Page 949 - Week 03 - Thursday, 7 April 2022
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government to do just that. Not supporting this motion means that Labor and the Greens do not care whether Canberrans can access the kinds of housing that they want and need. Needs are diverse, but there are very significant reasons why many Canberran families would not choose to live in small apartments.
Whilst many of these reasons are intuitive, academic research increasingly supports the reluctance that many people, and especially families, feel towards high-density living. For example, in 2019 researchers at Deakin University launched a study to help address what they described as “the lack of existing research on the social impact of high-rise apartment living on families with children”. They conclude that “high-rise living makes social life difficult for young families”. Living in an apartment block higher than two storeys, in fact, results in fewer social interactions for both children and adults, researchers found. Another recent Deakin University study found linkages between apartment living and several negative health implications in children, including obesity, low vitamin D levels, impaired social skills, increased distress, and poor social and emotional development.
Senior Australian architect Natalia Krysiak, in an article published last month, observed, “Apartments are often not designed with families in mind and, when families do move into them, it has profound implications.” “Apartment living,” Krysiak noted, “affects parenting styles, which can negatively affect a child’s development.” In addition, Krysiak pointed out that when families are forced into apartments, parents often then choose to have fewer children, an outcome that no doubt pleases the Greens.
This is the party, after all, whose extreme policy positions include encouraging community debate about how to fix the current level of population in Australia. Greens patriarch and former party leader Bob Brown recently stated publicly, “The human herd is eating the planet.” And quoting him once again, “A sensible population policy would aim for a naturally decreasing population.” The Greens in this Assembly certainly understand that forcing families into high-density living is one indirect way of achieving their goal of population control.
Whilst artificially limiting housing choices in Canberra disproportionately harms families, research suggests that the negative impacts of high-density living can potentially affect everyone. Researchers at Edith Cowan University recently reported, “High-rise apartment buildings have long been associated with the poor mental health of their residents.”
Studies from both Germany and Scotland have found that residents who live above the fourth floor of an apartment block experience “twice the number of symptoms of poor mental health as those on lower floors and in detached houses”. In addition, residents with existing mental health conditions who live in apartments are more likely to experience psychiatric illness. The correlation between high-density living and poor mental health is so clear, in fact, that researchers at RMIT University are currently carrying out a multi-year study to consider design improvements to help lessen such impacts.
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