I am a newly initiated Planning Nerd.

Sustainable, liveable urban planning is a topic with which I am newly fascinated. I am busy in my day job writing a rather involved piece on sustainability, infrastructure and the disastrous effect of developments outside the urban growth boundary in Melbourne (which are buggering up the Victorian state government's theoretically worthy planning strategy). Imagine hideous McMansions, as far as the eye can see, with little vegetation and no access to anything or anywhere by any other means of transport than automobile. I won't name names here, out of respect for the publication I write for, but I've got two words for you - C*roline Spr*ngs. Yes, they're pretty dirty ones.

Ugly, unwalkable, unbikeable, unsustainable sprawl. It is responsible for so many things - increased carbon emissions, transport poverty (a situation which can only continue to become more desperate with the upward surge in petrol prices), fractured community, deforestation, consumer excess, obesity, depression and a disinterest in the arts. At least, that's how I see it in my current obsessed state.

I have a great respect for the planning academics trying to halt outward development of Australian cities, and the designers and architects trying to make us think about functional, green building design and living. Those who know me will know that until recent times, I have hitherto given this subject little or no thought. I now believe it to be fundamental to our survival as a species.

It's a simple question. Are your 'rights' - to live in a hideous, gerry-built detached house which needs twice the airconditioning of an inner city apartment to cool your fat arse down while you glare at your expensive, power-gorging plasma, and to drive out to the living hells that are Ikea, Bunnings and DFO and fight a life-draining fight for a place to park your hotbox in a vast carpark - inalienable to the extent that you are willing to risk the extinction of human and animal life on this earth?

For many desperate home buyers in the current housing crisis, the answer is yes. It's not ultimately their fault - they don't choose the sites of these developments. In fact, they don't really choose anything about these ugly, out-of-the-box house and land packages, apart from the odd cheesy customisation. It's the nature of uncontrolled development, and most would probably prefer well designed, compact towns within the urban growth corridors - which are 25 years away from capacity, even on the most low-density projections. But people haven't been given the choice by greedy developers. And the only thing that stands in the way of gratuitous, irresponsible development by these cowboys is a hardline government planning system. That simply means planning that says 'no' to D*lfin (oops, another expletive!) when it leans, with its considerable funds, on impoverished local governments to transgress zoning boundaries.

And the more I read about the subject, the more I loathe these gated, US-style communities. They shut out reason and the rest of the world. But they can't continue to do so forever.

Thank you for your attention - you can wake up now.