Our major cities require a more sophisticated understanding of the role of fringe development in accommodating forecast growth than reflexively dismissing it out of hand as "sprawl"

One of the essential tropes of contemporary planning is that expansion of the urban fringe is irredeemably bad. Here’s a report published in Domain last week on a new book, Urban Choreography, Central Melbourne 1985, co-edited by City of Melbourne design and projects director Rob Adams (Cut back on cars, stem urban sprawl to improve Melbourne and its suburbs, authors say):

Fewer cars and an end to urban sprawl is the way forward for Melbourne and its suburbs, according to the authors of a new book taking stock of the city’s planning past… (The book) pinpoints areas for improvement, and for Mr Adams, the most important is stopping the spread of metropolitan Melbourne. “If I only had one wish, it would be that we don’t subdivide another single piece of farmland on the periphery of the city,” he says.

The go-to prescription to limit sprawl is to use tools like the Urban Growth Boundary to contain all or most growth within the existing urban fabric. It’s not easy though. The Urban Growth Boundary established in 2002 in the Bracks’ Government’s strategic plan, Melbourne 2030, sought to restrict the fringe Growth Areas to circa 30% of population growth; however in the face of falling housing affordability it was subsequently expanded a number of times, including by a whopping 430 sq km in 2010.

The Brumby Government updated Melbourne 2030 in 2008 with a new document, [email protected] Million, which recognised that the Growth Areas were accounting for about half of all growth. More recently, the Andrews Government’s “refreshed” urban strategy, Plan Melbourne, reinstated the 30% target.

What’s wrong with fringe growth? The key objection relates to the relatively low densities of new suburbs compared to the alternative of multi-unit developments within the existing urbanised area.

The main charges levelled against “sprawl” include:

High levels of car use (“car dependence”)

Inadequate public transport

Long trip distances and travel times, particularly for the journey to work

High cost of providing infrastructure headworks

Lengthy delays until essential community services “catch up” with population growth

High incidence of physical and mental health problems

Sterilisation of farmland and pollution of bushland

Large dwellings with high embodied and operating resource use, especially electricity.

But fringe development also offers advantages. After all, every city in history expanded at the periphery and, absent some insurmountable barrier like an ocean, they still do (see Why do cities still sprawl?). When affordability improves, the fringe tends to capture a higher share of population growth. Targets like 30% are based on periods of poor affordability when low to average income households struggle to buy a home.

The principal advantages claimed for fringe development include:

Low land costs per sq m

Low building costs per sq m

More indoor and outdoor living space, making it better suited to larger households

More privacy, both within and between dwellings

Greater autonomy e.g. no body corporate

Higher accessibility to suburban jobs and services i.e. fast, short trips by car

Greater scope for greening streets

Lower cost of providing infrastructure

Better infrastructure e.g. larger school grounds

Protects established suburbs from redevelopment

What’s instructive here is most of the claimed positives are private benefits, whereas most of the alleged shortcomings are social costs. Given prevailing prices (including implicit subsidies), households who want affordable housing are voting with their feet (or yes, their cars). Many of them would prefer a location closer to the city centre, but the refusal of governments and existing residents to increase supply of new multi-unit housing in established areas rules that out.

The fringe doesn’t provide all the benefits of the established suburbs, but then it costs a lot less, has other advantages, and for many households still represents their optimal trade-off. Are the social costs of providing affordable housing on the fringe acceptable? I long ago came to the conclusion that the problems associated with it are exaggerated (see Problems with fringe-dwelling are peripheral):

Of course, there are downsides to peripheral development just as there are to redevelopment in established areas, or to channelling growth to dormitory suburbs in regional centres (see Suburban sprawl or regional sprawl?). For example, there are high levels of car travel (kms) on the fringe; but there are other ways of tackling the associated impacts – like mandating cleaner vehicles – rather than demonising fringe growth. The key issue with “sprawl” is to evaluate the private and social costs in the context of the corresponding benefits.

Australia’s big cities need to accommodate population growth both within the built-up area and, given the failure to significantly increase supply in existing suburbs and to address taxation policy, on the periphery. The consequences of implementing poor policies and getting the balance wrong are severe e.g. exacerbating chronically poor housing affordability.