How dense are we? Another look at urban density and transport ...

How dense are we?This is not to argue that unplanned urban sprawl should continue to devour farms and forests.Most participants in the compact city debate are opposed to sprawl in the original sense of‘ribbon’ development along roads or ‘leapfrogging’ of housing estates, producing anenvironment that is ‘neither town nor country’. Vigorous critics of the compact city, such asHugh Stretton and Patrick Troy, are equally critical of unregulated fringe development.Similarly, urbanists on both sides of the debate support clustering suburban activities intosub-centres instead of allowing them to spread randomly across the landscape. And sincethere is a demand for higher-density housing, it makes sense to locate it in these centres, or inother places well-served by public transport. Measures of this kind have a range ofenvironmental advantages, including making it easier to provide effective public transport.The good news is that we don’t need impossible increases in density to provide viablealternatives to the car. The relative attractiveness of competing urban transport modes seemsto influence mode choice much more than differences in density, and the notion that 400 oreven 30 residents per hectare is a minimum density below which public transport cannot beprovided is unsupported by evidence. It even looks as if greater usage of public transportmight go hand-in-hand with higher levels of walking, which would be excellent news for theenvironment.The necessary changes to transport policy are beyond the scope of this paper, but arediscussed in Mees (2009). Transport policy can be changed more quickly and cheaply, andwith less disruption, than city density, so it might even be possible to make the necessarychanges in time to save the planet.ReferencesABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) (2006). Statistical Geography: Volume 1. (Cat. 1216.0).Canberra.Banister, D. (2005). Unsustainable Transport: City transport in the new century. London:Routledge.Birrell, B., O’Connor, K., Rapson, V. & Healy, E. (2005). Melbourne 2030: Planningrhetoric verses urban reality. Clayton: Monash University ePress.Blakston, A. (2009). ‘A hothouse of climate ideas.’ The Age, 6 June, p. 23.Boulton, M. (2005). ‘Melbourne risks LA-style sprawl: Bracks.’ The Age, 23 March, p. 5.Bruegmann, R. (2005). Sprawl: a compact history. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Dodson. J. & Sipe, N. (2008). Shocking the Suburbs: Oil vulnerability in the Australian city.Sydney: UNSW Press.EEA (European Environmental Agency) (2006). Urban sprawl in Europe: The ignoredchallenge (EEA Report No. 10/2006). Copenhagen: EEA.Garnaut, R. (2008). The Garnaut Climate Change Review. Melbourne: Cambridge UniversityPress.