The West Australian reports: The density tipping point, the point where apartment living breaks through as a major buying preference is coming to Perth, as it has in all other major cities, but community opposition and a lack of transportation infrastructure are likely to be major challenges.
According to demographer Bernard Salt, who describes Perth as a Los Angelean city in terms of its 145km sprawl from Mandurah to Yanchep, Perth will have to face up to the densification challenge because it does not have the population and the tax base to pay for the infrastructure to service its geographic spread.
Speaking to the development industry at a Property Council conference on multi-unit residential development, Mr Salt said Sydney had always had demand for apartments and Melbourne made the shift in mid 2000 followed by Brisbane four years ago.
“You can’t have the weight of baby boomers, and immigrants and knowledge worker hipster focus and not reach a tipping point, and that may well be end of the decade, every other city has moved in that direction so why not Perth?”