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URBAN environments expert Dr Jeff Kenworthy tells a stark tale of two cities that could embody the best and the worst of times for life in the next century.
 The cities are Toronto, Canada, and Houston, Texas, and Dr Kenworthy, a Lecturer with Murdoch University's Institute for Science and Technology Policy (ISTP), believes Australian cities are finely balanced to follow either in urban development into the next century.
Dr Kenworthy cites Houston as an example of a highly automobile dependent, low-density city, and Toronto as a highly-planned city with an excellent public transport system.
He says Canadian cities make better use of land and consequently have higher densities and better public transport, with significant benefits in terms of transport energy consumption and quality of life in inner city areas.
Toronto, in common with other Canadian cities such as Vancouver, features a number of 'urban villages' clustered around subway stations. These sites provide fast and effective public transport access into the vital, reurbanised city centre, and people are able to walk or ride a bicycle to many nearby activities.
In contrast, many major American cities feature decaying, crime-ridden city centres and inner suburbs abandoned by residents for ever-expanding suburbs.
Dr Kenworthy says these distant suburbs are highly car dependent, very expensive to support and require increasing amounts of fuel to maintain usage of their freeway systems.
"People in outer suburbs in the United States typically use around five times more fuel per capita for transport than their inner city counterparts," he says.
Dr Kenworthy is principal author of a report to the World Bank assessing the transport efficiency of 37 global cities.
It reveals that North American and Australian cities top the list in terms of transport energy consumption.
Canadian cities follow, with transport energy consumption higher than that found in European, wealthy Asian and developing Asian cities.
Dr Kenworthy believes Australian cities are poised between the American and Canadian models.
"Cities in the United States have really run their public transport systems into the ground, providing about half the level of public transport service compared to Australia," says Dr Kenworthy.
After the Second World War Toronto began to follow the American model of urban development, with residents moving to outer, dormitory suburbs featuring large shopping malls.
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However, Dr Kenworthy says, a conscious policy decision was made by the city to build a public subway system to place the focus on the city and prevent the bleeding of retail, commercial and residential activity out of the city centre.
"Similar patterns are now strongly apparent in Vancouver where freeway development in the inner city has never occurred and is now banned," he says.
"The late 1960s to mid 1970s saw rapid development in Toronto's station precincts, providing a series of miniature cities along the subway lines, and residential re-development in the city centre has continued to boom over many years.
"People in these areas enjoy a fraction of the car and energy use of those located in the fringe areas.
"The Canadian group of cities are literally a dimension apart from their American counterparts. They do not suffer from the violent crime of American cities, and are far more public transport-oriented. More importantly, they are also denser in terms of population and therefore will be far more sustainable in the future."
He says Houston, with a population of 3.5 million, is characterised by its low density -- 9 persons per hectare. Toronto's density is 26 people per hectare, resulting in a curbing of urban sprawl and less reliance on automobile transport.
"There is almost no mixed land use in Houston, which is compartmentalised into housing, shopping, office and industrial areas strung together by freeways," Dr Kenworthy says.
"While Houston has a basic bus service and is just beginning to introduce a light rail system, residents' use of public transport is at the international rock bottom."
The decision to redirect Toronto's urban development dramatically improved the city's public transport system and gave residents a public lifestyle option being rapidly eliminated by American cities.
"There is little doubt which city is going to be in the best shape next century when the inevitable oil crunch occurs," says Dr Kenworthy, who forecasts riots in the gasoline queues of Houston, and cities like it, next century.
"The precedent was set in 1973/74 during the Arab oil embargo and things have only gotten worse," he says.
"Residents of Toronto will undoubtedly experience a certain degree of stress, but it won't be destructive because they are not nearly as dependent on fuel and the automobile. Residents dependent on cars will have a viable transport alternative.
"If that alternative is not physically available in cities like Houston, coping with massive fuel shortages or large price hikes will be extremely difficult."
Today the total energy use in transport of greater Toronto is 32,000 megajoules per capita. Houston's is more than double, at 71,000 megajoules per capita.
Australian cities are demonstrating characteristics of both the American and Canadian models of urban transport.
Positive signs include investment in new rail systems in Western Australia and interstate, an effort to develop urban villages around the rail stations, and a national growth in central city housing developments.
Dr Kenworthy says that over the last 15 years Australian cities have been consolidating to a reasonable degree, with between 30 and 40 per cent of new housing development in existing areas.
"However, at the same time about 60 per cent of new development is still on city fringes, increasing urban sprawl, he says.
"At this moment the sprawl still has the upper hand. It will take quite a bit more for Australian cities to head in the positive direction, though some signs are hopeful."
False Creek in Vancouver's central area (above) is a fine example of a large 'urban village' which reduces energy use and the need for cars, and also provides a high quality of life for its residents. Building cities around the automobile, as in the USA (below), generates high energy demands and destroys the human quality of cities. Perth is poised between the two.
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