They point to horse paddocks along Adelaide Avenue to emphasise their point about housing sprouting up at an alarming rate in the wrong places. They want vast stretches of urban sprawl in Canberra's north to stop and for vacant land along main transport routes, such as Athllon Drive and Constitution Avenue, to be developed instead. But the more that planning and transport experts promote a compact city to counter rising petrol prices, traffic congestion, the high cost of doing business in Canberra and climate change, the more it seems the ACT is going in the opposite direction. This city which prides itself on sound planning is spending billions of dollars on new roads, freeways, lakeside car parks and multi-level car parking towers to keep cars as the first mode of transport.

The trend defies an overwhelming consensus that cities must become more dense if we're to address climate change. Instead of developing Canberra for walking, cycling and public transport, we're creating an unsustainable city by building new suburbs every year on the city's fringe, says the Australian Institute of Architects' ACT chapter president, David Flannery. ''Looking at a map of the density of the city, you wouldn't know where the centre is,'' he says.

Canberra architect Peter Collins has researched housing in Hackett, Watson, Downer and Curtin and says densities in each suburb could increase by 50 per cent without impacting on green spaces. Collins believes bulldozing into bushland is unnecessary and is one reason schools and shops in older suburbs have become unviable.