What’s YOUR vision for WA?

2020-11-03

How do you imagine Western Australia 50+ years from now?

By Paul Loring, Fremantle-Tangney Greens

It’s a hard question! How do we even start to think about it? What information have we got to work with? Does history help us? Is it even worth thinking about, after all isn’t it just going to happen, to evolve all by itself? It is a bit like having expected the soldiers returning from World War 1, in 1919, to have planned for Perth as it is today. Back then horses and carts were commonplace, a boom time for rail, but even then, only for the capitals. Rural people and school children walked significant distances every day. Distances we travel and take for granted today, were unimaginable daily trips. So, when in the 1950’s WA was planning its first Industrial zone, it was considered a totally isolated centre with its own residential suburb, with a 20-30 km green belt of forest and farmland between then Perth and Kwinana! When I emigrated in the late 1980s, I would never have imagined that the banksia bushland between Armadale and Fremantle would have been all but lost to housing, likewise much the same in Gnangara. Increasingly there is hardly a suburb in Perth that hasn’t had an action group opposing development in its locale; this conflict is bad for all stakeholders, local government, community, developers and often the environment and its community amenity.

Without an alternative vision, history tells us we will continue to repeat the actions of the past.

One of the few aspects of long-term planning and visioneering we can use is population forecasting. This is certainly imperfect, but, let’s at least try to put it to good use. Most of this research in recent decades has focussed on total global growth, and that is forecast to plateau in about 50 years from now. The biggest unknown is the African continent’s growth beyond that expected period. Fewer forecasters have done as much work on population beyond that but those that have looked at national forecasts and differences. Europe and even China are expected, as is already the case for Japan, to begin population decline; India and to lesser extent USA will continue their growth for a few more decades, before triggering decline. But countries like Australia and Canada, although their natural growth will have long ended, are expected to continue growing at current rates in perpetuity. Although global growth may have plateaued, redistribution will continue, and countries like Australia will be considered more attractive places to call home.

In that light, WA is probably wise to initiate urgent thought to what its long-term population will be, and hence, its impact. Conservatively, my guess is 6 million and counting by the 2100. The thinking needed ‘here’ is not a debate about the pros and cons of population control for WA. Rather, assuming the scenario that it will most likely occur, and hence from a GWA perspective, what lifestyle do we envision for such a population. Let’s consider the worst cases scenarios, let’s be better prepared.

Typically, every time the WA Government initiates supposed long term planning initiatives, immediate commercial and industrial needs block considering anything longer than a decade or so. The Westport Task Force is a case in point. Supposedly a long term Strategic Plan for the 50-100 years for the needs of freight, defence and tourism transport in the southern half of WA, it has concluded with a short term plan to manage the limitation of the import/export needs of Fremantle port. Even the new body, Innovation WA, has begun its thinking with the constraint of a 20 year horizon, much of which will be merely adding meat to the bones of existing ideas.

Some alternative scenarios might help us work towards a better plan.

Multiple Regional Satellite Centres

I like this idea. I can imagine the result, e.g, 20 regional towns of say, 100,000, hence absorbing 2 million people over the rest of the century. While retaining Perth as the only metro sized city, effectively continuing its current role, but with a significantly slower population growth rate.

With such a model, Perth would be able to grow more slowly, and consequently, in a more sustainable evolutionary pace. This could reduce the level of developer conflict that is current in Perth. Also enable Perth to transform in more sustainable ways.

However, it would require a Perth based port large enough to cope with the much larger state population, and hence, the transport related issues incumbent in supporting the network of regional satellite centres. Would that exacerbate an already significant problem? Would such transformation also include greatly reducing Perth’s car dependence?

The satellite centres would need to be self-sufficient in utility service provision, e.g., energy and water, and vitally, employment for a much larger population than such regional centres of today.

Cities of 100,000 ought to be large enough to supply and support their own needs and that of smaller regional towns and cities service needs such as utilities, education, health, policing, etc. That is, they would have a hinterland for providing some but not all State level administration and support.

Sustainable city design that encourages local community, isn’t a strength of the current Perth structure. The urban sprawl, with each suburb based around a shopping mall with a large car park, with universities, Tafe colleges, hospitals, high school, etc., not located within walking distance of local rail, hasn’t proved conducive to the Greens concept of local community living. But, it seems feasible that the growth of these satellite Regional centres could apply such city design principles.

Such centres in the southern half of WA need to fulfill a need for solar gain, i.e., larger northern exposure, hence blocks that are longer in the W-E direction than N-S. Co-housing models, of which there are many examples, have applied such thinking. For example the Baugruppen co-housing model where each block is centred around a shared internal space, (instead of individual back yards) for recreation, community veggie patch, etc., might be a more suitable street and town planning concept; a concept more readily applied to a whole new block, than trying to retrofit within Perth at its current rate of growth.

My major concern with multiple Regional Satellite centres while retaining Perth as WA’s only metro sized city, is the remaining need for Perth to support a very much larger import/export port and its infrastructure. That such a need would be sufficient driver for the political parties and influencers to just carry on as usual with the well-practiced Perth centric solution. Royalties for Regions exemplifies that.

Retain Perth as WA’s only metro sized city and port

To be up front, although this is the most likely outcome, I don’t think this is the best approach for the whole State of WA.

This Perth centric solution has continued decade after decade essentially because it is easier not to address change or consider alternatives. Change is often threatening, and West Australians love Perth and don’t want to see it harmed. But Perth remaining all things, for all, in perpetuity, for the next century and a very much larger population, won’t be the Perth we all know and love.

Import/export businesses that have settled in Perth, have built up a broad base of necessary support industries and infrastructure within the metro, and with it a local and readily available workforce. Economic consequences are the purview of government; the social, environmental, transport, lifestyle, housing, recreation, health, education, policing, energy and utility, etc., are expected, but their impacts are not the concern of business.

The way Perth has grown has not been planned or managed, rather evolved piecemeal in a reactive, pushed and driven manner. If we started again with a clean sheet it is doubtful we would have designed Perth as is; with its import/export port based in the centre, fed largely by road haulage, surrounded by residential suburbs and the major recreational beach and coastal amenities, that are car dependent. Also, a location that is neither the centre of the State’s agriculture or resource industries.

As WA’s population has grown, Perth has had two choices to spread ever more north and south, or increase the density. Both have occurred, but with density being largely infill, by replacing every green space, every environmental and recreational important and attractive location with concrete and more roads. The consequence has been development conflict. There isn’t a suburb that doesn’t have an action group opposing development and/or loss of amenity. Invariably developers win, at the cost of dissatisfied, disgruntled and mis-trusting ratepayers and voters.

Whether Perth remains the only WA metro sized city or not, it will continue to grow. When London was the same size and situation as Perth is today, it had already begun developing its Underground. Can you imagine London today without it? It is already very clear that Perth’s road dependence will continue unabated unless something radical is done to shift millions onto public transport. The electrification of the surface rail has been a great success. But, it seems highly improbable that a surface network of the scale needed for Perth, as depicted by examples such as London’s underground, Paris’s Metro, etc, will ever eventuate as either heavy, light rail or trams. Hence, Perth must begin the process of its underground for passenger and freight distribution.

Likewise, road haulage of containers to the import/export ports of Fremantle and/or Kwinana seems to be an inefficient, polluting and economically unacceptable approach to transporting thousands of containers through an ever growing network of roads through residential suburbs during slightly extended 5 day week office hours. A networked series of freight hubs around the outskirts of the metro makes more sense. These hubs would be freight rail based to the ports, essentially logistically managed as part of the port, but geographically separated by rail. Freight trains would be the only means of accessing the ports, with trains being assembled at the hubs to meet the specific needs of each ship’s arrival. The hubs would also be the centre of all break bulk, and hence road train assembly and distribution to the Perth metro. Constructing such a Hub network will be far easier in a city that isn’t needed to grow at the exponential scale of today.

Internationally, offshore wind is seen to be highly attractive long term energy source, and WA has the appropriate wind exposure. NOPSEMA, has been charged with determining the needs, opportunities, and locations of offshore wind in Australia. However, they concluded Perth is ‘currently’ the only WA centre that has the required scale of demand needed for offshore wind, but also has unsurmountable obstacles.

Additional Metro Sized WA Cities

Professors Ross Garnaut and Peter Newman have recently highlighted, that there is the potential for employment of 400,000 in the Pilbara, and likewise the South West has the potential to become a strategically important centre of modern industrial growth. Should we be flying them into these locations in ever increasing numbers for the next 100 years?

Many, indeed most, of the issues associated with both the other options, Regional Satellite centres and the Perth Centric options, can be significantly minimised by having more appropriately located and designed Metro cities.

A reduced number of Regional Satellite Centres each of 100,000 have a far better chance of coming to fruition when designed and constructed as part of the parallel process with more locally based support metro cities. These cities would be located, their ports, service provision, infrastructure and workforce, utility, energy and admin would be designed specifically to support the needs of these regional centres, rather than compete with them as Perth has done for decades.

Likewise, with a population and the import/export requirements being distributed and shared across the State, would greatly reduce the need for Perth to grow at current rates. In doing so it would permit Perth to retain its role as capital and administrative centre, but facilitate its transition to a more sustainable metro at a more evolutionary, rather than its revolutionary pace. Reducing the development conflict, reducing the pressure on green space and its environmental consequences. That this pace is also more conducive to creating a freight rail based hub network for Perth and a rail based passenger and freight distribution network.

Without an alternative vision, WA will probably remain the only place on the planet with such a large landmass, with a huge coastline and only one metro sized city! Defining the location of two new metro cities in WA would be a developers’ dream.

Where could such port cities be located? What criteria is needed for determining a vision?

  • What type of places could they be, amenity characteristics, employment and industry, service support for their hinterland, recreation, education, health, transport, energy needs and supply, e.g., offshore wind, concentrated solar, geothermal, deep water harbour without the constraint that estuaries impose?
  • What impact would their modern freight and passenger transport, e.g., wide gauge fast rail, and utility corridors connecting them to the State capital, have on long term planning of other centres en route?
  • Should they be entirely new locations or based on existing cities?
  • To avoid replicating the issues of Perth they need a structural design to cater for cities of 500 km2 and potential long-term population measured in millions.
  • Timeline and process (international competition) to determine locations and initiate infrastructure creation.

Header photo: ”Are Greens after This (on the left, credit: Don Wenjie, Getty Images) or This (on the right, credit: Gryffinder, Wikimedia Commons)?”

[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]