Priority 02: Greening the city

Preparing for a more hostile climate means we need to stop building endless suburban sprawl, building over bushland and waterways and forcing people into cars for long commutes to work.

Brisbane needs to unpick the policies that implicitly subsidise sprawl and privilege a car-centic single family home over a more sustainable apartment lifestyle — and set a pathway to ending greenfield growth altogether in the near future.

We need to rethink how we live and build, designing buildings and neighbourhoods that work with the climate instead of fighting against it. Our city will only get hotter, more humid and more exposed to severe weather events as the climate changes.

This also means that some places that are already built up might need to be rethought — to make sure the wetlands of 2100 have space to grow, and existing suburbs filled in with more greenery and shade.

The locus of development needs to shift from floodplains to ridgelines because the buildings we build now will be around for decades into a climate future.

Brisbane of the future is greener, taller and more sensitive to the flow of air, water and people.