The Great Australian Dream (G.A.D.): take one quarter acre block, one freestanding house and add one family, and ferment.

During most of the 20th century, it was a possible dream. But no longer.

The demand to live in freestanding houses in major cities is becoming impossible – and undesirable. City residents become more car-dependent the further they live from the centre. But we are reaching the limits of growth, the point where we turn down the Los Angeles route to perpetual congestion instead of the New York/European density model.

After WWII, population shot up from seven million to the present 22 million – a threefold increase in 66 years. The demand for work and amenities led to our main cities ballooning in size, far outstripping the regions. As cars became affordable, enormous expanses of suburbia sprang up to furnish new residents with their allotted quantity of the G.A.D.

Our three biggest cities, the east coast trio of Sydney-Brisbane-Melbourne, continue to expand outward at speed. ABS projections show Melbourne should tip 7 million by 2050, overtaking Sydney by a million. What we’re doing to plan for that future should have us all worried.

– The rest at the ABC