Obecity

peter

<p>It has been odd the past week to read on the one hand about the <a href="http://volumeproject.org/blog/2009/06/17/embracing-the-shrink-paradigm/">decline</a> of rust belt american cities (attempting to manage their shrinkage so that they become svelte rather than misproportioned), and on the other hand about the <a href="http://bit.ly/W5TnS">endeavours</a> of Justin Madden and his cohort to loosen Melbourne's once rusty belt by a good 41,000 hectares. That supersizing will apparently fit 284,000 hefty new McMansions out into the dangerous green zones where kangaroos get <a href="http://bit.ly/PJDzl">shot</a> .</p>
<p>And they have the audacity to say they are, "<i>Delivering Melbourne's newest sustainable communitie</i>s". That word <i>sustainable</i> sure gets a beating these days.</p>
<p><i>[The city] spreads around over an immense area of ground. </i>

Mark Twain (visiting Melbourne in 1891) from <cite>More Tramps Abroad ( <a href="http://bit.ly/Yz8GB">FROM</a> PTUA )

</cite></p>
<p> </p>

[Links fixed 27/6]

cabbie

<p>more street names to learn......great.....</p>

hairdresser

x planning minister now pensioner GBCA board member - green zone overgrazing?

hairdresser

------ fed on the fat of the land?

hairdresser

investment accountants at a paddock full of cash cows?

yobitch

So you're saying Labor is evil, corrupt and a club of serving mates? Much like the boomers hogging the profession and starving the piglets? So you're offering the Liberals as the salvation? Thank you for that gift from Queensland

hairdresser

^per forward funeral planning ------- first step is dye your hair, no?

bundanyabba wetbacks been single mob of party crashers - private school germ incubated in one stagnant coffee pond over 1/2 a century?

adelaide taps are where you find mexican piss and Noosa is a quarantine zone?

peter

<p>Anyone driven out Whittlesea way recently? Suburbs are spotting out there. Only saw one shop - a discount meat retailer. And saw one empty bus.</p>

hairdresser

doreens been hooked up to werribee since summer before last.
settling into married life now.

luke

All union affiliated down here at the stables -wouldn't have it any other way
Never like Land Rovers in the parking lot - cashed up boomers come in different colours
Eagle Farm has been good for the locals in Qld - and also for the weekly convoy of Vic punters

So Melbourne's waistline is fattening? So is Brisbane's - just the handles mind you
Losing land all around - wouldn't mind a bit of Detroit action here (or there) to give it some relevance

hairdresser

mexico city waistline might be all gas luke. be a big splatter when it blows.

luke

The unions implode when they move outside their quarters and start telling us how to shovel sh*t, the jockey's what to wear, the horses how to run, etc. Sometimes, they even make up there own race and make their own marketing to smudge a dud.

Yep - Vic definately blowing - EF called an honest race.

hairdresser

Mexico city will blow away luke rather than blow up?

De sal plant cannot obtain finance - GFC.
nor/so pipeline certified empty elephant.
first city to run out of water - no question mark.


- x footballer goof answers the snobs. reruns of fumbling with a ball at his feet?
carlton has a lot to answer for getting this fcuker special dispensations @ uni.

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/opposition-to-a-bigger-melbourne-smacks-of-cultural-snobbery-20090624-cwpv.html

peter

<p>I think Madden has <a href="http://www.ipa.org.au/publications/782/the-tragedy-of-planning-losing-the-great-australian-dream">Alan Moran</a> on the bedside table.</p>

cabbie

<p>better invest in one of those gps devices....</p>
<p>those blokes will get lost on their way back from the dunnies...</p>

hairdresser

^^
u r assuming he reads peter.
they should publish his short treatise in the monthly - goes with Krudds anglican moralism.
its probably the longest thing he's ever dictated to his secretary

peter

<p>A couple of resonses to our minister's rant against snobs, responses which our minister will no doubt think snobby, should he read them:</p>
<p><i>"...a child must make a silk purse out of a sow's ear or see a world in a grain of sand, but what he may not see is how the absence of municipal beauty, resource or a rich natural estate may condition him never to really care much for these things or value them — or even expect them to prevail</i><i>; and this could be a bad start for a planning minister.<i>"</i></i></p>
<p>Michael Leunig reflecting on his own outer suburban childhood in The Age today</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/living-with-ugliness-can-be-damaging-20090626-czsq.html">http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/living-with-ugliness-can-be-damaging-20090626-czsq.html</a></p>
<p><i>"This idea that “if you don’t like <insert form of ugliness here>, you must be a snob”, has been enormously destructive. It has allowed developers to completely trash our urban and natural environment, putting up crud, and if you don’t like it, you must be a snob. The idea that beauty is completely subjective, and that the Palace of Versailles and the Good Guys warehouse in Nunawading are equal because beauty is simply a matter of taste, is patently ridiculous. Such a statement is hugely worrying for someone who has the planning reponsibilities for the state of Victoria."</i></p>
<p><a href="http://republicofbendigo.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/justin-madden-and-suburban-sprawl/"><i>http://republicofbendigo.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/justin-madden-and-suburban-sprawl/</i></a></p>

peter

<p>And another - Robert Merkel in Larvatus Prodeo:</p>
<p><i>"If Madden wants to make his case, he might consider actually responding to the more substantial critiques of the government’s policy, rather than an easy slam against inner-suburban yuppies like myself."</i></p>
<p><a href="http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/06/25/planning-straw-men/#more-8593">http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/06/25/planning-straw-men/#more-8593</a></p>
<p>Merkel points us to a slightly different Madden in 2007:</p>
<p><i>VICTORIA'S Planning Minister has said McMansion-style homes are water wasters suffering from "housing obesity".</i></p>
<p><i>Justin Madden, an architect who lives in a two-storey heritage-protected home, has said he wants more small homes on new housing estates... </i></p>
<p><i>He has said big houses found in suburbs such as Caroline Springs and Tarneit often suffer from "housing obesity". </i></p>
<p><i> "Melbourne's household growth – and by that I mean dwellings – is twice the population growth," Mr Madden has said.



"Our increasing affluence has led to bigger houses, and I'm sure you're familiar with the description McMansions, and one of my favourites, 'housing obesity'." </i></p>
<p><a href="http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21746430-2,00.html">http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21746430-2,00.html</a></p>
<p>By the end of the article he had come back and revised his position, after the two McMansion owners interviewed protested:<i> "Mr Madden has since softened his stance, assuring residents the state did not dictate house size. "We do not want to tell Victorians how big their houses should be. That is up to them," he has said."</i></p>
<p>And now Madden <a href="http://bit.ly/Uv2J5">says</a>, "Planning policy should be about the aspirations of individual Victorians." He could be speaking for the libertarian planning policies of the <a href="http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/9159/The_Lone_Mountain_Compact.html">Lone Mountain Compact</a> : "1. The most fundamental principle is that, absent a material threat to other individuals or the community, people should be allowed to live and work where and how they like."</p>

hairdresser

merkel summed it up in one line. does he wear slot glasses and sport a skull shave?


The po lice need justine as a lamp switch minister.
hairdresser's customers r hanging out for audio on the cop tapes.
Seeing the Fish tough talk on Tele and the judge being left out of the loop is whetting the punters tabloid appetites.

peter

<p>Bulldozing new burb homes in the States - jobs for both builders and demolition contractors! CS Monitor suggests we allow for flux and build prefab homes for the new outer burbs that can be carted off somewhere till they're needed again.</p>
<p><a href="http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/06/19/bulldoze-the-burbs/">features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/06/19/bulldoze-the-burbs/</a></p>
<p><embed height="350" width="425" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" id="VideoPlayback" quality="high" pluginspage="http://macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" wmode="transparent" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZsgOaCZ2Lag"></embed></p>

hairdresser

^ bring it on.

meanwhile........
turning the tap to blow some more bubbles?

luke

Jaysuz - is Brumbles for real? - Vics really coping it in the neck
What a deadsh*t

hairdresser

^
pink pipes are nice + cute grin is very cisco kid don't u think............maybe he's pleased with himself & the royal commission bbq - CFA goat marinated by govt. lawyer on appetizer menu so far.....or maybe he's tickled deep down inside about this.......

http://www.theage.com.au/national/expremiers-go-nimby-20090705-d970.html

- panchos gone into hiding after spraying brunswick street with pepper shot coupla weeks back.
probably been sent to adelaide to negotiate a new boundary for mexico.

cabbie

<p>hd, </p>
<p>brumby land aint no mexico......too smug.....identity crisis....turn it all upside down.....you'll discover canada....explains the pink pipes....</p>

hairdresser

^canada is a prosperous first world nation with respect for o g inhabitants.
unique with germany amongst all developed nations for not going down the stimulus debt road in GFC.

mexicans were smug once......so were conquistadors.

- r c burn out commisioner setting up to wipe shit eating grin off accountants dial?
pissed with disrespect for separation of powers?

hairdresser

Melbourne does not equal Paris -
now = boston.
Urban Einstein / intellectually insecure deputy pm = cargo cult fantasy world?

lever puller with no grasp on the real thing?
(dreams of growing a symbolic lever and joining melbourne club with GG?)
run part in missing Fed Square shard by us again?
(SEC towers over rail yards !>? is herstory?)
3,000 school gyms = university?
(turning yr back on water).

if she is a cross between lucky starr and henry kissinger - who is richard nixon?



....................
hairdresser wonders why mexico does not equal mexico under general relativity.
or what mystery of arithmetic governs the tap, flush button + the electricity switch for beardless men & bearded women of lake burley baghdad.







http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/happily-home-in-my-boston-on-the-yarra-20090711-dgp7.html

peter

<p>More on what happens when unpopular cities contract.. this is what real green walls look like.</p>
<p>Detroit feral houses: <a href="http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2009/07/feral-houses.html">http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2009/07/feral-houses.html</a></p>

luke

sweet link Peter

hairdresser

^^ gives a new twist to ivy league.

wonder how happy queen julia would be coming home to her hairdresser if mexico city went feral after the dams run dry? - can't see the vines taking off in a dust bowl.

hairdresser

interesting taxation legacy johnny thwaites and his dead beat journo mate left behind as fako planning ministers on permanent alpine holidays. clever too - he put so many of his mates into the legal system as judges u could never convict him for his crimes.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/urban-growth-to-cost-11bn-20090907-fedj.html

$11 B
justine ought to be a bit nicer before getting stuck into the latte sucking chrome domes around town?

peter_j

<p>Hmm.. Growth Areas Authority says $11B for 284,000 houses, that's an infrastructure cost of about $38,700 each. $2B is to be absorbed into land taxes for the owner of the land to be sold, so that's about $7,000 per house. Leaving $31,700 per house to be paid by the tax payer.</p>
<p>Another report by the Planning Institute suggests that the 'hidden' infrastructure cost of each house on the periphery is more like $600,000 per house. That's about $170.4B for the lot.</p>
<p>http://www.butterpaper.com/cms/news/981/lets-spend-some-money</p>
<p>That's quite a discrepancy. Would the real infrastructure cost please stand up.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>