Queensland's new cities will be between Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
The Australian state of Queensland has come up with a novel idea to tackle the problem of population expansion – build new cities!
The planned cities will be built in the southwest of Queensland in three greenfield areas which will become homes to 250,000 people. Those areas are being named as Ripley Valley, Greater Flagstone and Yarrabilba and construction work could begin as soon as next year.
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh gives the idea her backing saying that the “model cities” would enable communities to develop and grow.
However environmental agencies will be horrified to learn of the plans to build on greenfield sites and also of the impact of any new major development which will surely increase Australia’s carbon footprint. The plans go against the advice of the Southeast Queensland Regional Plan which recommended that most new homes be built in existing suburbs rather than creating new ones that could just add to the urban sprawl.
The plans are all part of the Australian Government’s Growth Management summit which seeks to implement a good infrastructure to deal with Australia’s rapidly increasing population. In Queensland alone this growth is projected to reach 4.4 million by 2031.
The population growth has largely been blamed on immigrants arriving in Australia, whether they be refugee or skilled migrants wanting to work in Australia. The opposition party want to reverse this trend by putting a cap on immigration and encouraging women to have fewer babies. However it was the Liberal government who introduced the baby bonus back in 2002 that actively encouraged women to have children who would, in theory, support an ageing population.
There is no doubt that the Australian government has to tackle the problem of population growth and this could be left in the hands of whoever wins the vote later this year. The problem Australia has it that its prosperity has been built on immigration. The business industry relies on skilled migrants entering the workforce and in many cases, doing work that local Australians don’t want to do. But with Australia having such a fragile and unique ecosystem, any population expansion needs to be handled sensitively. Such a juggling act could prove too much for any government and the likelihood is that either immigration or the environment will have to pay the price.
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2 Responses to “Queensland Plans Three New Cities”
Comment by RogerM — May 26, 2010 @ 9:00 pm
I wonder if these projects, which will be the largest emmitters of green house gases in the country is the reason the Feds had to cancel the emmissions trading scheme? The concrete would cost twice as much. But at least we can still have government funded global warming – unless of course global warming is a lie.
Why cant the polistocrats take the simple course of action and insist on using the existing empty house blocks that are throughout Brisbane’s suburbs and surrounds. The infrastructure is already in place – roads, power, water, waste, Councils. Why waste yet more money on infrastructure so that we can have empty houseblocks sitting unbuilt on for 10 to 20 years. On Bribie Island there is in excess of 600 empty house blocks – fairly typical of outer areas. No doubt similar numbers exist across all suburbs.
There would be no housing shortage if all of these unused houseblocks could be used prior to developing greenfields sites. These type of new developments are “very 1950s” and you only have to visit some of the European New Towns to see that these ideas were flawed in 1950s and they are flawed now – this is all about transferring public money to private enterprise – or ex polistocrats. They will become ghettos within less than a generation – but I suppose some polistocrat will get a suburb named after them to live on for`ever.
Comment by Phil — May 27, 2010 @ 2:44 pm
Well can I just say that last year 30,000 people migrated to Australia and the most of them were of the usual skilled people NOT of the skilled people that is actually needed there, this being Drivers in all areas of the Transport Industry, now if the australian gov’t change their views on allowing people from UK with these skills to migrate then a lot of these empty properties would be filled because let me tell you now, there would be such a huge influx of Drivers wanting to escape from UK they would have to do something pretty damn quick.
I say Drivers because no youngster these days wants to drive for a living, instead they would rather sit behind a PC and earn money that way than getting out an meet people, getting fresh air into their lungs etc, it’s a brilliant way of life and I enjoy it, I would just love to work in a country and for an employer who values me and my skills !!!!!