Give me a single unit dwelling anytime … no skyscrapers for me! and that’s just because I’d prefer not to have to deal with riding an elevator every time I want/have to go out, not to mention that I’d probably have to pay for parking in a commercial garage somewhere, which may not be in close proximity to the building where I live!
Ernie
I copped a similar view, sans the fog, on my flight back from Melbourne yesterday morning - I should have bumped over to the window and taken a photo (I was on an aisle seat - but the 2 adjacent seats were unoccupied - so I was able to stretch out (I’m 193 centimetres [ 6’4"] but refuse to pay extra for more legroom)…
But this was pretty much my view on the approach to Perth Airport :
But FAR FAR FAR less ecologic! I don’t know a huge amount about Sydney, but both Melbourne and Perth suffer from hideous urban sprawl - construction booms building every family with 2.5 kids a brick box on a quarter acre… It’s unsustainable… and never any infrastructure around them - just shopping malls (where the 2.5 kids hang out [lurk and loiter] when they’re teenagers) - and often no proper public transport - so everyone has to drive everywhere - both parents working so two cars in every driveway..
In Perth we’ve already logged the shit out of the jarrah forests (and aluminium / bauxite mining the rest!), and other woodland on the coastal plain and drained and filled in natural wetlands for new housing estates…
And 25-30 years ago where there used to be huge areas of productive market gardens on what was once the outskirts of Perth - there are now vast arrays of housing estates…
And more often than not - those housing estates are treeless monocultures of exotic species (non-native) and GREEN GRASS LAWNS… No tree canopy? That can increase the temperature by 2-3 degrees celsuis or more…
Personally - skyscrapers aren’t so bad - but - I don’t like being up that high - theres one skyscraper on the far left of that photo - it’s called QV1 - I’ve worked on the 19th, 23rd, and 24th floor - I get acrophobia… So there’s no way I could live in a huge high rise apartment block unless I was like the 1st, 2nd or ground floors (note to Americans : in the Anglosphere, the first floor is on top of the ground floor, and we call them storeys, not stories!).
And - that cityscape is on a small scale compared to Melbourne and Sydney…
Also - as far as “vertical” is concerned - for housing - in a hot mostly dry place like Perth - surely going underground would make some sense - but - then I suppose - how do you get natural light into a subterranean construction during winter?
Not sure about that. in principle , any degree of self sustainability ie gardens and trees and chooks around a house, has to be better than total reliance on imports … just because of transport and distribution issues
I was not advocating urban sprawl … I meant semi-rural sprawl… like you describe 25 years ago. if we had 5 acre blocks all the way from Perth to Adelaide or Broome, would that not be better.? I know there are issues like water, but that can be solved,… we are just taking the easy way out and going up.
I think Aust could be like England in the Middle Ages … covered with little rural villages with surrounding farmland. Urbanisation is the problem, not the solution. Urbanisation came with the industrial revolution. We can reverse that mistake.
Use what I use for a windowless bathroom: https://solatube.com/
Has been working trouble-free for 20+ years.
You build into a north facing slope , and leave the northern wall above ground with windows.
