Does compressing Australian suburbia achieve ecologically sustainable development?

It has been claimed that urban consolidation contributes to ecologically sustainable development by reducing embodied and operational energy demands, by, among other things, reducing lot and house size. Using typical built examples, the energy embodied in the construction of three smaller scale detached, semi-detached, and attached two-story Australian house types have been calculated and compared to larger detached houses. It was found that, in proportion to area, the embodied energy of each type is similar, with little difference between each of the smaller scale types and larger detached houses. While "compressed suburbia" satisfies general urban consolidation benefits such as increasing density, its contribution to ecologically sustainable development is problematic. Copyright (C) 2002, Locke Science Publishing Company, Inc. Chicago. IL, USA All Rights Reserved.