The future of sustainable living: what Australians want from their cities

Faced with continuing population growth, climate change and resource and financial constraints, governments around the world are introducing policies aimed at achieving productive, liveable and sustainable cities. From planning and design, to engineering and construction, the quest to deliver a high quality of sustainable living for Australians has become a key objective of both public and private organisations.

By definition, liveable cities offer a high quality of life and support the health and wellbeing of the people who reside and work in them. Given the resources being directed into developing the cities of our future, it is important to understand what exactly Australians want from their cities. In order to explore what matters the most to Australians in where they choose to live, MWH recently commissioned a piece of independent research of Australian households to explore attitudes and priorities with regard to liveable cities. In particular, we set out to explore infrastructure priorities, drivers to live in cities versus regional areas, attitudes towards water, transport and energy consumption, and lifestyle influences.

The future of liveable cities:  getting the basics right

The survey, of more than 1000 people, found that what Australians most care about when choosing where to live is access to healthcare, followed by employment and essential services such as police and ambulance.  Modern lifestyle considerations, often considered as crucial factors in making cities attractive, such as aesthetics, education, culture and food, were ranked much lower down the list.

The most important infrastructure element Australians value when choosing the city, town or suburb they want to live in is water. This rated higher than electricity, roads or sewage. 76% of Australians value water supporting infrastructure more than sewage supporting infrastructure, 69% value water more than roads and 55% value water more than electricity.

Australians are pragmatic people and want accessibility and reliability of services, and are prepared to pay a bit more to get it when choosing where to live. When considering constrained public budgets, careful consideration needs to be given to where funds will be best delivered. Basic infrastructure and services are clearly what Australians value the most and should be a focus for government and private providers as we work towards making our cities more sustainable.

A question of water supply

Australians have always had a strong connection with water resulting from the prevalence of droughts and floods, as agreed by 90% of Australians surveyed. The survey found that water issues are an important part of what makes a liveable place, with 9 in 10 indicating that water management is vital in the place they live, in particularly those living in cities (94%).

Interestingly, there is still a major stigma associated with drinking recycled water, with almost two thirds of Australians (64%) willing to pay a 10% premium to have drinking water without recycled sewage in the network. This is despite the fact most country towns are drawing from rivers, where further upstream sewage is being discharged. Education around both the necessity and safety of different water supplies is a high priority in order to ensure we are able to maintain a sustainable water supply.

The research did show that most Australians would drink rainwater harvested from their roofs. Nine out of 10 respondents believed that stormwater and wastewater recycling should be mandatory in every city. A key design aspect of our future cities will be to ensure that we maximise the fit-for-purpose use of all of the different available sources of water within the catchment. Collecting rainwater, stormwater, grey water and recycled water and using these in fit-for-purpose applications will maximise efficient water use and minimise demand on fresh water drinking supplies.

Aside from drinking water, the research demonstrated that people place a real value on the cultural aspects of water for activities such as for recreation. While utilities and regulators rightly place public health as of utmost importance, other factors should be elevated as well.

The infrastructure challenge

We also investigated what people are looking for in the future of our cities. Access to safe tap water for drinking was ranked as the most important aspect of where people will live in 30 years, highlighting the need to ensure that quality water and supporting infrastructure is available now and into the future.

In the water sector, the future of large, centralised systems is increasingly uncertain. Ageing infrastructure and changing standards, coupled with the need to adapt and build resilience to climate variability, are challenging traditional methods and standards. In the case of greenfield developments, we are being driven to lower our footprint by reducing the water we import from outside the catchment and encouraged to make better use of sources within the developments themselves. In brownfield or redevelopment sites, we are looking at ways to mitigate the need to amplify or renew existing systems by making better use of local sources and investment in water-efficient appliances and technologies. The ability to identify changing community expectations, understand customer and community values, and accordingly adjust service is also a major challenge.

Australia’s green future

Energy is a fundamental component of a liveable city; it is needed to power buildings and workplaces, to transport people, to pump water from source to tap and to provide the food and other supplies on which our society relies.

With finding sources of renewable energy increasingly on the agenda, nearly 9 in 10 Australians believe unused Crown land and government-owned buildings should be used to generate electricity using solar and wind. 78% also indicated that it is only a matter of time until coal-powered electricity generators are phased out.

Two in three Australians agree that it should be mandatory to have an energy audit of businesses and households annually to ensure that there is no wasting of electricity. Those living in cities (69%) are more likely to believe there should be a mandatory energy audit than those living in regional and remote areas. 40% of Australians are prepared to pay more to ensure a good supply of electricity and minimal power outages to the place where they live. 39% are willing to pay higher rates to have access to renewable energy (wind and/or solar).

The imperative to lessen our impact on the climate and the increasing worldwide demand for depleting natural resources will see a heightened focus on resource use efficiency over the coming decades. Globally, our growing population will need to extract more from less.

The potential impacts of climate change, including increased severity and frequency of flood and bushfire events along with higher average and peak temperatures, pose a significant threat to infrastructure and communities. Transitioning to low carbon energy sources will therefore be fundamental to protecting the ongoing liveability of our cities and communities.

Securing a sustainable future

In response to many of the global megatrends, such as climate change and planning for megacities that are shaping our world, there is an increasing need for governments, engineering consulting firms, technology providers and regulators to work in a more collaborative arrangement to provide solutions for infrastructure and services. We realise there is an increasing need to bring together engineering, planning design and assessment expertise, with technology providers, to provide the innovative solutions we are going to need to build a sustainable future.