urban density - a case for applying planning

It would seem to me that Planning is something one does in advance, you know, in preparation for something. On the face of it one definition of planning could be:

1. the act of formulating of a course of action, or of drawing up plans

So before doing something, you work out what to do and how to do it. On the Gold Coast however urban planning is done reactively, that is to say in responce to something. Essentially we are in catchup nothing is really done to address the reduction of quality of life or services to the people who live here. For instance: Southport has for quite some time has been the quiet town which sat across the river from the excesses and noise of Surfers Paradise. Perched on the edge of a gentle ridge that overlooked the broad water, this house represents the sort of home people had back in the 60's 70's and perhaps even the 80's. Quiet streets close enough to the shops, with sunny aspects and lovely sea breeze Just next door to it is this quaint place ... but you can see in the background the mark of things to come ... with the high rise madness from Surfers spilling over into Southport now ... the main street is now totally changed... with this cluster and looking in the other direction you see more ... and clearly this isn't enough, with this vacant block indicating that more is on the way... already you can no longer see the Southport Guardian Angles church which I was lucky to come back to Australia in time to at least capture during the construction phase: (or should that be destruction?)

 

that pit is where my primary school used to be ... and is now gone, and the church hemmed in on all sides looking less and less meaningful, and in fact no access for church goers (like my dad). 

   

 which brings me to my point: it seems that the values of the community are more and more being eroded and destroyed simply for short term profits and benefits of the few. I say the few because having lived here since the 1960's I can personally vouch for there being precious few benefits in all this "development" but quite a few removals of my personal quality of life. Gone are the quiet beaches, gone are great beautiful fishing areas, we did not benefit much from employment (most jobs are still in Brisbane). What we have instead is more traffic noise, more congestion, more pollution. And it doesn't stop there. It was just a few short years ago that we very nearly ran totally out of water here on the Gold Coast. Unsurprisingly at that time the main criticism of the residents was "why are we allowing more people here when we don't have enough water for the existing population". It seems that the answer to that problem is to do not much about providing more water, but to shove in some more people grab more bucks from the developers fees and pretend we've kept jobs up with temporary jobs in the construction industry. Looking at Southport from the sky you can see (in the red) exactly which areas are going to get another high-rise in the near future.

 

the place with the arrow at the bottom is the pair of houses pictured above. You can see by the shadows the highrise already there. When you add to this new construction to the already high population of the region it does not take a scientist to work out we've got growth problems. Strangely there is very little planned development for infrastructure such as roads and nothing I'm aware of for water (except for the Desal in Tugun) and the existing dams and flood mitigation devices in Brisbane. While the Coast may be "Famous for Fun" its more infamous for just being a showcase of exploitation and greed; pushing around the locals while fat cats make money.

Its like the old Vulcan logic:

   

 transformed into "the greed of the few outweighs the needs of the many" So, are we living in a democracy or in a self perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes ...

Growth

Back as recently as 1970 this is what the Surfers Paradise skyline looked like:
Back then the population was about 70,000. The developers were just starting to ramp up and the first of the "canal estates" was just being developed.

Thing have changed since then and the population is now at 515,000

Yes, that's about seven times more people in the same place.

You can guess that this puts extreme pressure on the environment and the community lifestyle.