|
January 16, 2010
John Kerin in the Weekend Financial Review outlines 6 policy issues that the Rudd Government fix. These are asylum seekers, the budget deficit, health, ETS, tax and water. No mention is made of urban expansion in the capital cities even though Rudd is a big population man.
John Spooner, 2050
Of course, we could interpret Spooner's cartoon as a dig on iconic tourism in a global economy. What is offered in Melbourne's Docklands is a replica of Uluru in the Kata Tjuta National Park, without indigenous ownership. This has been built to attract tourists and people to this urban wasteland, given that Melbourne cannot attract the name global architects to build iconic or self-aggrandising buildings.
Seriously though, cities represent a challenge and an opportunity for climate change policy. As the hubs of economic activity, cities generate the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions and are thus important to mitigation strategies. We do need to think in terms of sustainable cities given our problems with water .
|
We actually had something like that in Adelaide years back, with the "Magic Mountain"( not to be confused with similar in Calcutta or Manila) down at the Bay, until the developers smashed it down, to the chagrin of much of Adelaide's Brady Bunch world.
I think Rudd's ideas on population are ludicris, but then that's because I actually considered the arguments proffered of groups like Sustainable Population Australia and found much of merit to consider, in the way of warnings.