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Breaking Point: The Future of Australian Cities
The way we plan and build cities in Australia needs to change. Australia’s population is growing: between 2017 and 2046 it is projected to increase by 11.8 million, the equivalent of adding a city the size of Canberra each year for thirty years. Most of this growth will occur in the major cities, and already its effects are being felt: inner-city property prices are skyrocketing and the more affordable middle and outer suburbs lack essential services and infrastructure. The result is inequality: while wealthy inner-city dwellers enjoy access to government-subsidised services – public transport, cultural and sporting facilities – new home buyers, pushed further out, pay the lion’s share of the costs. So how can we create affordable housing for everyone and still get them to work in the morning? What does sustainable urban development look like? In this timely critique of our nation’s urban development and planning culture, Peter Seamer argues that vested interests often distort rational thinking on our cities. Looking to the future, he sets out cogent new strategies to resolve congestion, transport and expenditure problems, offering a blueprint for multi-centred Australian cities that are more localised, urban and equitable in nature.
- GenresNonfictionAustralia
300 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 5, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 7, 2026
Breaking Point is a book-length defence of two main ideas: first, that we should take some of the 'weight' out of CBDs by spreading some of their activity into greater metropolitan and even regional areas; and, second, that radial transport (i.e., transport more or less directly into and out of CBDs) is bad, or at least suboptimal, or overused.
In urban planning terms, he argues for polycentrism and localisation.
Polycentrism refers to the presence of multiple centres of activity within a metropolitan region. This means that the CBD would not be the sole location of specialised services. For example, in a polycentric metropolitan area, such as Greater Sydney or Greater Melbourne, the CBD could remain as the hub of government and financial services, but the hubs for sport, arts, education and research, industry, etc., would be located in other, separate, non-CBD locations. A great example of this is the Greater Tokyo Area, which doesn't have a single CBD but instead has multiple competing centres of activity across its multiple wards (all serviced, it must be said, by a distinctly not-radial metro system).
Localisation here means adapting planning strategies to particular local contexts. It also refers to Seamer's plan to decentre the CBD by localising and centralising services in smaller town centres (e.g., catchments of ~10,000 people).
All are fine ideas. But he never makes a really great case for them.
For example, readers have to wait until page 193 for Seamer to directly tackle the question of how to stimulate economic and social activity in local centres. After all that wait, he spends a whopping single paragraph each on mixed-use zoning and the necessity of having one all-purpose supermarket per 10,000 people (or put another way, no local catchment of ~10,000 people can survive without a supermarket in its local centre). He then pathetically wraps up this brief aside into one of the two main topics of his entire book by suggesting that ‘surely there are other solutions on the horizon’. What a cop out!
He then briefly addresses the topic of developing regional areas. This is an important part of the localisation story, as the logical extension of the plan to move people from CBDs into metropolitan local centres is to further move them onto regional areas. But he offers one sobering fact: the overwhelming majority of population growth for the foreseeable future will occur in our capital cities. Even if the rate of migration to regional areas doubles, it will still only just keep pace with the rate of growth of cities and thus will not reduce the problems of rapid city growth. This means that localisation of metro populations into regional areas is important but will not ever by itself be a solution to the problem of metropolitan and CBD congestion and overweight.
A brief case study of the economic growth of regional areas shows that lasting population growth in regional areas is normally only possible in places that have strong economic fundamentals: e.g., Newcastle had coal, Wollongong steel, Canberra bureaucracy, etc. This makes cause prioritisation in Federal government funding for regional economic development a tad easier. First, search for regional areas with strong economic fundamentals; then, filter for regional areas close to metropolitan areas; funnel funding there. But, of course, legacy industries (manufacturing, coal, etc.) can die off.
In response to these issues, and as well as to a Grattan Institute report's conclusion that it is economically inefficient and borderline immoral from a purely utilitarian point of view to fund regions instead of cities, Seamer offers no rebuttals stronger than his insistence that decentralisation and localisation just do need to happen. It's not very convincing.
He did, however, raise the very important point that one of the main draws of regions to city-leavers is their superior amenity, which extends to their architectural amenity. Regions, such as Newcastle, the second oldest city in Australia, are often very old, and have a rich built heritage. Preserving built heritage is not only valuable in its own right but is valuable as a strategy to lure city-leavers to the regions. Between two regions that are otherwise on a par with each other, you would likely move to the one with the more beautiful, historic architecture. Preserving built heritage in the regions is sound long-term economic strategy, even though it imposes short-term costs for builders and operators the red tape of heritage management processes.
Seamer offers a few other, non-transport-related reasons for polycentrism and localisation. This book was published a few months before COVID started, and his ideas bout work from home are prescient. He cites a study that shows that a small % increase in WingFH reduces road congestion by about as much as would be absorbed by a large metro project, but at none of the cost, potentially saving and reallocating billions of dollars away from now-unneeded metro projects. He wrote too about flexible work, in particular about staggering work start times across the day, to spread congestion out over a longer time period. I think increasing the rates of hybrid work and flexible, asynchronous work for, e.g., lots of white collars workers is a straightforward net-benefit for society.
He also grapples with the needs of our ageing populations, who should be allowed to age in place, to be able to grow old in the communities they've spent their lives in. The localisation of services would permit them to do this; the alternatives, which include sprawling retirement villages and high-rises close to transport nodes and the CBD, force them to leave their communities and their sources of support and isolate themselves in built environments that deprive them of independence. The retirement villages, in particular, are gross examples of isolating sprawl, built far away from services, which in any case are only accessible by car.
Local centres that allow seniors to age in place prolong independence and provide opportunities for incidental connection. They must be walkable and thus necessitate the construction and maintenance of extensive footpath networks; they should be cool and shaded from the sun, especially as our world warms, which necessitates the planting of a very dense tree canopy; and they should be mixed-use, so that seniors in the cool and the shade to most of their services.
This is all well and good. But so far these arguments in support of the localisation and polycentrism theses have said nothing about why CBD dominance is bad. And to be honest, I don't remember him saying much about why it's bad except that it causes traffic congestion and that the construction of radial traffic networks that service the CBD are inequitable (because they provide more amenity to people living in the CBD, i.e., to the most well-off). He doesn't adequately address the phenomenon of agglomeration. He doesn't say why self-driving cars would lead to less rather than more car use and thus more congestion. He assumes, with minimal evidence, that in the future self-driving cars will be so dominant a mode of transport that strategic planners ought to start planning for their eventual dominance now. As evidence of this, he quoted Elon Musk's "prediction" that full-self-driving vehicles will be widely used by ~2020. That Seamer used Musk's self-promotion to defend his utopian vision of the future city is frankly so idiotic as to be discrediting.
Australia is growing very quickly. And the vast majority of that growth will occur in our capital cities; and the vast majority of those will occur in our two primate cities, Sydney and Melbourne. Seamer makes passable arguments for the benefits of localisation and polycentrism, but he fails to market them as solutions to the problem of rapid population growth in our cities and CBDs. for two reasons. First, he needed to make a much stronger case that traffic congestion and traffic-related social inequities are severe enough problems to warrant the decentralisation of our cities. But he comprehensively fails to do that. And second, he needed to make a much stronger case for the assertion that localisation and polycentrism will solve the many problems of rapid population growth. And he comprehensively failed to do that. In fact, he quoted data that suggests that even under the most optimistic, and thus unlikely, assumptions, decentralisation and polycentrism will keep these problems as bad as they are but won't make them any better.
Despite that, this was an important and generative read. It gave me lots of insights. Australia is unique in the world for having two equally dominant primate cities, Sydney and Melbourne, and they, along with our other capital cities, have made Australia among the most highly urbanised countries in the world. That fact, combined with our forecast massive population growth over the coming decades, present many pressing problems. There are a few good ideas in this book that provide small contributions to this problem--more mixed-use zoning, streamlined development assessment processes and permissions, more footpaths, more trees, better and smarter regulation of micro-mobility devices such as e-scooters, and so on--but the main thing this book gave me was the belief, as the author has vast experience in city planning, that Australia needs much more and better research into these problems and their solutions. If this man is an expert, and if this is the best he can offer, then we're in dire straits indeed.
But what fun! That means there's so much room for research and comment.
Addendum 13/9/26: perhaps the main fault of this book is its bad formatting/structure. It jumps around a lot, has no narrative thrust, circles back in a haphazard fashion to topics it's already tackled, etc. Makes it unnecessarily confused and confusing.
His deus ex machina faith that autonomous vehicles will solve lots of urban planning problems isn't problematic per se. It's more that he doesn't make clear and obvious how fundamentally important it is to his argument. A good analogy is the philosophical system of Spinoza's Ethics. Spinoza's elaborate ethical system stands and falls on the basis of a few key axioms: reject the axioms, and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. But Spinoza makes these axioms clear. He lays out his beliefs in a stepwise fashion: first this; if that, then this; and if that, then this; etc. The logical relationships of his arguments are crystal.
But Seamer doesn't ever make his axioms and their implications crystal. Worse, he never argues for his axiom. He never says, "this is why I believe autonomous vehicles will become a dominant mode of transport in the near future", aside from mentioning a few marketing predictions by Musk et al. He also never says, "it is beyond the scope of this book to argue this point, so for the sake of brevity I will refer you to these sources and in this book will simply assume that this will happen". He also doesn't make contingency plans, i.e., plans for what to do if his vision of the future doesn't pan out. He's just not a very careful or serious thinker.
In urban planning terms, he argues for polycentrism and localisation.
Polycentrism refers to the presence of multiple centres of activity within a metropolitan region. This means that the CBD would not be the sole location of specialised services. For example, in a polycentric metropolitan area, such as Greater Sydney or Greater Melbourne, the CBD could remain as the hub of government and financial services, but the hubs for sport, arts, education and research, industry, etc., would be located in other, separate, non-CBD locations. A great example of this is the Greater Tokyo Area, which doesn't have a single CBD but instead has multiple competing centres of activity across its multiple wards (all serviced, it must be said, by a distinctly not-radial metro system).
Localisation here means adapting planning strategies to particular local contexts. It also refers to Seamer's plan to decentre the CBD by localising and centralising services in smaller town centres (e.g., catchments of ~10,000 people).
All are fine ideas. But he never makes a really great case for them.
For example, readers have to wait until page 193 for Seamer to directly tackle the question of how to stimulate economic and social activity in local centres. After all that wait, he spends a whopping single paragraph each on mixed-use zoning and the necessity of having one all-purpose supermarket per 10,000 people (or put another way, no local catchment of ~10,000 people can survive without a supermarket in its local centre). He then pathetically wraps up this brief aside into one of the two main topics of his entire book by suggesting that ‘surely there are other solutions on the horizon’. What a cop out!
He then briefly addresses the topic of developing regional areas. This is an important part of the localisation story, as the logical extension of the plan to move people from CBDs into metropolitan local centres is to further move them onto regional areas. But he offers one sobering fact: the overwhelming majority of population growth for the foreseeable future will occur in our capital cities. Even if the rate of migration to regional areas doubles, it will still only just keep pace with the rate of growth of cities and thus will not reduce the problems of rapid city growth. This means that localisation of metro populations into regional areas is important but will not ever by itself be a solution to the problem of metropolitan and CBD congestion and overweight.
A brief case study of the economic growth of regional areas shows that lasting population growth in regional areas is normally only possible in places that have strong economic fundamentals: e.g., Newcastle had coal, Wollongong steel, Canberra bureaucracy, etc. This makes cause prioritisation in Federal government funding for regional economic development a tad easier. First, search for regional areas with strong economic fundamentals; then, filter for regional areas close to metropolitan areas; funnel funding there. But, of course, legacy industries (manufacturing, coal, etc.) can die off.
In response to these issues, and as well as to a Grattan Institute report's conclusion that it is economically inefficient and borderline immoral from a purely utilitarian point of view to fund regions instead of cities, Seamer offers no rebuttals stronger than his insistence that decentralisation and localisation just do need to happen. It's not very convincing.
He did, however, raise the very important point that one of the main draws of regions to city-leavers is their superior amenity, which extends to their architectural amenity. Regions, such as Newcastle, the second oldest city in Australia, are often very old, and have a rich built heritage. Preserving built heritage is not only valuable in its own right but is valuable as a strategy to lure city-leavers to the regions. Between two regions that are otherwise on a par with each other, you would likely move to the one with the more beautiful, historic architecture. Preserving built heritage in the regions is sound long-term economic strategy, even though it imposes short-term costs for builders and operators the red tape of heritage management processes.
Seamer offers a few other, non-transport-related reasons for polycentrism and localisation. This book was published a few months before COVID started, and his ideas bout work from home are prescient. He cites a study that shows that a small % increase in WingFH reduces road congestion by about as much as would be absorbed by a large metro project, but at none of the cost, potentially saving and reallocating billions of dollars away from now-unneeded metro projects. He wrote too about flexible work, in particular about staggering work start times across the day, to spread congestion out over a longer time period. I think increasing the rates of hybrid work and flexible, asynchronous work for, e.g., lots of white collars workers is a straightforward net-benefit for society.
He also grapples with the needs of our ageing populations, who should be allowed to age in place, to be able to grow old in the communities they've spent their lives in. The localisation of services would permit them to do this; the alternatives, which include sprawling retirement villages and high-rises close to transport nodes and the CBD, force them to leave their communities and their sources of support and isolate themselves in built environments that deprive them of independence. The retirement villages, in particular, are gross examples of isolating sprawl, built far away from services, which in any case are only accessible by car.
Local centres that allow seniors to age in place prolong independence and provide opportunities for incidental connection. They must be walkable and thus necessitate the construction and maintenance of extensive footpath networks; they should be cool and shaded from the sun, especially as our world warms, which necessitates the planting of a very dense tree canopy; and they should be mixed-use, so that seniors in the cool and the shade to most of their services.
This is all well and good. But so far these arguments in support of the localisation and polycentrism theses have said nothing about why CBD dominance is bad. And to be honest, I don't remember him saying much about why it's bad except that it causes traffic congestion and that the construction of radial traffic networks that service the CBD are inequitable (because they provide more amenity to people living in the CBD, i.e., to the most well-off). He doesn't adequately address the phenomenon of agglomeration. He doesn't say why self-driving cars would lead to less rather than more car use and thus more congestion. He assumes, with minimal evidence, that in the future self-driving cars will be so dominant a mode of transport that strategic planners ought to start planning for their eventual dominance now. As evidence of this, he quoted Elon Musk's "prediction" that full-self-driving vehicles will be widely used by ~2020. That Seamer used Musk's self-promotion to defend his utopian vision of the future city is frankly so idiotic as to be discrediting.
Australia is growing very quickly. And the vast majority of that growth will occur in our capital cities; and the vast majority of those will occur in our two primate cities, Sydney and Melbourne. Seamer makes passable arguments for the benefits of localisation and polycentrism, but he fails to market them as solutions to the problem of rapid population growth in our cities and CBDs. for two reasons. First, he needed to make a much stronger case that traffic congestion and traffic-related social inequities are severe enough problems to warrant the decentralisation of our cities. But he comprehensively fails to do that. And second, he needed to make a much stronger case for the assertion that localisation and polycentrism will solve the many problems of rapid population growth. And he comprehensively failed to do that. In fact, he quoted data that suggests that even under the most optimistic, and thus unlikely, assumptions, decentralisation and polycentrism will keep these problems as bad as they are but won't make them any better.
Despite that, this was an important and generative read. It gave me lots of insights. Australia is unique in the world for having two equally dominant primate cities, Sydney and Melbourne, and they, along with our other capital cities, have made Australia among the most highly urbanised countries in the world. That fact, combined with our forecast massive population growth over the coming decades, present many pressing problems. There are a few good ideas in this book that provide small contributions to this problem--more mixed-use zoning, streamlined development assessment processes and permissions, more footpaths, more trees, better and smarter regulation of micro-mobility devices such as e-scooters, and so on--but the main thing this book gave me was the belief, as the author has vast experience in city planning, that Australia needs much more and better research into these problems and their solutions. If this man is an expert, and if this is the best he can offer, then we're in dire straits indeed.
But what fun! That means there's so much room for research and comment.
Addendum 13/9/26: perhaps the main fault of this book is its bad formatting/structure. It jumps around a lot, has no narrative thrust, circles back in a haphazard fashion to topics it's already tackled, etc. Makes it unnecessarily confused and confusing.
His deus ex machina faith that autonomous vehicles will solve lots of urban planning problems isn't problematic per se. It's more that he doesn't make clear and obvious how fundamentally important it is to his argument. A good analogy is the philosophical system of Spinoza's Ethics. Spinoza's elaborate ethical system stands and falls on the basis of a few key axioms: reject the axioms, and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. But Spinoza makes these axioms clear. He lays out his beliefs in a stepwise fashion: first this; if that, then this; and if that, then this; etc. The logical relationships of his arguments are crystal.
But Seamer doesn't ever make his axioms and their implications crystal. Worse, he never argues for his axiom. He never says, "this is why I believe autonomous vehicles will become a dominant mode of transport in the near future", aside from mentioning a few marketing predictions by Musk et al. He also never says, "it is beyond the scope of this book to argue this point, so for the sake of brevity I will refer you to these sources and in this book will simply assume that this will happen". He also doesn't make contingency plans, i.e., plans for what to do if his vision of the future doesn't pan out. He's just not a very careful or serious thinker.
May 24, 2020
Peter Seamer wants Australian cities to be less dependent on their central business districts. A highly experienced former CEO of the Victorian Planning Authority, he argues that there is too much of a gap between high value inner city jobs and where people live. He contends that Australian governments are spending too much on building and operating radial transport networks that get people in and out of the central city at peak hour. Rather than move people from their homes to where the jobs are, Seamer would prefer that the jobs are located closer to where people live, in the suburbs. His vision is for a series of alternative CBDs scattered throughout the suburbs.
That's all very well for a utopian vision, but beyond the inclusion of activity centres on strategic city plans and the provision of orbital transport routes, Seamer does not really present a convincing plan for how this might be achieved. Like many strategic planners, he at times reverts to the notion that we should 'move' businesses to these activity centres. That is, of course, not the way that business works. Businesses locate where it makes sense for them to do so - where they can find the optimal combination of labour, land, capital, knowledge and entrepreneurship. The productivity of central cities eclipses the suburbs; Seamer does not really grapple with the logical consequences of constraining the growth of inner cities - lower productivity growth and lower living standards.
Seamer's arguments are not always in line with research. His case is built on his belief that the future will soon be dominated by self-driving Ubers, making private car ownership redundant. I'm not convinced we can yet conclude this with such certainty. The City of Melbourne is not just home to 24% of Melbourne's jobs, it accounts for 37% of Melbourne's economic output. He argues that inner suburban residents are subsidised by other Melbourne residents, yet does not provide any research to substantiate this (I'm sceptical - the commuting distance of outer suburban residents is about three times as far as that of inner suburban residents).
Breaking Point represents itself as a book about Australia's cities, yet it is focussed almost exclusively on urban planning. Seamer argues that cities are for people, but does not consider that more than this, they are constituted of people. Many things have made our cities the way they are - immigration, education, transport, trade, research, industries, environments and urban planning. Seamer engages with only one or two of these.
Nevertheless, this is a thought provoking read and I thoroughly enjoyed engaging with its arguments. It's a valuable contribution to the debate about the future of Australian cities.
That's all very well for a utopian vision, but beyond the inclusion of activity centres on strategic city plans and the provision of orbital transport routes, Seamer does not really present a convincing plan for how this might be achieved. Like many strategic planners, he at times reverts to the notion that we should 'move' businesses to these activity centres. That is, of course, not the way that business works. Businesses locate where it makes sense for them to do so - where they can find the optimal combination of labour, land, capital, knowledge and entrepreneurship. The productivity of central cities eclipses the suburbs; Seamer does not really grapple with the logical consequences of constraining the growth of inner cities - lower productivity growth and lower living standards.
Seamer's arguments are not always in line with research. His case is built on his belief that the future will soon be dominated by self-driving Ubers, making private car ownership redundant. I'm not convinced we can yet conclude this with such certainty. The City of Melbourne is not just home to 24% of Melbourne's jobs, it accounts for 37% of Melbourne's economic output. He argues that inner suburban residents are subsidised by other Melbourne residents, yet does not provide any research to substantiate this (I'm sceptical - the commuting distance of outer suburban residents is about three times as far as that of inner suburban residents).
Breaking Point represents itself as a book about Australia's cities, yet it is focussed almost exclusively on urban planning. Seamer argues that cities are for people, but does not consider that more than this, they are constituted of people. Many things have made our cities the way they are - immigration, education, transport, trade, research, industries, environments and urban planning. Seamer engages with only one or two of these.
Nevertheless, this is a thought provoking read and I thoroughly enjoyed engaging with its arguments. It's a valuable contribution to the debate about the future of Australian cities.
February 19, 2024
It was refreshing to read an urban planning book about Australian cities, particularly Melbourne.
Although this book was a bit repetitive, there were some good evidence based arguments about radial public transport systems and retaining talent in regional hubs.
What I struggled with was how this (and most urban planning books to be honest) lack human insight. The arguments in the book were based around solving business problems rather than solving human problems like - if Monash becomes a central business district, how might people want to build a diverse community around a science hub?
Although this book was a bit repetitive, there were some good evidence based arguments about radial public transport systems and retaining talent in regional hubs.
What I struggled with was how this (and most urban planning books to be honest) lack human insight. The arguments in the book were based around solving business problems rather than solving human problems like - if Monash becomes a central business district, how might people want to build a diverse community around a science hub?
February 23, 2020
Hit me over the head with a brick, this is a repetitive essay expounding decentralising Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to reduce travel times between home and work.
After reading it, I am a convert to the polycentric city. But one of the reasons I don’t read much business non-fiction is that the authors tend to be one trick ponies: one idea bashed into you, chapter after chapter.
Given the length of the book, it could have explored other issues / examples that it did not touch on.
Such as the disastrous de-localisation of schools in Melbourne, and emphasis on private schools, that is feeding driving children to school. School children should go to their closest school, not have a choice to drive to another one, and governments shouldn’t subsidise private schools. It doesn’t make them any cheaper and it means children travel across town to get to their private school.
And beyond regional universities, there are essential services like hospitals and other attractors like art, eg. the roving Archibald exhibition in regional Victoria (in it’s home state it is shown in Sydney) and Bendigo Art Gallery’s fashion exhibitions.
After reading it, I am a convert to the polycentric city. But one of the reasons I don’t read much business non-fiction is that the authors tend to be one trick ponies: one idea bashed into you, chapter after chapter.
Given the length of the book, it could have explored other issues / examples that it did not touch on.
Such as the disastrous de-localisation of schools in Melbourne, and emphasis on private schools, that is feeding driving children to school. School children should go to their closest school, not have a choice to drive to another one, and governments shouldn’t subsidise private schools. It doesn’t make them any cheaper and it means children travel across town to get to their private school.
And beyond regional universities, there are essential services like hospitals and other attractors like art, eg. the roving Archibald exhibition in regional Victoria (in it’s home state it is shown in Sydney) and Bendigo Art Gallery’s fashion exhibitions.
August 16, 2019
This is an interesting examination of the issues facing Australian cities. Transport, housing urban design, population, jobs, infrastructure all come under the microscope as the author takes a critical look at the recent past, present and future of urban development, paying close attention to Melbourne and Sydney. Its packed full of interesting stats but has a bureaucratic tone which is probably for the target audience. As a more generalist reader I was put off by this tone and frustrated by the elitist and managerial mindset and approach to the issues.
October 30, 2019
Surely the best way to handle a problem such as this, is at the source - an ever increasing population. However the author used 200+ pages but not once did he examine - or even mention - the prospect of reducing the inflow either from immigration or from natural birth rates. He ignored the whole notion of a stable population base.
I would expect more from a man with the responsibility that he has shouldered over the years.
No wonder we are in a mess!
I would expect more from a man with the responsibility that he has shouldered over the years.
No wonder we are in a mess!
February 1, 2020
A fantastic overview of the past, present, and future of Australian urban life and the planning required, written by a somewhat opinionated, jaded, and partisan veteran of the planning industry in Victoria.
Would highly recommend reading it, but skip through sections where Seamer repeats himself for the 10th time, and keep an open mind that while he has a good knowledge of past events, his opinions and judgements on events list badly to one side of the political spectrum.
Would highly recommend reading it, but skip through sections where Seamer repeats himself for the 10th time, and keep an open mind that while he has a good knowledge of past events, his opinions and judgements on events list badly to one side of the political spectrum.
March 5, 2023
Not a lot on this topic and his main point (localised cities) is great. But man he is way off base with housing how cities effect different classes. Just a very mainstream lib bureaucrat, very smart but lacking that analysis makes r3al change.
March 19, 2019
An excellent book for any citizen of Australia, rural and urban (and likely outside of Australia too). Peter Seamer does a good job of explaining the problems facing our cities transport future and then does just as good a job providing feasible solutions, all well documented with data, justifications and case studies.
By the end of the book one is left imagining an Australia with regional growth, with affordable job opportunities in Australia's more beautiful but less central locations and wanting to get politically active and engage with their local government in achieving this. I would greatly love to see this book discussed by the public more.
My only complaints would be the sections on self driving cars are a lot more hypothetical and less data driven than the other sections, and at times the book is a little repetitive.
By the end of the book one is left imagining an Australia with regional growth, with affordable job opportunities in Australia's more beautiful but less central locations and wanting to get politically active and engage with their local government in achieving this. I would greatly love to see this book discussed by the public more.
My only complaints would be the sections on self driving cars are a lot more hypothetical and less data driven than the other sections, and at times the book is a little repetitive.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews