The Future of Australian Cities

Roux and Stanley have authored a new report that outlines future scenarios for Australian cities, looking in particular at the challenges posed by population growth and the trade-off inherent to increasing city size between "agglomeration benefits and increasing external costs such as traffic congestion, crime, pollution and noise /sustainability concerns."

The two authors point to a theory posed by Professor Ed Blakely from The University of Sydney that identifies cities of between 250,000-300,000 people as ideal for dealing with the above trade-off: "[these cities] can have the benefits of both scale and density to be competitive, without the detriment and burden related to larger populations."

They go on to emphasize the importance not only of developing new cities, but also of improving livability within existing cities and metro-areas and conclude with a discussion of the financial and political headwinds to meaningful changes in urban policy.

Thanks to Ryan Sloan