How a travel writer for the New York Times sees Brisbane:

By JULIE EARLE-LEVINE

Published: November 4, 2007

ONCE just a stopover for tourists en route to either the Great Barrier Reef or the beaches on the Sunshine and Gold Coasts, the eastern Australian city of Brisbane has emerged as an alluring destination in its own right.

Returning recently to the city where I grew up and left 15 years ago for fast-paced Sydney, I found Brisbane to be almost unrecognizable. No longer a large country town, the capital of Queensland is now Australia’s fastest growing city, and a plethora of new cafes, bars and shops, not to mention a beautiful new modern art gallery, add up to the kind of place that you could easily spend several days exploring.

Full article here.

Peter Berkeley, the bike guy from Brisbane, reports that the weather has been wild recently – big thunderstorms and hail the size of golf balls.  And he has some pics to prove it:

Michael Kluckner and Christine Allen drive a thousand K from New South Wales to Brisbane along the coast:

It’s not like they remember.  Find out here.

The following Op-Ed ran in the Vancouver Sun:

Making paradise

The ‘village on the edge of the rainforest’ didn’t become one of the world’s most livable cities by happenstance

Friday, September 07, 2007

CREDIT: Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun files ANOTHER JEWEL IN THE CITY’S CROWN: The new, wider seawall along Coal Harbour in the Bayshore hotel area.

Once again Vancouver is the world’s most livable city.

And the usual responses: (1) So what else is new? (2) How can they ignore the Downtown East Side? (3) Have they seen our housing prices?

But never: “Well, that just shows what a great job our local politicians are doing.”

If our rating goes down a few notches, you can be sure the blame will be disproportionately allocated to whoever sits in the mayor’s chair.

Until then, those presently in power shouldn’t expect any credit. That doesn’t come with the job.

Still, we lotus eaters expect our leaders, minimally, to pass this paradise on to the next generation in reasonable shape. In fact, given our blessings, we expect them to improve on it — to be paradise makers.

Paradise making is not without precedent: You can trace its origins back to the 1950s, when Jim Wilson, the head of Lower Mainland Regional Planning Board, articulated a vision for our future as “cities in a sea of green” — the basis for all the regional plans that followed.

With the inheritance of the North Shore watersheds, creation of a regional park system, establishment of the agricultural land reserve, designation of the Green Zone and concentrated growth in downtown and regional town centres, connected by rapid transit, that’s pretty much what we created.

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With low crime, little threat from instability or terrorism and a highly developed transport and communications infrastructure, Canada and Australia are home to the most liveable destinations in the world. Four of the ten most liveable cities surveyed by the Economist Intelligence Unit are in Australia, and two of the top five are Canadian. Vancouver is the most attractive destination, with a liveability index of just 1.3%

While liveability considers factors of recreational and cultural activity, the “big city buzz” can hamper the scores of some cities, although not to the extent that a city will present significant challenges. Global centres such as New York, Tokyo, London, Hong Kong and Paris may find themselves let down precisely because of their size and attractiveness. Traffic congestion and higher crime rates associated with large urban centres have, to some extent, offset the obvious cultural gains of living in such locations. This has also been compounded by fears that large centres like London and New York will remain targets for high-profile terror attacks. Despite this, most major centres do not present any significant challenges to liveability.

Of the 132 cities surveyed, only nine cities present the worst-case scenario in which most aspects of living quality are severely restricted, reflecting general improvements on a global scale in areas such as education, health care and infrastructure. Four of these are in Asia, mainly South Asia. The other five are in Africa (accounting for three) and the Middle East (accounting for two).

The threat of terrorism and civil unrest is a major contributing factor to the cities that suffer from the worst liveability scores, as are poor development indicators. Algiers is the least liveable destination in the survey, with a score of 64.7%.

Full report

Global warming puts beach suburbs under threat
In North Cronulla, coastal erosion could push the ocean to the front door of waterfront homes by 2050. By 2100, the second row of homes back from the beach could have water views too close for comfort.

The predictions are worse than previous estimates and could spell danger for thousands of Australians living along the coast.

More than 80 per cent of Australians lives within 3km of the coast and less than 6m above sea level.

Full article here.

Sleepy Perth as bad as Adelaide, says architect

21st August 2007, 6:15 WST

A world-renowned architect says Perth will never be a 24-hour-a-day city but underplays its potential by being an eight-hour-a-day town which shuts down at the close of business.Donald Bates, the principal architect on Melbourne’s Federation Square and director of Lab Architecture, said parts of the city were empty, uninviting and oldfashioned, and that there was little to do after hours.

Mr Bates, in WA for a major architecture symposium, said Perth’s booming economy gave it a new-found optimism that it could become a world-class city but it had a long way to go.

He put Perth on par with Adelaide partly because it catered to residents for only eight to 10 hours a day with few activities or venues to enjoy at night. 

More here.

Vancouver, pressed by condo and office demand, builds up — and the ‘burbs imitate city’s blueprint

Saturday, July 14, 2007

CREDIT: Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun Brentwood Gate is among the dozen towers going up on former industrial land near Brentwood Mall along the SkyTrain line in Burnaby.

CREDIT: Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun Despite the proliferation of highrises downtown, Vancouver is pressed for office space and condos.

CREDIT: Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun Surrey has six new towers in the works for its City Centre neighbourhood. The municipality is looking at giving developers bonus density for contributions to an affordable housing fund.

The skyline of the Lower Mainland is about to see a dramatic change in the next few years as new towers sprout from Vancouver to White Rock to Langley.

Developers, spurred on by the cost of land and increasing tolerance for density throughout the region, are banging on the doors of the region’s city halls to build higher.

Vancouver, under pressure to accommodate both a hot condo market and a campaign for more office space in a tightly restricted downtown peninsula, is considering whether to lift current height restrictions.

And even the most suburban of municipalities are opening the door to heights and densities they wouldn’t have considered a decade ago. They’re encouraged by Vancouver’s successful new downtown neighbourhoods, new kinds of residents, including immigrants, who are comfortable with the idea of highrise living in the suburbs, and the current planning mantra that says cities can save the planet by building more compactly.

“There appears to be a kind of culture shift in the region,” says University of B.C. Prof. Patrick Condon, one of the leading advocates for more sustainable urban planning.

A move to clusters of towers throughout a region is part of the typical growth pattern of a metro region. But both Condon and UBC planning Prof. Tom Hutton say the intensity of what’s happening here is unique.

“I think this is the only place in North America where this phenomenon is mature,” said Condon.

Langley township is the latest suburban area to follow the trend, as its council voted Monday to take the first step in a change to its official community plan that restricts any residential building to four storeys.

The proposed change would allow mid- and highrise buildings up to 20 storeys, with that new density concentrated along 200th Avenue from the freeway to the neighbourhood bordering Langley city.

Langley’s debate comes at a time when cities like Port Coquitlam and White Rock have approved their first highrise towers. Coquitlam has 13 towers, some up to 37 storeys, being built or planned around its town centre.

Burnaby has a dozen towers going up along the SkyTrain line on former industrial land near Brentwood Mall.

And Surrey has a half-dozen new towers in the works for its City Centre neighbourhood.

Many councils are planning for density and towers because they say they have no choice if they are to preserve green space.

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The New York Times reports on how the commodities boom in Western Australia has affected the price of housing in Perth.

Perth, though about the same population size as Greater Vancouver, sprawls to the north and south, consisting largely of detached, single-family housing.  If Randal O’Toole’s argument was correct (that limiting land supply forces up the cost of housing), Perth should be one of the more affordable places in Australia.   

For more on Perth (and images of its suburbs), go here.

July 5, 2007

Boom in Commodity Prices Makes Perth Attractive to Many, Unaffordable to Others

ByWayne Arnold

PERTH, Australia — The global commodities boom has been very good to the state of Western Australia and its capital, Perth. While the broad Australian economy has had some slow periods and property prices are rebounding, Perth has been humming.

Kris Thomas seems perfectly placed to ride along with the good fortunes of the city. Mr. Thomas, a 25-year-old native of Perth, is a computer programmer for an oil and gas company at a time when the industry cannot find enough skilled people.

But he is packing his bags and moving east to Melbourne, not because he does not have a good job but because he can no longer afford a decent place to live in Perth.

Mr. Thomas, who is single, earns 57,000 Australian dollars, or $49,000 a year. The average wage in Western Australia rose last year to nearly 56,000 dollars, putting it the closest to salaries in the largest Australian state, New South Wales, in 13 years.

“It’s nearly impossible to get something in Perth at the moment,” Mr. Thomas said. “Housing prices in Perth have increased heaps, but salaries haven’t.”

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This article in The Age could have easily substituted “Vancouver” for “Melbourne” and it would have rung true.

 Melbourne comes alive — at a price

• Royce Millar and Clay Lucas
  June 27, 2007

MELBOURNE’S heart is pumping, with new figures painting a picture of a booming city. But not all is rosy, with planners and housing experts warning that the thriving city is driving out all but the most cashed-up.

Despite dire warnings in the early 1980s that Melbourne would become a “doughnut city” — a gutted metropolis with a lifeless core — Melbourne City Council’s latest land-use census shows the CBD is flourishing.

Since 2004, the number of jobs in the Melbourne municipality, including Carlton, Parkville, Docklands and Southbank, has risen by 35,000, or 10 per cent.

Results of a biennial study to be released today show that since 2004 the number of businesses has risen by 1400.

Bars, pubs and cafes continue to surge, with almost 350 new places to drink or eat opening in the past two years. The number of venues, including restaurants, has exploded from 400 in 1982 to 2500 this year.

Twenty years ago real estate agents scoffed when Melbourne city councillors outlined their vision of residents living in city apartments. At the time, there were fewer than 800 households in the CBD. That figure is now around 16,000.

The number of dwellings grew by 6000 in the past two years, with most of the growth at Docklands.

New residents have driven a surge in city shopping, with supermarkets taking up 10 times the city space they did in 1997 and retailers occupying more of the city centre than ever before — 503,000 square metres.

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