under: Airports & aviation, Infrastructure, Public transport | Tags: ACCC, airport, Melbourne, parking, Public transport, rail, taxi, The Age, traffic congestion 9 CommentsThe Age is continuing its campaign for a new rail line to be built from the city centre to Melbourne Airport (I discussed this previously on March 2 – Possible rail link to Melbourne airport). There are also a couple of follow-up letters this morning supporting the idea of a rail link.
In a story yesterday, Airport ‘exploiting’ public on parking fees, The Age reported on a new analysis by the ACCC of airport performance in Australia, noting that parking charges account for 20% of Melbourne Airport’s revenue but just 8% of Sydney Airport’s.
The Age’s reporter, Ari Sharp, said the figures, “could add to calls for a rail link to Melbourne Airport to help overcome the growing problems – and costs – of getting there by car or bus”.
However contrary to The Ages’s apparent inference, the difference in the Sydney and Melbourne figures does not appear to be caused by a rapacious parking operator ripping off travellers who lack an alternative to driving.
What the story didn’t say was that Sydney Airport’s revenue from charges to airlines is $446 million, compared to Melbourne Airport’s comparatively modest $197 million. Parking revenues are much the same ($88m and $95m respectively), hence it’s not at all surprising that parking makes up a much larger proportion of total revenue in Melbourne than Sydney. Read the rest of this entry »
The ABC and climate change
Posted: March 12, 2010 Filed under: Energy & GHG | Tags: ABC, balance, climate change, letters, Maurice Newman, Taegen Edwards, The Age Leave a commentTaegen Edwards has a superb letter in The Age today in response to Maurice Newman’s upbraiding of the ABC for supposed lack of balance on climate change.
She points out that unless it resorts to ideologues, opportunists, vested interests or nutters, where can the ABC possibly find someone who opposes climate change from a rational, evidence-based viewpoint?
The ABC’s obligation to ensure fundamental principles of science and logic are respected must come before any compulsion to provide ‘balance’ in ideology and political point-scoring.
How to increase commuting by bicycle
Posted: March 12, 2010 Filed under: Cycling | Tags: bicycle, commuting, cycle streets, helmet, Melbourne, network, sprawl, suburbs 5 CommentsI argued yesterday there might be potential to shift a small but important proportion of workers who live and work in the suburbs out of their cars and on to bicycles. This is a somewhat novel view as most of the attention given to commuting by bicycle has focussed on how to increase work trips to the CBD.
The suburbs are an important potential ‘market’ because, unlike commuting to the city centre, the great bulk of suburban bicycle trips to work would be in lieu of the car, not public transport.
I also indicated yesterday that I would look further at possible concrete actions that could be taken to advance greater suburban bicycle commuting. Here are my early thoughts.
The key deterrents to cycling concern safety, compulsory helmets, security and personal hygiene. A possible way of addressing these obstacles could go something like this. Read the rest of this entry »
Attention: Drunks!
Posted: March 11, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic | Tags: drunk, Hungary, Melbourne, pedestrians, road sign 2 CommentsWe have ‘Koalas next 10km’ road signs in Australia but in Romania they have road signs warning motorists about drunk pedestrians. Perhaps in Melbourne we should erect similar road signs in King St, like ‘Glassing – next 400 metres’. Read the rest of this entry »
Fake shopfronts
Posted: March 11, 2010 Filed under: Activity centres | Tags: activity centre, high street, revitalise, strip shopping centre 2 CommentsAt last somebody’s found a way to revitalise ailing strip shopping centres – fake shops! My local high street is all restaurants, boutiques and real estate agents – this could be a way to bring back the hardware store we lost ten years ago. Read the rest of this entry »
What role for commuting by bicycle in Melbourne?
Posted: March 11, 2010 Filed under: Cycling | Tags: bicycle, commuting, Melbourne, Public transport, road pricing, sprawl, suburbs 2 CommentsIn response to my post last Tuesday, Melbourne will be a car city for a long time yet, a reader asked for my views on the role of cycling in Melbourne.
I have a particular interest in cycling, not least because I’m a keen recreational cyclist and commuted religiously by bike for a number of years. I think cycling has a small but significant role to play in meeting Melbourne’s transport needs but my ideas are a little different to the conventional view.
Despite record sales over the last ten years, bicycles account for just 0.9% of all weekday kilometres travelled in Melbourne, so their present contribution to saving fuel and reducing carbon emissions isn’t large. That figure includes recreational cycling too, so we don’t know how many of these kilometres actually replaced car travel.
Bicycles are more competitive for commuting, where they are used for 2.9% of work trips. The journey to work, however, only accounts for around one fifth of all trips in Melbourne, so again we’re not talking big numbers. Read the rest of this entry »
Newsflash: economist’s prediction is right!
Posted: March 10, 2010 Filed under: Miscellaneous | Tags: Freakonomics, Justin Wolfers, Oscars, preferential voting Leave a commentWriting in the NY Times Freakonomics blog last week, Australian economist Justin Wolfers correctly predicted the key winners at the Oscars (getting any prediction right must be a major accomplishment for an economist!). Here he also explains the new voting system at the Oscars, which is the same preferential system used in Australian politics. The article is An Economist’s View of the New Oscar Voting.
Melbourne will be a car city for a long time yet
Posted: March 9, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic | Tags: compressed natural gas, electric car, environment, Melbourne, Public transport, sprawl, suburbs 14 CommentsIt seems likely that many more Melbourne travellers will drive cars in the foreseeable future than take public transport.
This is not necessarily the disaster that it might at first appear – improvements to the environmental and fuel efficiency of cars will make them much more environmentally friendly and offer a fair trade-off for their many advantages. Read the rest of this entry »
The Melbourne Urbanist 