Sensational-Adelaide.com

Have a quick read of this... in some ways it reflects what we're going through now.

Fluid City
http://books.google.com/books?id=VdSHz7 ... g#PPA44,M1
Melbourne went through a renaissance during the early 90's at a time when their economy was shrinking. Have a read of the preview for this book Fluid City - "which traces the transformation of the urban waterfront of Melbourne, the re-vitalization of the Yarra River waterfront, Melbourne Docklands and Port Philip Bay". Re-facingof the city to the water was a key urban strategy of the 80's and 90's and a catalyst for economic transformation.

A quick timeline of what happened in the Jeff Kennett years:
- late 1992, Libs win government in Victoria led by Premier Jeff Kennett.
- Promises to get the state "on the move" which becomes their new slogan for a decade. Decimated economy must be rebuilt from base up.
- New Minister of Planning Robert Maclellan appointed, restructure of Dept of Planning and becomes the Dept of Infrastructure. Planning labelled obstructive to development, so the term planning and planners was removed.
- Within six months of office, Kennett launches Agenda 21. A list of major civic projects for Melbourne. A new Exhibition Centre replaces Melbourne Museum (that's under construction in South Bank), and a new casino, half a km of river frontage for residential and retail use. New projects were intended to revitalise the city economy, by attracting 'footloose' capital and tourism.
- New government decides to fast-track the casino and enlarge it's size, granted it a monopoly and waterfront development rights for a license fee of $250m and projected annual taxes of $50m. This was a pot of gold that would fund both new Exhibition Centre and part of the new Museum.
- Exhibition Centre was opened in 1996, and half kilometre casino followed a year after with 'rows of pillars exploding a series of huge fireballs on the hour'.

i went to Melbourne during the 80's. it had far more going for it in terms of buzz and general wealth than Adelaide ever has.

We just need people with the right vision to make the changes necessary to make Adelaide really great.
Our mining boom will come about but we have to be patient and wait. Energy and Nuclear Energy at that
will form a very valuable commodity in the future. The government should be planning for Reactors and
Processing Plants, Interstate Power Transmission Lines, these things could be very very lucrative in the
current and future climate with CO2 emission free power to reduce the greenhouse gas footprint.
We should be also looking at our water resources in capturing and treating storm water and also their
should be a buy back of farms and reduction of private dams in the hills to provide more green space which
can be used for increase our water catchment....

Our mediterrean climate would be ideal to redevelop our foreshores but we need to developers with vision...
there could be appartments with shops and plaza's beneath, walkways and public parks etc.

im on holidays in perth at the moment and once again find myself marvelling at the differences between these two cities.

steets with LANDSCAPED medians (yes you can grow grass in the middle of the roasd and maintain it), a well planned and effective freeway system, clean and efficient trains and lots of development going on in the city itself and the surrounds. it makes me laugh that even the smallest, 8 storey development in adelaide or north adelaide is the subject of such scrutiny when an equivelant development in perth barely gets a mention in the local paper.

until adelaide shrugs off this conservative, small town mentality we will continue to be the butt of jokes from victoria - and rightly so.

By undertaking a few 'in your face' urban projects, (ie projects that stand out to the community/tourists) Jeff Kennett simply changed the image of Melbourne into a place where it all happens, which encourages further investment.

Adelaide has hardly ever done this, hence our negative image problem. Projects such as a major redevelopment of Victoria Square, an inner city stadium and large public artworks or promenades dont 'directly' affect the economy all that much, but their 'indirect' effects are enormous to the economy caus it makes Adelaide look booming (even if its not) so it appears a good place to invest. Melbourne did this well. It pretended to be a booming city when it wasnt (1990s), and now it really is.

Melbourne went through a renaissance during the early 90's at a time when their economy was shrinking. Have a read of the preview for this book Fluid City - "which traces the transformation of the urban waterfront of Melbourne, the re-vitalization of ... Melbourne Docklands ...". Re-facing of the city to the water was a key urban strategy of the 80's and 90's and a catalyst for economic transformation.

And yet today I stumbled on this brand spanking fresh blog post - Docklands is still a depressing wasteland

Yes, that’s how much of a joke it is going to the Docklands. Despite living just fifteen to twenty odd minutes away by bike I had to actually plan a trip down there because apart from notice how deserted and crap it is, there really isn’t much reason to go there. Tasmania feels closer to Melbourne then the Docklands does.

That post in turn quotes from this article describing some less than impressed talk from Melbourne's council about how the project is turning out:

The new inner-city suburb has been poorly rated by some of Melbourne's top planners and political leaders, with calls for a pause in development to consider how to reinvigorate the development. ... Cr Doyle said he was "very worried about Docklands", which lacked the "social glue" that other suburbs took for granted. ... Cr Doyle said Docklands was a massive opportunity for Melbourne, but work on reinvigorating the suburb had to start now.

Reinvigoration? For a suburb that only came into existence within the last decade? More evidence that we need to get over our "Melbourne envy", methinks.

Large, open areas are (rightfully) shunned by people time and time again. No-one wants to stand in the middle of a desolate concrete plaza or tedious patch of lawn all by themselves - by extension, few people want to visit an empty restaurant, catch an empty bus, or stroll along an empty pier. I've never been to the Docklands, so I can only go on what I see in pictures, but it seems to me like developers and planners ignored everything that works about the Southbank Promenade (not necessarily Southbank as a whole, but that's another story for another day ) - its relative smallness, the closeness of buildings, the lack of self-indulgent plazas, the inclusion of smaller 'surprise and delight' public art rather than giant androgynous scupltures, and so on.

ricecrackers wrote:i went to Melbourne during the 80's. it had far more going for it in terms of buzz and general wealth than Adelaide ever has.

And that was before Kennett rebuilt it because it was "dead".

I have been going to Melbourne regularly all my life (have a lot of family there). Great place for a visit - but then what place isn't? But live there? Give me Adelaide any day. I'm not saying that Adelaide is perfect, it has a long way to go, but unless you live in a place for a while, you're not comparing apples with apples. Going to Melbourne for a holiday (where you tend to cram lots into a small time frame) and comparing it with your hometown, where there is plenty to do but you put most of it off because you can do it later (after all, you live there) is not a fair comparison. People who live in Melbourne don't access half of what is available, but will go to another city and do heaps because they are on holidays and want to get the most out of it.

Prince George wrote:And yet today I stumbled on this brand spanking fresh blog post - Docklands is still a depressing wasteland

Yes, that’s how much of a joke it is going to the Docklands. Despite living just fifteen to twenty odd minutes away by bike I had to actually plan a trip down there because apart from notice how deserted and crap it is, there really isn’t much reason to go there. Tasmania feels closer to Melbourne then the Docklands does.

That post in turn quotes from this article describing some less than impressed talk from Melbourne's council about how the project is turning out:

The new inner-city suburb has been poorly rated by some of Melbourne's top planners and political leaders, with calls for a pause in development to consider how to reinvigorate the development. ... Cr Doyle said he was "very worried about Docklands", which lacked the "social glue" that other suburbs took for granted. ... Cr Doyle said Docklands was a massive opportunity for Melbourne, but work on reinvigorating the suburb had to start now.

Reinvigoration? For a suburb that only came into existence within the last decade? More evidence that we need to get over our "Melbourne envy", methinks.

Many lessons to learn there. This was the crux of my questions over MHS's plans for our entertainment precinct. No where in his plans do I see any great magnets that will keep the place alive. A stadium is dead for 95% of the time, the other suggestions as I outlined earlier lacked any kind of people magnet, and the location is too far from the CBD to be a lunchtime destination.

I'd love to see something exciting placed on the railyard site, but so far the hospital is the only suggestion that will attract people all week. And that's a crap suggestion for an entertainment precinct. So where does that leave us?

The problem facing Docklands is the high amount of apartments being proposed. The area has recently been touted as a low growth area for investors looking to purchase apartments. Thus, leaving large amounts of rental population from the area. The master plan for the Docklands looks great in dreamland, but in reality will it live up to what they hope? I too seriously doubt it. If the area is not careful, it will turn into a massive over supply of apartments like Surfers Paradise where according to RP Data, just 49 out of 1,298 apartments were sold last quarter.

Mono, i agree with what you ask is best for the railyards. I strongly believe the RAH sould stay in it's current location. Even Michael Angelakis weighed in on the debate today. I feel MHS was under pressure from certain elements from the business and sporting communities to try and interupt the Rann plan of the new hospital plan. I beleive he did make the right call in doing so. An idea, vision, concept - whatever we wish to call it, has now been put on the table. The more people we can get thinking about it, the more ideas will come forward to maximising the areas best potential. I would be in MHS best interest to come out soon with a clear and precise plan for the area with major backing from the business and private sector.

As for a stadium in this location, maybe not....i'm still unsure myself. I am however, in total support of a stadium near the CBD, if AO cannot be upgraded to a suitable standard to all parties. People must remember, we are not Melb and we don't have the teams they do. We won't have a Fri night game, a sat game and a sun game. One game of AFL will be played here at the moment, so i can see the argument of why build something that will stay dormant for a vast majority of the time. I would love to see the stadium built opposite HQ in the parklands with pedestrian bridge connecting surrounding areas, inc MHS plan for the entertainment precinct...

We should just look at Melbourne as being our big brother, we love him, we hate him, we want to learn from the mistakes he's made in the past, but it doesn't mean we want to be like him...

Spot on ,
Adelaide needs to maintain a certain class that Melbourne doesn't have.