Catherine Carter |
Thursday, 24 September 2009 12:01 AM |
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The 21st Century is set for Australia’s population to grow hugely according to KPMG demographer Bernard Salt.
And that growth will be around three major regions, Sydney, Melbourne and southeast Queensland with Sydney and Melbourne populations growing to at least seven million by 2056.
This makes recent concerns about Canberra’s projected population growth seem minor compared to the planning issues faced in these potential mega regions.
Salt says that, given 180,000 in migration a year, our population will grow from the current 22 million to around 35 million by mid century and this growth should be the impetus for Australia to develop its own excellence in urban planning, and that our planners must not limit their projections – especially as he believes our country will be a migration destination for at least another century.
These figures sound extraordinary, but with the right planning they should be manageable.
We need to integrate and consolidate plans for power and water supplies and prepare for extra demand on other infrastructure, but other cities already have much larger populations than those we are expected to experience.
New York, for example, is home to 23 million people – that’s a million more than the entire current population of Australia. Tokyo is 34 million strong, Los Angeles has 18 million residents and London, Paris and Chicago already have more than the seven million people forecast to inhabit Sydney and Melbourne.
We in Canberra have already been debating the topics that Salt recommends for discussion in these mega regions.
We have been considering not only our own projected population growth, but also our infrastructure and transport needs going into the future and we have been looking at ways to accommodate growth while reducing our impact on the environment.
We are in a wonderful position to set the pace for the rest of the nation. And leadership in providing integrated and intelligent urban planning is a fitting role for Australia’s capital to assume.
Catherine Carter |
Thursday, 24 September 2009 12:01 AM |
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