Town Planners are F****D

Why the hate on trains so much though

Great video :) I wasn't aware of this Yimby propaganda. I definitely agree that the solutions lie in increasing property taxes etc, and giving developers a time limit to lease their properties. I worry about the effects increasing urban development would have on the construction industry -e.g. collapse of small businesses, increasing corruption and inaccessibility for first home builders.

Fun fact:- cyberpunk is based on Shibuya (Tokyo CBD)

I'm convinced at this point that the reason for the birthing crisis (and therefore the political classes excuse for immigration) are these stupid apartments. I'm gen z, and literally none of us want to have kids. Reason? "Oh its too expensive", "I'll never be able to afford a house". If we want a stable population, not a mass immigration inflated population or a situation like japan where the populations aging themselves to death, people need to have children that replace them. 2 children is ideal to replace the mother and the father. And the only way to incentivize people in my generation to have children is to make the dream of having a family attainable by age 30. Building more stupid apartments will only incentivize more immigration and less actual birth. Children growing up in some shit Sydney / Brisbane-esque plastic apartment buildings are probably going to be messed up because they wont have any room to actually play and there will be a large incentive to just sit down and watch tv all day because there is literally no private outdoor space.

You should do a collaboration with Purple Pingaz.

The problem with suburbs is that they ruin any future redevelopment. I live in a suburban area where many places are being redeveloped into units and it's awful. These aren't luxury apartments either, they're 2-3 story townhouses for the most part, and I live in one of them. The catch is that because you still have the bare bones of a suburb, everything is too far away. Public transport is far away and sparse too meaning you need a car which results in extra cars lining the narrow streets making them barely able to fit 1 car at a time. I am on a disability pension and the only way I could afford rent is by living with 2 housemates in a townhouse in a shitty suburb. I barely leave the house most days because I can't drive, and public transport is too exhausting and painful to use from all the walking. Of course there's more to my situation than just town planning, but it's a big part of it. There's not enough public housing either, which I would argue is another big part of the problem. I was forced to move house 3 times last year because landlords and real estate are allowed to evict you with no reason.

Architect here for 7 years and also work in planning for 3 years. Live in New Zealand, but have lived in Seoul and Germany. New Zealand is sprawled, like Australia. Germany has a very medium Density, rarely reaching 6 stories (Depending on the city) Seoul is crazy dense, but still an amazing place to live with lush green spaces, amazing transport and convenience parks etc... New Zealand is by far the most frustrating and difficult place to live, not only does car dependency colonise productive and useful space with roads, carparks and highways, its dirty, economically constraining, breaks up communities and has heavily correlated with obesity and poor mental wellbeing. balanced density with Walkable, bike friendly cities with access to good public transport are really the only realistic evidence based solution to improving the wellbeing of people, communities and sustainability in cities like Auckland and Sydney. There is a right way to go about providing density though, and i can't imagine many of these Australian developments are providing this. I would recommend looking at Nightingale housing, a developer in Victoria which is a not-for-profit development collective. its a good insight into what the potential is for this is Australia and NZ....in our dreams probably.

Formally trained but not practicing town planner here. I reckon many Australian planners fall into three camps; - Those who have shelved their morals to work for developers because money. - Those who work in government who want to see genuine planning reform to encourage a wider variety of housing in Australia, especially middle density mixed use (few of us want to mimic Hong Kong here). These planners are younger, energetic, positive, happy people. - Finally, experienced and down to earth government planners who are likely dead inside. They’ve resigned to the fact that the role of government planner is less about effecting change than it is about rubber stamping what developers want to build. RE Australian suburbia, sorry to burst everyone’s bubble, but low density housing isn’t economically, socially, environmentally, or spatially sustainable. Massive single land use apartment buildings (very common in Australia) are depressing as fk and aren’t the answer to our problems either. Both suburbia and single land use high density residential areas are relatively recent human inventions and should still be considered experimental. What Australia is missing is medium density mixed use urban areas. Places with townhouses maxing out at a human scale of 3 storeys. Townhouses with 3-4 bedrooms, big enough to comfortably raise a family, within walking distance to most of your daily destinations, including parks and corner stores. Places where few people need to use a car, so young kids can walk to school without fear of being killed. Places where 70-80% of all public space is not taken up by infrastructure designed for cars. That figure is not an exaggeration. Why did we stop building these urban areas? Primarily; cars. Mid last century, vehicle manufacturers lobbied hard to control the narrative around the negative externalities of mass motorisation. They convinced everyone that all the problems caused by cars were caused by anything but cars. The car dependent low density energy hungry urban environments we live in today are the result. I could go on for ages, but I’m sure I’ve lost most by now. Though if any of this is resonating, I recommend checking out Climate Town’s YouTube videos on the negative impacts of car parking minimums, and how car manufacturers hijacked the American Dream (relevant because like everything in Australia, our planning principles have been heavily influenced by the US for decades now. It’s not a coincidence that the “Australian dream” of the quarter acre block is basically the poor cousin of American dream of living in the suburbs). Then watch every video on the “Not Just Bikes” YouTube channel, starting with his Million Subscribers celebration.

Has anyone ever gone through Marx with a pen and crossed out any mention of machines, tools and objects and replaced them with any of the ‘I-words’? It seems that the conditions of the working class are catching up to the ‘I-generation’. Do they serve coffee on the barricades?

I knew there was something off about those YIMBY groups. They popped up all at once, one each for Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, all had nice websites, and all claimed to be grassroots. Good to know my suspicions were well placed. That said, there are clearly problems with how we design urban places in Australia. Much of what urbanist nerds (I’m thinking of channels like “Not Just Bikes” are talking about is much broader than the type of housing. It is a fundamental rethink from heavily car-oriented urban design to one which balances cars with walking, cycling and public transport. Not Just Bikes draws on research by an American organisation called Strong Towns which provides the social, environmental and economic basis for this rethink. Social benefits from people living near where they work, shop and socialise. This has implications for physical health (part of the reason Australia is so fat is because the only convenient transport option many people have is their car). Environmental benefits come from less people needing driving everywhere (electric cars are no solution, they make Australia’s domestic emissions look better, but battery manufacture is a highly carbon intensive process). Additional environmental benefits come from restrictions on urban areas sprawling into natural areas. Economic benefits come from the fact that extensive suburbia is expensive to maintain, a reduction in urban sprawl into fertile agricultural land, and an increase in the number of highly economically productive medium density urban areas (data available from Strong Towns). I’d write more and consult a broader research base, but I’m not getting paid for this and I need to do my actual job. All I’m suggesting is yes, attack property developers but our urban spaces are in need of reform.

Great points , if you go to somewhere like Tokyo the place is packed with tiny everything. When coming back to Australia it's a breath of fresh air. I would hate for it to become like Tokyo, London or Hong Kong.

One of your better videos in awhile! I really like it when you back up your points with the data and graphs. Looking forward to seeing you back on public videos soon. And hopefully the FJ podcast??

How about you do an April fool’s video next time around. Prank your audiences and politicians. I’d be fun

im on the spectrum jordie

Hey, come to the Gold Coast, and investigate Tom Tate and the fucked up developments causing all current infrastructure to collapse, coupled with the shitarse "improvements" to that exact infrastructure which continually incur cost blowouts. My whole suburb of Palm Beach has changed from a sleepy, chilled out space to a developer's and international investor's dream .. but our infrastructure can't handle it... Taking 40 mins to travel less than 2km is some bullshit.

I went along to my local labour branch meeting where a member of the upper house came along who was”very committed to achieving fairer outcomes ones in housing”. Froze up completely when I asked why house was being treated as an investment and not a basic human right and utility before launching into a scred about how “not all investors are bad”.

The yimbe's on YouTube do seem very naive, 100% agree with this video, but I also have a mortgage, backyard, too many cars and a big shed for my hobby's and to get my kids outside playing and riding bikes. You can't build a build a bike with kids in an apartment easily.

I admit it’s an asshole situation for younger people to achieve the Aussie Dream of owning your own home.Not a house but a home.Let alone investment properties.People that are willing to work till retirement age and live off their super after going till their mid 60’s.I’m respectful to you pointing out that immigration is essential for our country but an imbalance of foreigners buying up land/houses just for profit and tax benefits effect’s the young one’s that aren’t relying on the bank of Mum n Dad,quite dire.

Town Planning Nerd here (or at least, someone studying to be one). One thing that I hate at the moment is, if you go out to the edge of Melbourne in the new places like Tarneit and Rockbank, the size of the new properties is tiny. Theres barely anything over 500 square metres available, they've gotten smaller and smaller over the last 15 years. Backyards are barely existent. No room to swing a cat. But supposedly, other town planning people will say that this is "better". Piss off, its rubbish. edit: Also, once these suburbs are formed and houses out there are built, thats it. You can't get out an eraser and just start again. Once you've fucked it, you've fucked it.

Hey Jordies, I hate developers too but preventing houses being built where people want to live is part of the (but not the whole) problem. Areas that are more permissive to build become cheaper to rent and a shitbox in the sky is still preferable to a tent on the street. I respect you in a lot of ways but you're making the same argument here as Max Chandler Mather. Housing charities such as Nightingale also conclude that restrictive planning laws stop them building homes for vulnerable people.

Jordies. You need to get over your NIMBY crap. We need more urban density, the Minns government is right to legalise off the plan housing. Please stop posting stuff like this, you are effectively advocating for rent increases for those who can least afford it.