It’s long been a commonplace that cities are engines of economic and social development. Spatial proximity is synergistic – it provides economies of scale that extend well beyond a single firm or household. However the “spillover” benefits of living side by side come at a price – the costs are also amplified by proximity. Cities [...]
Research published in the latest issue of the journal Geographical Research indicates that residents with a rainwater tank don’t reduce their consumption of mains water by any more than those without a tank. The study finds households in NSW’s Illawarra region who installed a rainwater tank reduced their consumption of mains water on average by [...]
February 16, 2012 – 9:15 am
In my last post, I looked at the enormous differences in the cost of subways between some countries and cities. The “take home” message is to be careful extrapolating overseas experience to Australia because there is immense variability across projects. A closely related issue though, is the remarkable cost escalation of what on the surface [...]
February 15, 2012 – 9:00 am
There‘re few issues more likely to get the juices flowing than debates about the cost of transport projects. How is it, public transport advocates ask, subways can be built in Spain for $40 million per km, but in Australia and the US its hundreds of millions of dollars per km? Or why have new rail [...]
September 20, 2011 – 6:43 pm
The exhibit above purports to show that the cost of infrastructure associated with building a new dwelling within 10 km of the CBD of a city like Melbourne is, on average, $50,503. In contrast, it costs $136,401 to provide infrastructure for an outer suburban dwelling i.e. located more than 40 km from the CBD. That’s [...]
Under-estimating the cost of major infrastructure projects and over-estimating the demand is so chronic that forecasters deserve some harsh medicine, according to Professor Bent Flyvbjerg from Oxford University’s Said Business School. He says “some forecasts are so grossly misrepresented that we need to consider not only firing the forecasters but suing them too – perhaps [...]
It seems the water conservation message is starting to recede as the Government and water authorities come to grips with the breaking of the drought and the oceanic task of paying for new infrastructure like the desalination plant and north-south pipeline. Some small evidence of this trend is evident from the latest invoice my household [...]
An argument I see frequently in relation to massive infrastructure projects like High Speed Rail (HSR) is that we should simply get on and build them because they’re ‘visionary’ and ‘nation building’. For example, a commenter recently likened investment in HSR to the decision to build the Sydney Opera House. If cost-benefit analysis had been [...]
February 16, 2011 – 8:53 pm
There is little doubt that Melbourne Airport needs action to improve land-side access for passengers arriving and departing from the airport. Many observers argue the solution is a rail line from the CBD to the airport. I think there’s a much bigger picture they’re missing. They would be well advised to look at the Airport [...]
February 15, 2011 – 7:53 pm
The centre of the city of the future will be the airport, according to a book by John D Kasarda of the University of Carolina and journalist Greg Lindsay to be published next month. They say in Aerotropolis (subtitled, to emphasise its inevitability, The Way We’ll Live Next), that “not so long ago, airports were built near [...]
