Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Bob Birrell, wrong.

Reflecting on a seminar I went to, quite a while ago, I remembered Dr Bob Birrell from Monash University's Centre for Population and Urban Research (CPUR) saying something like "people want to live in the fringe suburbs---that's why they build them."

The inner economist in me wanted to question this. "Don't people show what they want by how much they're willing to pay to get it?" That's pretty fundamental to economics. If somebody wants one thing more than another, they will pay more for it. Consistent with this, when one person's income increases, their capacity to afford what they want increases, and so their consumption of desirable goods increases.

So do people really want to live in the fringe suburbs, as Dr Birrell would have us believe?

It would seem not. People live in the fringe suburbs because of budget constraints. As many times as you tap your toes together, the fact people pay more per square foot to live close to public amenities (and life) seems not to go away.

Shouldn't we be looking at why the outer suburbs are cheap, and assessing why they are so, determining it is because they are not inner suburbs, and designing future fringe developments like inner suburbs? I think so.

1 comment:

May said...

You should argue this one out with Wilma.