Backyard bliss may soon be a memory

THERE are two Sydneys of the future. In one we build on empty paddocks 45 kilometres from the CBD, where workers wake before dawn to spend hours in traffic driving to work.

In the other we abandon the McMansions of Kellyville - and our cars - in favour of high-rise apartment living and subway transport.

The state's transport boffins want us to choose the latter in a new blueprint for the city that relies on an underground metro. The Federal Government backs it, too.

The rationale for moving away from large houses on large blocks in far-flung suburbs to inner-city living is cost - both economic and environmental - transport and planning experts say.

In an era of peak oil and climate change, where higher petrol, water and electricity prices will significantly increase the cost of living, we can no longer afford suburban sprawl, they argue.

That does not mean the death of the backyard and the cul-de-sac. But it would mean fewer of them.

The debate about higher-density living has been going on for decades, but every time it is raised there is a community backlash, says Professor Peter Newman of Curtin University, a former NSW Sustainability Commissioner and now a member of the advisory board for Infrastructure Australia.

Newman says resistance to high-rise living comes mostly from Anglo-Saxons worried crime will rise and house prices fall.

"That has … been shown to be nonsense," he says.

Apartment complexes can be designed to encourage a sense of community, safety and provide for affordable housing, because "design is everything".

"If you want to make a slum, you can … density doesn't wreck or create an area, in itself."

Research by Newman and the planning and infrastructure consultancy Parsons Brinckerhoff found Sydney's suburban sprawl costs the economy and the environment twice as much as inner-city housing. The cost of infrastructure, transport, health and greenhouse gases for new housing built on a city's fringe is worth $653 million for every 1000 new dwellings, compared with $309 million for inner-city development, they say.

For every 1000 housing blocks, the Government could save $85 million on power, water, sewerage, schools and hospitals if it built close to central business districts rather than on the city's fringe, and $250 million in transport costs could be saved in 50 years.

That amounts to an $85 million subsidy to developers on the fringe, Newman says.

During the past five years Sydney's middle-ring suburbs, such as Liverpool, Hurstville and Blacktown, have joined fringe suburbs in what Griffith University researchers describe as a new landscape of oil and mortgage stress. Car use, income and mortgage repayments have combined to affect more than 40 per cent of Sydney's suburbs, according to work done by the university's Jago Dodson and Neil Snipe. This comes as the State Government has backed away from big rail projects in the north-west and south-west of the city, areas crying out for public transport.

If at least some of our residential housing must be high-rise - and planners tell us there is a market - can we trust the Government to sell the idea to the community? That could depend on whether this Labor administration can restore the community's trust in its relationship with developers.

Until voters believe planning reforms are for their benefit instead of developers', they will fight to keep the suburban dream alive.