Hyper-density and why we need it

Batophobia (from the Greek batos, meaning passable): the fear of being in, or close to, tall buildings. It’s a phobia I didn't know existed until I came to WA where it seems to be a widespread affliction. 

I’ve often wondered why, and it may be linked to the two first observations I made about the WA landscape when I arrived here over 25 years ago. 

The first thing I noticed was that the sky was really big. I came from a place where there are clouds – lots of them. Low large ones, and they hang around much of the time. Seeing an expanse of blue sky was a novelty. In the UK, there are hills (proper ones, not mere undulations of the ground), tall trees, buildings and narrow streets that reduce the amount of sky that can be seen at one time. In the relatively flat and open landscape of Perth’s suburbs, the expansiveness of the sky is revealed in all of its glory.

The second thing I noticed was that the native trees were so short. I come from a place where trees stretch toward whatever light is available and are constantly drenched with rain, which gives them the strength to reach up to that brief smattering of daylight. In the blinding sun and relatively arid landscape of WA, it’s as if native trees are keeping a low profile to conserve their energy.

Why is this relevant? In the context of the prevailing low, flat landscape of the Swan coastal plain, buildings seem bigger and more noticeable than they would anywhere else.

I’ve also lost count of the number of times at a community forum a Perthling has said “Buildings should be no more than three storeys, just like great European cities such as Barcelona and Paris”. Well, I’d acknowledge that there are bijou backstreet pockets of those cities with three-storey buildings but, the last time I looked, most of the streetscapes in those fine cities were between five and eight storeys in height. Maybe our local armchair planning experts have never been to a European city. Maybe they saw a French village on TV and assumed it was Paris, or, maybe, WA has an archaic counting system that simply extends to “one, two, three, heaps”. 

Anyway, I guess for a Perthling brought up entirely in a suburb where almost every house is single-storey, even a three-storey building will look massive, let alone a 30-storey building. 

Returning to Europe (as I have often done), it is fair to say that buildings of around five to six storeys prevail across most cities. It’s a good height. At five to six storeys, it’s not so high that you absolutely need to use a lift. At five storeys, you can stand on an upper floor balcony and recognise, and converse, with someone on the ground.  At five to six storeys, buildings are much the same height as the ubiquitous Plane trees and, so, don't stand out in the landscape. At five to six storeys, buildings are reasonably easy and cost-effective to build. 

When you have buildings of five to six storeys filled with apartments, and enough of them, you have the population to support the ‘goodies’ that make urban life fun and convenient – an array of shops, cafes, restaurants, bars within walking distance. Maybe even your place of work. In this type of place, car ownership becomes a choice rather than a necessity and public transport is able to become a convenient and cost-effective option for getting around town.

The catch is that a mere sprinkling of five to six-storey buildings is not enough to deliver the ‘goodies’. They need to be spread throughout the city as a whole. That is how European cities work. The central parts of European cities were built before cars were a thing. Everything you needed had to be within walking distance, and that good habit has continued into the suburbs as the cities grew.

A comparison between Perth and Vienna (the world’s most liveable city) is illuminating. Both cities have a similar population. Yet, Vienna has an enviable public transport system, and a much smaller footprint. If you dropped Vienna on Perth, it would fit between the Swan River and Joondalup, If Perth were Vienna, everywhere south of the river and north of Joondalup would be unnecessary.

And, that gets us to why suburban cities, such as Perth, aren’t sustainable. Suburban sprawl is car-dependant and there comes a point were servicing suburbia with sufficient roads for convenient car use becomes too hard and too expensive. 

To truly overcome car dependency in Perth using building at five to six storeys, and turn it into a sort of Vienna, we’d need to completely redevelop vast swathes of suburbia. That’s not going to happen. Forget it. It’s hard enough to get approval for one five to six-storey building, let alone on every lot across a third of the Perth and Peel metro area. And, even if we redeveloped enough of Perth to accommodate all of us in in five to six-storey buildings, we’d still have heaps of suburbia, with its inherent problems, left over.

The answer for Perth lies in the strategic use of ‘hyper-density’. I’m using that term somewhat reluctantly, but, in WA, medium-density is often single-storey and high density is not really that high. For the purpose of the argument, in the Perth context, let’s call anything above, say 15-storeys hyper dense. 

At 30 storeys, an apartment tower is equivalent to around five buildings at five storeys (yes, I know the numbers don't appear to add up, but development yield is complicated). That means with hyper-density we only need to redevelop a much smaller part of our city to deliver local ‘goodies’, support frequent and meaningful public transport and reduce car-dependency, rather than spreading the pain everywhere. It also means that much of the suburbia that Perthlings like, can remain. In addition, strategically located injections of hyper-density would provide the means to deliver the local ‘goodies’ that many suburbs don't have. 

Of course, the big question for planners is; where should that hyper-density go? At a community forum in Scarborough a few years ago, one resident suggested that all of the proposed apartment towers should be built in Innaloo because, “that’s where the poor people live” (and over the other side of the hill from his house).  Whilst Innaloo makes sense because it has a railway station, shops and jobs, treating hyper-density as a means to house the less fortunate is simply repeating mistakes of the post-war period. For hyper-density to work sustainably, yes, it needs to go where it can support the ‘goodies’ along with convenient and frequent public transport, but it also needs to go in the nice places where people actually want to live. That means the ‘nice places’ need to be prepared to grow up.

The moral of the story, dear friends, is that if we want a more sustainable future for our city, we need to do more than just raise the height of the bar a little bit everywhere, we need to raise the bar significantly in the best places.