Gary, the claim that the Garden City Movement was responsible for Australian suburbs and suburban sprawl, is a very long bow to pull. There is a suburban ethic in Australia, but it predates Howard (more-so in Melbourne than Sydney, but still before). In some ways the large amount of available land, and relatively fast transport meant it was always present.

Predominately, suburbs are predominately shaped by transport accessibility, which meant rail, and when land near stations ran out, then the car. And I think it remains true. Which is not to say that the suburban ethic isn't important, because I think it is, particularly when it results in planners and residents rejecting higher densities on heritage, traffic or neighbourhood character grounds. Just that the continuing insistence on building longer and faster rail and road connections, is at least as important a factor.

Russ,
yeah your'e dead right about the transport corridors provided by the trams, then trains, then the cars after 1945.

However the suburban ethic does have its own Australian voice--.Hugh Streeton's 'Ideas for Australian Cities' comes to mind.

Ethic is the appropriate word here given the contrast to the urban way of living. It envisioned garden cities to be planned with self-contained communities surrounded by greenbelts, and containing carefully balanced areas of residences, industry, and agriculture.

I had Adelaide's Colonel Light Gardens in mind as an example when I wrote the post.

'Dwelling' is another word I'd use.

Gary, you are right about a unique Australian ethic. Part of that is the result of circumstance. Both, the lack of need to create the 19th century industrial slums in Australia, and the persistently high level of home ownership, has made it a social, rather than merely aesthetic movement. I am very wary of planners arguing for the opposite (not least because it is unnecessary), such as Farrelly. There are a lot of bad arguments being made on both sides of this debate.

Take this statement for example:

Cities, after all, produce better public spaces (think Rome),

Sure, but it is a design issue. Rome has some horrible spaces too. Witold Rybczynski makes an interesting point about shopping malls, that they became new public spaces, because the old street based ones declined.

cleaner air,

No mention of Rome here, you'll note. This is a size issue as much as a form one. And a transport structure one. Melbourne's air is pretty clean by international standards.

reduced energy-use,

Again, maybe, maybe not. You can put more solar cells on a bigger footprint, tall buildings are terribly inefficient, design matters no matter the type of dwelling...

viable public transit (New York),

Paul Mees would strongly disagree on this issue. I'm not wholly convinced he is right, but I am not particularly convinced by the density and public transport nexus either. A lot of it is structural and cultural. Nor is there anything particularly wrong with private transport, bikes for instance.

better amenity for the poor through proximity (Vienna)

Stretton argued this too, but he also recognized it as an issue with the size of a city with a strong central government, not an issue over suburban/urban values. If you put services in the city then rich people will try and live near the city. If you put them in the suburbs they try and live there (see most US cities for example).

and fewer noxious gases per head: adding up to a better future for the children.

She is reiterating her earlier argument about air here. And her whole piece was like this, all polemic and no substance. Her reading of Jane Jacobs is plain wrong. Jacobs clumped Mumford, Le Corbusier and Howard together because they all misunderstood the dynamics of cities, and tried to destroy what made them good. Not because they were all pro-suburbs. It was primarily an economic argument, and suburbs were hardly mentioned, except to say that Jacobs wasn't talking about suburbs, but about how to make better urban areas.

I sit between both camps here, if you can't tell. I think, provided people are willing to pay the full costs of their dwelling choice, they should be allowed to make their own choice.