permaculture

[Russ Grayson <pacedge@magna.com.au>]

Just how much Australia's two major cities have changed over the last 20 years was brought home in a feature article in the Sydney Morning Herald's Good Weekend supplement on 23 August. 

The article was written by Herald journalist Janet Hawley. It reported on the rapid development of the Sydney and Melbourne outer-urban fringe and canvassed the opinion of residents, housing developers and academics. The article is vital reading for those with an interest in urban development, the design of housing and our suburbs and the attitudinal change reshaping society. 

ALL ABOUT DESIGN
The focus of the article was the newer, outer-urban suburbs where large houses are built close together on small blocks of land. So small, at times, that residents have to keep their windows closed to block the neighbour's noise and the curtains drawn to maintain a minimum of privacy.

With houses so large that they occupy most of the block and so close-packed, street trees could damage them and the services they are connected to. Consequently, there are few street trees. 

There are few trees in the gardens too and with blocks averaging between 300 and 500 square metres there is little space for vegetable gardens, fruit trees and chooks. Hawley interviewed only one household with a vegetable garden and that one was on a larger than average block. The article reinforces what planners have been saying; the traditional Australian 1000 square metre (quarter-acre) block really is an artifact of the past. In the big cities it is a remnant found only in the older, middle-ring of suburbs. But even here it is under assault from town-house development and, in some places, by apartment construction.

Behind these denser new suburbs is the NSW government requirement that rural land rezoned residential must accommodate 15 dwellings per hectare, including open space, roads and other infrastructure. It is this that has made the large house-small block developed in the US in the late-1980s so attractive. House size increased 60 per cent since 1990, from an average 169 square metres to 270 square metres. The average in Sydney's Baulkham Hills was 1418.5 square metres in 2002. 

Also driving the trend to large houses on small blocks is the fact that the cost of land can be twice the cost of a house. This is in part due to Sydney's land shortage and explains why people buy a suburban house then demolish the building. It is seen as cost effective to rebuild rather than renovate, a practice also explicable in terms of the trend to open plan houses that admit plenty of light through large expanses of glass. Also driving this trend is the fact that developers of of-the-catalogue housing have also reduced the cost of construction by building roofs without eaves (saving on materials), open plan interiors and walls with large areas of glass, which is cheaper than brick (but expensive for owners to fit with blinds and curtains). The resale price at auction averages $750 000 to $800 000, while land in Kellyville, a centre for outer-urban development, is around $390 000 for a 450 square metre block.

The older housing stock of the city, especially that dating from the late-1940 to the 1960s, is often dark and dingy inside, windows are small and buildings are cold in winter. Such older buildings do not suit modern lifestyles.

'Cacooning', a term used to describe the shift in recreational focus from outside to inside and it also drives the trend to large house size. Rather than devote external space to outdoor entertainment for adult and family, indoor space becomes more important when time is spent in the home theatre room or playing video games. The outer-urban region has the third-highest home computer and Internet usage in Australia. Outdoor living in the small gardens revolves around the barbecue.

Few such buildings are energy efficient and the cost of heating a large, open plan, two level house can be high. Some developers, however, are willing to modify plans for better solar aspect.

NEW COMMUNITIES
The majority of dwellings in the outer-urban fringe are catalogue designs from large developers and are built on land purchased separately. A small number, however, have been designed as part of a 'community' development in the form of gated communities. Such developments, though still few in number, appeal to current social attitudes to do with security by shutting themselves and their occupants off from surrounding areas and have attracted criticism from planners and government.

The so-called ' master-planned communities' occupy a transitory middle ground between conventional outer-urban development and gated communities. They feature houses sometimes of better design and energy performance, though they are still built on small blocks, and shared active and passive recreational facilities developed on Community Title legislation for which residents pay and annual maintenance fee.

NEW DEVELOPMENT REFLECTS CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS
Trends in outer-urban development reflect more than state government urban density legislation. The houses and developments are popular and at times vociferously defended against their many critics by the people who occupy them because they reflect a rising demographic in Australian society. Just as the inner-urban ring was gentrified in the 1980s and 1990s, so now the outer-urban fringe is undergoing gentrification. 

Gone is the image of this region being inhabited by battlers, low-income families and people fleeing the crime of the inner and middle-ring suburbs. That was the picture until recently, however now those outer regions are attracting what is sometimes disparagingly called the 'aspirationals', a new social group who Labour shadow treasurer and Federal Member for Werriwa, Mark Latham, the electorate covering the aspirationals territory, says is changing not only the outer-urban fringe but Australian politics as well. It is this that makes the emergence of the aspirationals in their urban fringe enclaves important. it is they who are shaping a political agenda for all Australians.

Demographers paint a picture of the aspirationals as of mid to high income, socially mobile families (some bringing in more than $2000 a week) working in administrative or corporate workplaces who have a focus on their economic wellbeing and the education and careers of their children. They are not fleeing inner-urban crime and are not seekers of social diversity. They gravitate to the outer-urban zone to be with people of like aspiration, outlook and attitude. Nor are they first home buyers, most of whom have been banished from Sydney by unrealistically high land and housing prices. Characteristically, their new home will  be their second or third and will be much larger than their previous dwellings even if, like some, they are middle-aged people whose children have left home. Forget downshifting in dwelling size with age.

Adding to the socially homogenous makeup of these areas in Sydney's north-west is that it is Sydney's 'Bible belt', home to conventional churches but home to evangelical churches such as one well-attended establishment that features 'prosperity preaching' that focuses on the desirability of wealth accumulation. Such preaching seems to match the outlook of the aspirations quite well and further justifies their social attitudes for them.

No longer are the outer suburbs dormitory suburbs feeding workers into the inner city. The outer-urban population has grown so much that a local economy has developed that provides jobs and eliminates the need to journey to more distant suburbs for family needs. The development of recreational and entertainment venues has been part of this. 

FACTS HAVE TO BE ADDRESSED
The outer-urban zone is fast becoming a dominant influence in Australia's larger cities. It is a huge energy sink with its car-dependnecy, a factor that makes two and three car families common and the energy-inefficient design of its dwellings. It is also resource-dependent; gardens are too small for all but the most modest of food gardens. Also important is the growing potential political influence of the zone. Both government and Opposition vie for votes and, as Mark Latham has said, all parties will shape their policies to get that vote. It could be that the social attitudes, educational and workplace preferences of the aspirationals are foistered on the rest of the country.

The close-packed urban development, however, is praised by many who live there. Some say that a sense of community develops while others point out that the inward-focus stimulated by the design of the housing works against this. Certainly, the few master-planned communities develop a sense of community. Whatsmore, the development of the outer-urban region has made viable local economy and local employment.

It is clear that ideas on urban development having their roots in the pre-1990s years are obsolete and are to be discarded by planners and community workers. With the boom in suburban apartment development, the development of the outer-urban zone generate a dynamic and pattern of development reshaping Australian cities and society. This is the new city. This is the new reality.

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Russ Grayson
Media services:  journalism-print/ online/ photo
TerraCircle development aid team, Oceania
pacedge@magna.com.au  Phone/ fax: 02 9588 6931
PO Box 446 Kogarah NSW 2217 Australia
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