I agree with Don Jordan (Letters, 12/3) in questioning Melbourne’s population growth but is it any more practical to move people to rural centres? You really wonder what political intelligence is at work when you see new estates going up in Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong, where there is no water.
Nobody wants to question our booming immigration’s long-term effects on space and water, let alone the sustainability of large families. But if we are to live "with our total environment", that suggests to me a radical look at our immigration/population strategies, as well as giving more international aid to birth control.
It has become the economic orthodoxy to tut-tut at countries like Japan and Italy for having a falling birthrate. Could it be possible that, in the long run, they will be the lucky ones?