Comments on: Spare infrastructure capacity – is it a tall story?

By: Will Melbourne be like Watts (L.A.) in 1965? « The Melbourne Urbanist

Will Melbourne be like Watts (L.A.) in 1965? « The Melbourne Urbanist — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 08:25:39 +0000

...] infrastructure capacity in the inner suburbs is also doubtful, as I’ve said before (here, here and [...

By: What’s good about the Coalition’s planning policy? « The Melbourne Urbanist

Sun, 21 Nov 2010 07:05:21 +0000

...] spare capacity existed in the inner city and inner suburbs has already been used up e.g. here, here, [...

By: Should most redevelopment be in activity centres? « The Melbourne Urbanist

Should most redevelopment be in activity centres? « The Melbourne Urbanist — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 07:49:33 +0000

...] is not high – increased traffic congestion is a more likely outcome. Spare infrastructure capacity is in many cases almost certainly a myth. In fact it is likely to cost more to provide additional [...

By: How dense are Melbourne’s outer suburbs? « The Melbourne Urbanist

How dense are Melbourne’s outer suburbs? « The Melbourne Urbanist — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:41:01 +0000

...] being used to support these sorts of claims. As I pointed out long ago (here, as well as here, here and here) that report’s development cost estimates are based on an earlier unpublished paper [...

By: Is unused infrastructure capacity in the inner suburbs all used up? « The Melbourne Urbanist

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:18:12 +0000

...] could’ve mentioned that virtually every school within at least 10 km of the CBD already has one or more so-called temporary class rooms including, [...

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 11 May 2010 12:35:17 +0000

Good reply. I’m afraid I just have a bias towards higher density suburbs and against sprawl for environmental and cultural reasons – that’s why I come to your blog – so I can have my prejudices challenged.

By: Alan Davies

Alan Davies — Tue, 11 May 2010 11:43:57 +0000

Interesting question. I don’t know much about libraries so I might be wrong, but I’d expect that a library would serve the same number of people and be much the same size irrespective of whether it’s in the inner city/inner suburbs or on the fringe – the only difference is the fringe library would have a more geographically extensive catchment.

It’s not really an economies of scale thing but the average trip ought to be more sustainable in the inner city e.g. more walking (that might not hold for inner suburban or middle suburban libraries though). That’s not a saving however that goes to the bottom line (its an “economic” saving) so the inner city library would still incur higher financial costs when it ran out of capacity and had to expand, due to higher land and construction costs in more congested areas.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 11 May 2010 03:58:54 +0000

Another interesting post. I wonder though whether there are advantages in providing infrastructure in more dense areas, an example might be something like a library that serves a larger number of people and therefore has a bigger collection. Of course I have no data or analysis on this.

By: Alan Davies

Alan Davies — Mon, 10 May 2010 07:31:16 +0000

Moss
Thanks for the positive words. What disappoints me most is that Government Departments and others who most people would expect to look harder at their assumptions either don’t bother to do the most basic questioning or just accept uncritically whatever fits their pre-existing POV. No doubt we all do it to some extent but still…..

By: Moss

Moss — Mon, 10 May 2010 04:10:27 +0000

Great blog Alan.
Yes, I am perplexed at some of the thinking on differences between infrastructure costs between infill and “fringe” development too. The mainstream media definitely glossed over the important details of the Parsons Brinckerhoff report – for example, inner city development costs for fire, police and gas were rated as 0 for each extra 1000 dwellings. Presumably all of those inner city inhabitants are nice, law abiding citizens who live in cold, fireproof apartments. Oh and their kids are clearly more intelligent as the cost of their inner city education infrastructure is a 10th that of fringe kids!
Still, their report is a start, and we do need to get a better grasp on the real costs, though it might come down to a more detailed analysis of each development project…