Adelaide a city, not a town - Mike Duffy Blog

[stelaras]

In my previous post, I stated that young people hate living here.

The reason for this, in my opinion is strongly influenced by our extreme consumerist culture. Generation Y have become such drones to the market, that they have become greedy, selfish and lacking in patience. The young people of today want everything now. In addition they need constant entertainment because people have forgotten how to entertain themselves. As a result, people instead of being grateful for the fact that in Adelaide we have electricity, paved roads, no wars, no fear of being shot, jobs, free healthcare... the young people now instead focus on materialistic things such as the fact that Adelaide does not have a Kripy Kremes, or the fact that there aren't 1 million bars open 24 hours a day.

Maybe I've been spending too long studying psychology at uni, but what do other think?

If I have a point, then this problem, can only be remedied by sexing up the city, but also by other strategies aimed at making people less fake and materialistic. I think that banning advertisement aimed at children would make a difference (however this arguement is for a new thread).

Will well said, and i think in our way most of us on here are putting forward ideas and sharing our thought on how to get the balance right in SA!

[jimmy_2486]

and how do you all suppose we get the young people of today to get excited about adelaide?

We would need to do alot of changing to make it a more exciting place.

[sarahcoligan]

Hi Mike

I agree with you we need to get this town happenining so I am running for Area Councillor on Adelaide City Council. Would love your and everyones ideas on how we can make Adelaide "Kick-ass" here and internationally. Let me know!

cheers
Sarah


About Sarah Coligan
Adelaide born and bred, Sarah Coligan is the Director of city-based consultancy, Sarsparilla Marketing & PR. Sarah is young, innovative, educated, with qualifications including a B.A. in Communications, a Graduate Diploma in Public Relations and an Executive Certificate in
Marketing.

Following her recent consulting to the Adelaide City Council, Sarah was inspired to stand as an Area Councillor because she’s passionate about creating a City that’s considered not only a desirable place to live and work, but also has a kick-ass reputation both nationally and internationally.

Sarah worked interstate for Ericsson and Telstra to gain insights she has brought to Adelaide that have given her a reputation for being enthusiastically involved in Adelaide life and the business community.

Sarah and her husband Josh love living and working in Adelaide, and Sarah hopes to bring a fresh, exciting approach to Council which will actively represent the important views of Adelaide people.

[omada]

Bah let the young people go, if that's what they want! .. Will raised a very good point before...Adelaide will NEVER be like a Melbourne or Sydney.. and there's NOTHING wrong with that..
personally I reckon there's a heap of cool bars and pubs to go to on a Friday or Saturday night.. i don't have problem with Adelaide.. career wise, for me the jobs I want are here..everything's pretty close etc etc

Sometimes I reckon we get defensive about Adelaide , as its almost a reflection of ourselves.. when people bag Adelaide, or leave Adelaide, maybe we almost ask , "geez whats wrong with me".. ???

[Howie]

Hi Mike

I agree with you we need to get this town happenining so I am running for Area Councillor on Adelaide City Council. Would love your and everyones ideas on how we can make Adelaide "Kick-ass" here and internationally. Let me know!

cheers
Sarah


About Sarah Coligan
Adelaide born and bred, Sarah Coligan is the Director of city-based consultancy, Sarsparilla Marketing & PR. Sarah is young, innovative, educated, with qualifications including a B.A. in Communications, a Graduate Diploma in Public Relations and an Executive Certificate in
Marketing.

Following her recent consulting to the Adelaide City Council, Sarah was inspired to stand as an Area Councillor because she’s passionate about creating a City that’s considered not only a desirable place to live and work, but also has a kick-ass reputation both nationally and internationally.

Sarah worked interstate for Ericsson and Telstra to gain insights she has brought to Adelaide that have given her a reputation for being enthusiastically involved in Adelaide life and the business community.

Sarah and her husband Josh love living and working in Adelaide, and Sarah hopes to bring a fresh, exciting approach to Council which will actively represent the important views of Adelaide people.

Thanks for your post and your introduction Sarah.

Personally, I would like to see a change in the landscape of the CBD. And like most of us on this site, we like to see progress. At the moment the city council has a good track record of approving developments (90percent or so I believe) and I think this should continue.

Also we would like to see a relaxation of city height limits and a campaigning by the city council to have the adelaide city declared a no-fly zone and eventually an uncapping of limits altogether... similar to what is going on in Brisbane at this moment. Although the demand for very high buildings is not there yet, we must take action now. A 115m city height limit in this day and age is really quite unrealistic for a capital city of Australia.

Sarah what are your thoughts on this suggestion?

Cheers

Howie

[urban]

Most of my friends who have left have been seeking more exciting projects for work not more exciting cities. The perception is that the people responsible for procuring buildings in Adelaide whether they be councils, private investors or govt agencies are too conservative in their decision making and fearful of offending anyone's sensibilities.

One major fault of councillors in South Australia is their desire to micro-manage council projects. This is probably due to the small council sizes and small number of projects undertaken by each council. Councillors should decide which projects should proceed and who the consultants are but leave the running of the projects and design decisions to council staff and the appointed consultants. Too often projects get bogged down in council debates about small aspects of projects such as paint colours and plant selections while the big picture decisions are glossed over.

I have seen councils approve the purchase of $600,000 of machinery in a minute while the material of the new toilet block took two meetings and 1 hour of debate to decide.

The debacle of the trees on the North Tce upgrade are a prime example.

The best thing you could do as a councilor is prevent the micro-management of projects and allow them to proceed quickly and efficiently. This will save projects time and money allowing more projects to be completed each year.

[ozisnowman]

Adelaide will never have a large number of office buildings because businesses
usually set up their head office where their largest market is. However we
could have a vibrant city none the less with high rise appartments, hotels,
student accomodation.

The way to do this is to get demand up for appartments (should be oriented
to middle income earners - not millionaires) compared to normal suburban
housing. One way this could be done is if the Government abolished stamp-duty
on appartment purchases. Sure the Government will lose some money but
it is more environmentally and socially responsible than letting people live
in the suburban sprawl and streching services to the limit.

Take a look at Vancouver Canada, it has many tall appartment buildings compared
to office buildings and their skyline looks fabulous.

[ynotsfables]

Bah let the young people go, if that's what they want! .. Will raised a very good point before...Adelaide will NEVER be like a Melbourne or Sydney.. and there's NOTHING wrong with that..
personally I reckon there's a heap of cool bars and pubs to go to on a Friday or Saturday night.. i don't have problem with Adelaide.. career wise, for me the jobs I want are here..everything's pretty close etc etc

Sometimes I reckon we get defensive about Adelaide , as its almost a reflection of ourselves.. when people bag Adelaide, or leave Adelaide, maybe we almost ask , "geez whats wrong with me".. ???

I agree, I also believe not all young people want to leave either, and more will stay as Adelaide develops even futher. It will take a while maybe for Adelaide to loose that stigma of being a slow paced city even though i honestly believe that we have many exciting precincts here and we have a uniquely evovlving workforce due to industries that other states don't have. It may take some time for this realization to occur because people are sometimes like sheep they are lead by blind sheppards, popular public opinion and traditonal expectations.