Perth's population explosion will either make it the best place in Australia, or the worst, to live. Source: News Limited
PERTH'S population explosion will either make it the best place in Australia to live or an expensive, sprawling city plagued by congestion, according to a high-profile think tank.
The Committee for Perth say new projections that at least 3.9 million people will call Perth home by 2050 - and possibly as many as 5.4 million - should be a "game changer" in how the city is planned.
Research carried out by the organisation paints a bleak picture if Perth - currently home to 1.9 million people - continues on a "business as usual" approach to its growth.
If the right planning doesn't occur, when Perth's population reaches five million people we can expect:
*The size of the city's urban footprint will nearly triple to an estimated 15,700sqkm. The footprint would exceed that of Tokyo today, but have just one seventh the population;
*congestion will increase journey times by an average of 180% across the day and 300% in peak periods. A commuter currently spending one hour each way getting to and from work in peak periods will spend nearly three hours;
*there will be four to five million vehicles in Perth, meaning the city would have 15% more cars than are in London today, but 50% fewer people.
*house prices will rise to more than 16 times median income (up from 3.9 times in 2000 and 6.5 times today);
*an additional 30,636 hectares of bush land will need to be cleared and;
*more than three million people will live more than 20km from the CBD;
Based on current trends, Perth's population will grow the fastest of any Australian city and overtake Brisbane in about 15 years' time when they both reach three million people.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics' mid-range growth projection, 5.5 million people will live in Perth by 2061, compared with Melbourne (8.6 million people), Sydney (8.5 million) and Brisbane (4.8 million).
"This is a game changer. It means that we potentially have less than 40 years to more than double the number of houses, roads, public transport, hospitals, schools and services than have been built in the region over the past 185 years," Committee for Perth CEO Marion Fulker said.
"As a region we have been blindsided by the rapid population growth in the region over the past decade. We have collectively continued operating on a business as usual pathway, when reality has been anything but."
But with a shared vision, Mrs Fulker says growth doesn't need to be seen as a negative and the future is still in Perth's hands to maintain its status as one of the world's most livable cities.
"Now is the time to embrace new ways of living by providing a wide range of housing choices in the inner and middle ring suburbs to stem the urban sprawl," she said.
"By developing an integrated public transport system across the metro area we can become the highest public transport users in the country meaning we will be less car dependent, less congested, more productive and with a great quality of life yet without a much greater footprint that we currently have."
Professor Peter Newman, director of the Curtin University Sustainability Institute, said the expansion of the city's railway system demonstrated how growth can be capitalised on to improve a city.
"Growth is something to be feared if you just let it overwhelm you, but it's something to be welcomed if you take the opportunities and put them to use in creating a better future," he said.
He advocates major investment in public transport infrastructure, higher density living near railway stations and greater priority given to redevelopment schemes, such as at Subi Centro.
In 2008, urban planner Professor Richard Weller authored a book which proposed various ways higher density living could redesign Perth for the 21st century.
But five years on from the publication of Boomtown 2050, Prof Weller said Perth was destined to become "the biggest lowest density city on earth".
"Unless the policy and culture changes radically I think you are more or less looking at doubling its current dimensions. So we might as well accept that Lancelin and Bunbury will become Perth's outer suburbs," the former University of Western Australia professor said.
But the body which represents WA's property development industry said the greenfield developments on Perth's fringe were masterplanned communities of higher density than the more established suburbs.
Debra Goostrey, chief executive office at the WA branch of the Urban Development Institute of Australia, said it was crucial employment opportunities were created near these new communities to the north and south, saying the notion of the CBD "being the centre of universe was not necessarily the way of the future".
"There are enormous opportunities for well-planned communities, rather than just suburbs that sprawl. Nobody wants to see homogeneous suburbs that go on-and-on as far as the eye can see. That is not good planning, but that does not mean that geographically you might not
have a reasonable spread," Mrs Goostrey said.
The Department of Planning said its Directions 2031 and Beyond report, published in 2010, provided a planning framework for what the State needs to do to cope with the predicted population growth.
A spokeswoman said a number of new planning documents will build on the strategy, including a new vision for Perth and Peel which anticipates a doubling of the population to 3.5 million people.
Three sub-regional structure plans for the north-east; north-west; and south metropolitan and Peel regions are expected to be released for public comment in 2014, she added.
Perth's medium growth population projection
2013: 1.9 million people
2020: 2.5m
2025: 2.8m
2030: 3.2m
2035: 3.5m
2040: 3.9m
2045: 4.3m
2050: 4.6m
2055: 5m
2061: 5.5m
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics
