Its 2008 and people still cheer for central planning ?

This disgraceful Age editorial (is there any other kind) by their "city editor" Royce Millar, calls for the Premier "to manage the city" ?!?!

Somebody needs a history lesson about central planning and big government bureaucracy.

Not only was it central to the communist system, and one of the first things written about in the communist manifesto by Marx and Engels, but since it was first tried after the Russian revolution in 1917, it has repeatedly and dramatically failed throughout all command economies. Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, China, Russia, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

Well.. that isn't going to stop some of the medics at The Age from prescribing the same poison to beautiful Melbourne. You see, despite the facts, somehow there are people who think their vision of society and their efforts at engineering an entire freakin city of individuals is a noble goal that deserves government intervention.

Usually we call these people authoritarian thugs

MANAGING a city cannot be easy. But it has to be done.

Melbourne 2030 was at least an acknowledgement that the city needed managing.

The strategy was built on three key premises: restricting growth through an urban growth boundary; making the city more compact by encouraging housing in designated activity centres; and a dramatic boost in public transport use.

Implementation has been poor on all three fronts. About 60% of new population growth is in fringe municipalities; the urban growth boundary will move to accommodate growth; apartment construction in established areas has increased, but mainly in the expensive central city. Public transport use is nominally up, but as a proportion of overall transport use it has been stagnant since 2002.
.....
Yesterday's changes do little to slow growth on the fringe, and despite prompting by 2030 auditor Professor Rob Moodie, the Government has not taken up the idea of specifying minimum dwelling densities on greenfield sites. Other than flagging another reworking of its transport plan, it gives little hope that public transport may soon be a practical alternative in the outer suburbs.

So lets summarise and cut through the double-speak. What are the ideas being suggested by our elites who work for the Spencer Street Soviet ?

• People are too dumb to choose where to live, and the government ought to force them to migrate to dense areas
• People are too dumb to build apartments except for the inner CBD. They should be living in small apartments in the suburbs.
• People are still too stupid to stop using their cars and use public transport.
• Government ought to legislate minimum dwelling densities to force people to live in crowded conditions.
• Government ought to stop people building new homes on the fringe of the city.
  
• Motorists need to be punished and taxed so heavily that they will be forced onto the public transport system (to make it a practical alternative)
  

This paragraph towards the end also shows the socialist writer Royce Millar's contempt for our freedom, liberty and individual choice.

Professor Moodie recommended the Government consider "inclusionary zoning": requiring developers to provide some social housing as part of their projects. The Government has not acted. And without action on affordability, the only apparent substance in yesterday's reforms — the fast-tracking of planning for apartments in activity centres — will do little more than give developers permits to buy and sell.

You see how simple their mindset is ? If government does not act, problems will not be solved. And of course there is ABSOLUTELY NO FRICKIN DOUBT in the narrow mind of the writer that government action will have absolutely no side effects and will create no new problems.

Tell him he's dreamin !