There's an opinion piece in today's Age by a Michael James titled "Can sitcoms save us from urban sprawl?"
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/contributors/can-sitcoms-save-us-from-urban-sprawl-20100204-nfk6.html

His central argument is that we in Australia don't do medium to high density well. He points out that many sit-coms set in big cities (especially New York) are actually set in neighbourhoods characterised by medium-rise (eight or so stories), not high rise, apartments, and that this scale of development is more likely to lead to lively and engaged communities.

I find it interesting that a key element of Michael James' article, as with almost every other similar article I have ever read, is the argument that Australian achitecture is inferior to that found in other countries. We have 'soul-less high-rises' and 'ugly six-packs' where other countries have 'human scale' and 'lively'.

What is being taught in Architecture courses at Australian Universities? Why have we developed a culture of lowest-cost construction instead of greatest value construction? Why can't we desgin buildings that enable people to live together comfortably?

What kind of developers do we have, that they are unwilling or incapable of developing high-quality dwellings that contribute more to the social environment than just a roof over someone's head?

Maybe we need to move towards a more cooperative, rather than adversarial planning systems, where everyone works together to enhance our cities instead of just wringing a profit out of them. It would help if we stopped thiking of shelter in terms of dollar value and started thinking of it in terms of social value.

It seems to me that there is a doctoral thesis in the question "What level of density is most likely to produce an engaged and resilient community?" Most of the arguments for different densities are more along the lines of appeals to emotion than arguments based on hard data. We don't really know how the communities in New York, London, Amsterdam etc function. Large parts of New York have been condemned as crime-ridden slums at various times, including areas at the density level of the 'Friends' neighbourhood. If we want to increase the density of Australian cities, that's fine. But let's go and find out what really works in other countries, and why, and figure out how to make it work for us. I don't want urban planning based on holiday nostalgia.