Brisbane must consider how to inject more green infrastructure in the city heart or risk being pushed further down the liveability scale among Australian cities.

So says Brisbane landscape architect Steve Dunn who fears future residents and tourists will be more drawn to the Gold and Sunshine Coasts – or interstate – if greater areas of green space are not incorporated into the heart of the Queensland capital.

“When you study the population densities and distribution of green space, the process of urbanisation and what residents really want, alarm bells start to go off,” Dunn said.

While more developers were realising the merits of a rooftop garden or a green wall, he said there was a desperate need for larger areas in the city too — open space for people to walk, run, play, relax or walk the dog.

“Green space is becoming quite a point of discussion because it’s not being accommodated in the public realm,” Dunn said.

“So the good developers, the ones considering how to get more green space woven into their development, are proving successful in attracting new residents … but this is all micro landscaping, not macro.”

As Brisbane’s residential population has exploded in recent decades — and the growth continues to accelerate — existing green space was coming under ever more pressure due to the numbers of people using it. Dunn cited South Bank Parklands as an example, an undisputed asset for the city but one requiring huge work to maintain because it was used by so many people already.

“The amount of footfall traffic in South Bank per square metre is much higher than Central Park (New York City) and the reason for that is that South Bank is so small.”

“South Bank’s an incredibly successful model however… there’s an army of gardeners to maintain this place because it’s so worn from the number of people going there — because the people going there don’t really have many other options.”

Dunn explains that in the 1930s, Brisbane’s population in the inner three-kilometre ring was about 34,000.

“Currently we’ve got 250,000 — and we’re headed for somewhere between 320,000 and 400,000,” he said.

“We started with loosely 150 hectares of green space in that radius. We added about 16 hectares for South Bank in 1992 and another few hectares when Roma St Parklands opened in 2001.

“And then we lost a whole bunch of hectares when the Inner City Bypass went through Victoria Park – we lost three cricket pitches and a lot of green space.

“So loosely we’ve got about 160ha of green space within that inner three kilometre ring.”

The council is not investing in green infrastructure, he said.

“…And I’m not just talking about parks but lineal networks for cyclists and runners, people who exercise and people who have pets and all the things that go into green infrastructure — I don’t that’s being wired into the current strategic town plan.”

Dunn said Sydney had fewer people living in that three-kilometre ring and Melbourne dramatically fewer than Brisbane, yet both those cities had much more green space.

“They actually have an infrastructure that’s been established which is very forward-looking – unlike our town plan which isn’t forward looking.”

Which all means Brisbane could potentially lag on the liveability ladder.

Dunn said newly constructed large swathes of parkland in Melbourne and Sydney, particularly on the harbour front, was of the kind usually associated with modern prosperous cities.

“There’s a lot of pride going into these new parklands – they kind of exemplary of a city that is looking forward,” he said.

“The other cities are getting these big bold new green spaces, big bold new pieces of infrastructure. Sydney is full of infrastructure development at the moment and Brisbane isn’t.”

He said it should also be noted that much of Brisbane’s inner city green space was fenced and inaccessible to the general public – including sporting infrastructure like the Gabba and Lang Park, the riverside stage and even Davies Park in West End was partially fenced for football.”

At West End, he said, there was genuinely insufficient play space for children.

“The local State High uses Musgrave Park and the primary school uses Davies Park.”

“When you actually study the quantum of other examples around the world and how green space is woven into new urban form and the reinvention of spaces like in Sydney and New York and Valencia in Spain, you can see — and there are local examples as well, on the Gold Coast — you kind of think to yourself well, why isn’t Brisbane doing this?

“It’s a ‘where to from here?’ moment.”