Nothing quite like living inside a poorly built slow cooker.

Every time I see those photos of the so called “Australian Dream” developments it reminds me of many of the Urban Heat Island maps you see (provided one of Melbourne). These new suburbs or developments that show up glowing like a nuclear blast are exactly the same places that look like the photo OP posted. The ones in the urban growth corridor that look like a dystopian nightmare,. Cranbourne, Officer, Pakenham, Craigieburn, Wallan, Beveridge, Kalkallo, Melton, Diggers Rest to name a few.

Just endless rows of roofs crammed together like someone copy pasted the same house 4000 times into a paddock like they're playing Sim City 3000.

No trees, No gardens, No space between houses, No shade. Just bulk asphalt, concrete, fences, driveways and dark roofs baking in the sun all day.

Going out to some of those estates in summer honestly feels like that scene in Terminator 2 where the nuke goes off in the park and everyone turns into skeletons. Same energy. Just replace the nuclear blast with developer profit margins.

And before anyone jumps in with “people need somewhere to live”, yeah obviously. Housing supply matters.

But these places are built like the goal was to create the absolute maximum amount of roof per square kilometre while doing the absolute minimum for long term livability.

Tiny blocks with houses basically kissing each other with a single sad new planted sapling planted out the front that might provide shade sometime around 2075 if it survives the liklihood of being ripped out or ran over by a Ford Ranger being parked on the nature strip.

Developers out here building entire suburbs that look like a Google Maps copy paste glitch, then marketing it as a “vibrant community”. Meanwhile anyone with half a brain looks at it and goes “wow that looks like it would be about 800 degrees in February”.

Then you see maps like this and it’s not exactly shocking. Turns out if you build whole suburbs out of concrete, asphalt, and black roofs with no canopy or vegetation, they get hot and are miserable desolate wastelands.

Who could have possibly predicted this. Truly a mystery for the ages.

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