2020VISION FOR A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY

MELBOURNE SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY INSTITUTE

The Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute (MSSI) at the University of Melbourne, Australia, brings together researchers from different disciplines to help create a more sustainable society. It acts as an information portal for research at the University of Melbourne, and as a collaborative platform where researchers and communities can work together to affect positive change. This book can be freely accessed from MSSI’s website: www.sustainable.unimelb.edu.au.

Cite as: Pearson, C.J. (editor) (2012). 2020: Vision for a Sustainable Society. Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne

Published by Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute in 2012 Ground Floor Alice Hoy Building (Blg 162) Monash Road The University of Melbourne, Parkville Victoria 3010, Australia

Text and copyright © Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission of the publisher.

A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the catalogue of the National Library of Australia at www.nla.gov.au 2020: Vision for a Sustainable Society, ISBN: 978-0-7340-4773-1 (pbk)

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The last two centuries have seen extra-ordinary improvements in the quality of

human lives. Most people on earth today enjoy access to the necessities of life that was once available only to the elites. Most people enjoy longevity, health, education, information and opportunities to experience the variety of life on earth that was denied even to the rulers of yesteryear. The proportion of humanity living in absolute poverty remains daunting, but continues to fall decade by decade. The early 21st century has delivered an acceleration of the growth in living standards in the most populous developing countries and an historic lift in the trend of economic growth in the regions that had lagged behind, notably in Africa.

These beneficent developments are accom-panied by another reality. The improvements are not sustainable unless we make qualitative changes in the content of economic growth. The continuation of the current relationship between growth in the material standard of living and pressures on the natural environment will undermine economic growth, political

stability and the foundations of human achievement.

The good news is that humanity has already discovered and begun to apply the knowledge that can reconcile continued improvements in the standard of living with reduction of pressures on the natural environment.

The bad news is that the changes that are necessary to make high and rising standards of living sustainable are hard to achieve within our current political cultures and systems.

Hard, but not impossible. That is a central message from this book, drawn out in Craig Pearson’s concluding chapter.

This book introduces the reader to the many dimesions of sustainability, through well-qualified authors.

Climate change is only one mechanism through which current patterns of economic growth threaten the natural systems on which our prosperity depend. It is simply the most urgent of the existential threats.

Climate change is a special challenge for Australians. We are the most vulnerable of the

Foreword

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developed countries to climate change. And we are the developed country with the highest level of greenhouse gas emissions per person.

There are roles for private ethical decisions as well as public policy choices in dealing with the climate change challenge.

This book is released at the time of ‘Rio+20’, a conference in Brazil to review the relatively poor progress we have made towards sustainability in the past 20 years, and soon after the introduction of Australia’s first comprehensive policy response to the global challenge of climate change. Australia’s emissions trading scheme with an initially fixed price for emissions permits comes into effect on 1 July 2012. The new policy discourages activities that generate greenhouse gases by putting a price on emissions. The revenue raised by carbon pricing will be returned to households and businesses in ways that retain incentives to reduce emissions. Part of the revenue will be used to encourage production and use of goods and services that embody low emissions.

The policy has been launched in controversy. Interests that stand to gain from the discrediting of the policy argue that it is unnecessary either because the case for global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the associated climate change has not been proven, or that the new policy places a disproportionate burden on Australians.

The health of our civilisation requires us to bring scientific knowledge to account in public policy. Everyone who shares the knowledge that is the common heritage of humanity has

a responsibility to explain the realities to others wherever and whenever they can.

The argument that the new policy places a disproportionate burden on Australians can be answered by seeking honestly to understand what others are doing.

The critics of Australian policy argue that the world’s two largest national emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States, are doing little or nothing to reduce emissions, so that it is either pointless or unnecessary for us to do so.

China has advanced a long way towards achieving its target of reducing emissions as a proportion of economic output by 40 to 45 per cent between 2005 and 2020. It has done this by forcing the closure of emissions-intensive plants and processes that have exceptionally high levels of emissions per unit of output, by imposing high emissions standards on new plants and processes, by charging emissions-intensive activities higher electricity prices, by subsidising the introduction of low-emissions activities, and by new and higher taxes on fossil fuels. China has introduced trials of an emissions trading system in five major cities and two provinces. This adds up to a cost on business and the community that exceeds any burden placed on Australians by the new policies – bearing in mind that the revenue from Australian carbon pricing is returned to households and businesses.

The US Government has advised the inter-national community of its domestic policy target to reduce 2005 emissions by 17 per cent by 2020. President Barack Obama said

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to the Australian Parliament that all countries should take seriously the targets that they had reported to the international community, and made it clear that the United States did so. United States efforts to reduce emissions are diffuse but far-reaching. They now include controls on emissions from electricity generators, announced in March 2012, effectively excluding any new coal-based power generation after the end of this year unless it embodies carbon capture and storage. From the beginning of next year they will include an emissions trading system in the most populous and economically largest state, California.

The United States is making reasonable progress towards reaching its emissions reduc-tion goals, with some actions imposing high costs on domestic households and businesses.

Australia has now taken steps through which we can do our fair share in the international effort, at reasonable cost. It would be much harder and more costly to do our fair share without the policies that are soon to take effect.

What Australians do over the next few years will have a significant influence on humanity’s prospects for handing on the benefits of modern civilisation to future generations. This book will help Australians to understand their part in the global effort for sustainability.

Ross GarnautUniversity of Melbourne

15 April 2012

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ContentsForeword by Ross Garnaut v

Table of Contents viii

Author Biographies x

Drivers 1

1 2

2 10

3 17

4 27

5 37

People 47

6 48

7 57

8 64

9 70

10 79

11 86

12 94

13 104

14 114

PopulationRebecca Kippen and Peter McDonald

Equity Helen Sykes

ConsumptionCraig Pearson

GreenhouseGasEmissionsandClimateChangeDavid Karoly

EnergyPeter Seligman

EthicsCraig Prebble

CultureAudrey Yue and Rimi Khan

AwarenessandBehaviourAngela Paladino

LocalMattersMatterKate Auty

PublicWisdomTim van Gelder

MentalHealthGrant Blashki

DiseasePeter Doherty

CorporateSustainabilityLiza Maimone

GovernanceJohn Brumby

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NaturalResources 123

15 124

16 132

17 141

18 150

Cities 161

19 162

20 170

21 177

22 184

23 192

24 200

25 210

Outcomes 221

26 222

Further Reading 234

Index 241

Ecosystem-BasedAdaptationRodney Keenan

WaterHector Malano and Brian Davidson

FoodSunday McKay and Rebecca Ford

ZeroCarbonLand-UseChris Taylor and Adrian Whitehead

ChangingCitiesPeter Newman and Carolyn Ingvarson

AffordableLivingThomas Kvan and Justyna Karakiewicz

BuiltEnvironmentPru Sanderson

InfrastructureColin Duffield

TransportMonique Conheady

AdaptiveDesignRay Green

HandlingDisastersAlan March

TwentyActionsCraig Pearson

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Affordable LivingThomas Kvan and Justyna Karakiewicz

20

Central to any concept of a socially sustainable society is the critical need for communities

to be economically viable. As a significant portion of household incomes are committed to the provision of accommodation, the affordability of housing impacts not only those in the household but, by extension, the community and beyond into the broader economy.

The House You Can AffordWe all need housing and we are all prepared to pay a significant portion of our income for it. Our perception, based on reading the real estate advertising, is that most housing is unaffordable. Each time we start looking for a place to live, we start by looking at homes we would like to live in, located in neighbourhoods that are attractive, and we come to realise that we cannot afford these choices. Compromising

our wishes as we translate them to those we can afford, we narrow our choices. What features can we live without, what rooms are not necessary? Is what ‘I want’ the same as what ‘I need’? After a while, we realise that we are no longer in control of our decision on where and how to live. Homes located near opportunities for work, great entertainment or good schools all seem to be too expensive, so we must either think of living in a smaller house without some attributes or move further out and face a longer commute.

If our budget is very tight, you seem to find less choice and so it is that those who are poor often have no choice. Most of them will end up in housing either at the periphery of the city or in economically devastated areas more centrally where work, schooling and even safety are chronically limited.

$ $$ $$$ $$$$

The more you pay, the more choices you have. Does this need to be the case?

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Affordable Living

In either case, we can understand that there may be affordable housing but it is not affordable living. If you end up living on the city periphery, your chances of getting a properly paid job locally are slight and it is difficult to travel to an interview for a better job since transportation is often not available. Too often, affordable housing is far from opportunity.

Of course, many people think of a home as their major opportunity to save money for later in life (or retirement) as the value of the house increases. This is often the justification for those who assign a major part of their income to the mortgage payment, often in excess of their ability to afford it. The assumption is that property prices usually rise, hence many people speculate on property. As we have seen from 2008 onwards in many parts of the developed world, such as Europe and North America, this is not something we can rely on.

Patterns and Problems in Affordable HousingA very large, poor workforce was attracted to the US city of Detroit in the first half of the 20th century to support the boom of automobile

production. These workers came looking for a better quality of life, but they were the lowest paid workers and housing them became a significant problem. Landlords started to subdivide apartments into small units and began constantly increasing the prices since the market for housing was booming.

Because there was never a shortage of people willing to rent these properties, the landlords didn’t bother with maintenance and upkeep. The tenants themselves preferred to send their little money back where they came from to secure their future when they returned. As a result, the areas where the migrant population lived slowly degenerated. Those who had a little extra money moved out to more desirable areas, to be replaced by more who had none. After the automobile industry collapsed, a huge part of Detroit became deserted. Today land value is close to zero and you can buy whole blocks of

the city for a small sum.With an opportunity to benefit from

improvements made, residents will respond differently. Contrast Detroit with the example seen in South America, where the value of land in favellas rises the moment a migrant worker

The more expensive the housing, the more accessible is employment

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Figure a. A diagramatic map of Medellin in which the locations of favelas are seen to be isolated on the adjoining slope away from the higher cost housing located in the valley where the employment is also located. Figure b. Over time, as travel from favelas has been improved, the perceived access to employment from favelas has changed.

Figure a. Figure b.

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Affordable Living

claims a piece for shelter. Favela dwellers typically cannot afford to construct anything significant at the start, but slowly build their capital. If they start earning some money or are successful in scavenging, they invest it in their house. Often, they will later extend their houses sufficiently to accommodate tenants, supplementing income that is then used to improve their housing. Through this slow evolution is observed the incremental development and improvement in such areas of informal housing.

But the patterns and problems of affordability can be found closer to home because any major Australian city faces the same issues. With the majority of the country’s population gathered together in a few cities, there is difficulty in providing housing at a price everyone can afford.

What Is Affordability?Usually, we understand affordability as ‘inexpensive; reasonably priced’, which is the definition in the Oxford Dictionary and, in fact, illustrated with the sample phrase ‘affordable home’. An etymological dictionary will show that ‘affordability’ derives from ‘forward, onward, to put forth, to contribute, advance, accomplish’. This older meaning was associated with ‘opportunity’.

How then do we understand ‘affordable housing’ if we consider the question of ‘opportunity’ rather than restricting it to ‘reasonably priced’? We can reduce the cost of housing itself by reducing each component cost; those of land, construction costs and

financing. Build something cheaply on cheap land and reduce the mortgage rate. Usually, this means land that is not wanted for anything else, such as green field sites, unproductive farmland which is somewhat remote from desirable neighbourhoods, or brown field sites, former industrial land that is surrounded by other industry or warehouses, again isolated from other desirable neighbourhoods.

As noted by Anthony Downs in his 2004 book, Growth Management and Affordable Housing: Do They Conflict?, any simple metric

as to ‘affordability’ hides issues such as income, choice and non-discretionary expenses. Although a simplistic, generally accepted target is that a household should spend 30 per cent of its income on housing, as Downes illustrates we do not necessarily perceive someone who

Choices of transportation change with the location of the housing; often affordable housing is isolated and offers few choices.

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spends more to live near the beach being less well off than someone further inland who spends less for a bigger house.

The challenge is not just about how we can pay for a house to live in, we must also consider the larger social and climate costs of our choices. Carbon outputs are significantly affected by the housing sector. Carbon costs are incurred by the choice of building materials used in construction, house size, appliances and machines (especially those that heat and cool the air inside – the bigger the house, the more air) but, most dramatically, in the distances driven by the cars belonging to the occupants.

As calculated by Fuller and Crawford in 2011, the carbon footprint of a city is largely determined by the form and distribution of housing across that city since the most significant carbon output arises from patterns of private transportation, most significantly from the impact of commuting patterns: the daily driving to and from work, schools and recreation.

Dealing with the Challenges of Affordability Many communities seek to address this by containing the sprawl. In such communities, Downs says ‘growth management’ is articulated as a ‘strategy to direct investments and to influence outcomes toward affordability, engaging planning, regulatory and fiscal authority of state and local government to influence patterns of growth and development in order to meet projected needs’.

The goal of growth management, as summarised by Downs, is to ‘preserve if not enhance the provision of public goods’, which he identifies as minimising negative externalities and public fiscal costs, maximising social equity and enhancing quality of life. This latter he articulates further as comprising of satisfaction with housing and neighbourhood quality, including flexibility in choices and locations.

Downs also observes that growth-management policies must be adopted as integral components of regulatory regimes, with projected outcomes.

Communities are beginning to recognise that containing sprawl is only part of the answer, and that the opportunity for a good quality of life at an affordable cost in a supportive community should be considered. In Victoria, VicUrban defines affordable living as ‘quality affordable housing that is located close to services, transport, employment and community facilities’. In this statement, it is suggested that affordability implies addressing all living costs, including components beyond housing.

Thus, affordability is more than just the cost of the house and the mortgage rate; it relies on infrastructure that enhances our capacity to live a life of some quality. Public transportation, parks, public spaces and other community infrastructures are all components to affordable living, as illustrated on the opposite page.

The concept of ‘affordable living’ is greater than the financial cost of living and housing. Affordable living considers the way in which

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Affordable Living

we live and move around, the resources we use and the wellbeing of our existing and future communities. As the Sunshine Coast Regional Council articulated in 2010, their understanding of affordable living is as follows:

‘Living on the Sunshine Coast is affordable -

The community has access to a good standard

of living, adequate housing that is affordable,

employment opportunities, sustainable

transport choices and education that meet

their needs. There is social harmony and

community wellbeing with opportunities for

personal fulfilment and engagement. There

is good leadership and high degrees of social

capital. People’s needs guide the distribution of

resources; economic growth shares wealth and

opportunity amongst the region. Innovation is

encouraged and current lifestyle aspirations are

met without compromising the ability of future

generations to meet their own needs.’

The types of housing offered and the configuration of a city make a difference. The survey by Bretherton and Pleace of respondents in England and Scotland found that ‘only a few residents wanted to live in a detached home in suburbia or a rural area. Many preferred to live in a city and this was often one of the reasons why they chose to live in their current home.’ As they reported, ‘residents were attracted to their homes because they were near amenities and public transport was good. In fact the urban setting was viewed by many as an attractive point, and it is where developments had been largely successful.’

So how do we deliver affordable living? Earlier we suggested incremental changes. We can also think more radically. A group of young architects and designers in London in the 1960s formed Archigram, the name a contraction of architectural telegram. They had something important to say about architecture

High-rise affordable living in a volumetric configuration in which green space is available on only the ground plane. Work, play, live and socialise all in one volume.

Further Reading

Affordable Living Berry, M. (2003). Why is it Important to Boost the Supply of Affordable Housing in Australia – and How Can We Do it? Urban Policy & Research, 21, 413–435.Bray, J. (2001). Hardship in Australia: An Analysis of Financial Stress Indicators in the 1998-99 Australian Bureau of Statistics Household Expenditure Survey, FaHCSIA Occasional Paper No. 4.Bretherton, J., Pleace, N. (2008). Residents’ views of new forms of high density affordable living, in Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York, 71.Brown, M., Southworth, F., Sarzynski, A. (2008). Shrinking the carbon footprint of metropolitan America, Brookings, Washington DC.Brugmann, J. (2009). Welcome to the urban revolution: how cities are changing the world, Bloomsbury Press, New York.Crompton, D., Johnston, P. and Kunsthalle Wien. (1994). A Guide to Archigram, 1961–74, Academy Editions London.Downs, A. (2004). Growth management and affordable housing: do they conflict?, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, D.C.Fuller, R., Crawford, R. (2011). Impact of past and future residential housing development patterns on energy demand and related emissions, Journal of housing and the built environment, 26, 165–183.Sunshine Coast Regional Council (2010). Affordable Living Strategy 2010–2020, in Sunshine Coast Council. VicUrban: 2011, Affordable Living. http://www.vicurban.com/cs/Satellite?c=VPage&cid=1168844488404&pagename=VicUrban%2FLayout