#Sardine Sydney: 19th century slums to lift living standards

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Don’t concern yourself, the mass immigration economic model is improving Sydney living standards:

A developer proposes to address a lack of affordable housing by constructing a two-storey building with 35 rooms for lodgers, each fully furnished and equipped with a kitchen and bathroom facilities.

But Peter Polgar said the “new generation” boarding house proposed for a residential street in Allambie Heights, as well as others planned for Sydney’s Northern Beaches, will destroy the close community and village environment.

Mr Polgar, a member of the Allambie Heights Action Committee, said the boarding house would lead to congestion as more people moved into the area.

So, 35 or more people to live in a future slum where one family used to dwell. That’s rising living standards for you. But we can do better.

Migration Council economic modelling shows that income rises further when national youth is pressed into dormitories. Especially if there is no male/female division. That is sexist and requires two of everything. Plus, gruel is expensive.

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The modelling goes further. Herding all local youth into a giant perforated tent with an open sewer running to the ocean is even more efficient. Over time synergies are garnered as cholera exterminates 10 out of every 35 local kids.

We can lift living standards even further with real vision, says the Migration Council, whose modelling was commissioned from independent research house Liesforsale. Forced evictions to park benches for all those under 18 delivers an huge boost to living standards. The optimal number is 35 children per bench. The cherry on top is to use cardboard boxes.

Here is Migration Council CEO Carla Wilshire forcefully making the case in person that moving from open-planned green spaces to high-density 19th century slums lifts living standards:

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Meanwhile, Blacktown Council is to be burned at the stake for its voodoo resistance to these plainly obvious economic truths:

Blacktown City Council on Wednesday night will cremate the last development application to be voted by its councillors in a dramatic protest against NSW Government changes to planning laws.

…From March 1 independent hearing and assessment panels (IHAPS) will decide on the fate of development applications (DAs) valued between $5 million and $30 million and a range of other conditions, instead of local government assessing future projects.

…But Blacktown City Mayor and NSW Labor MP Stephen Bali said the new process was going to “kill the voice of the community” and that elected councillors were effectively losing their democratic power to assess developments.

Bravo. Deploy the cardboard boxes! Lift the living standards!

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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.