Adelaide: Reflections on the scope for public policy

Abstract

Metropolitan Adelaide, a crucible of urban policy innovation in the 1970s, has recently been the subject of pessimistic prognoses about its economic future. The pessimism is overstated. This article documents positive features — economic, institutional, historical — which might form the basis for greater optimism.     

The Changing Role Of The City Centre In Adelaide And Melbourne

It is not too often that sufficient similarities and comparable data enable us to make significant comparisons between the central areas of Australian capital cities. This article presents such material about Adelaide and Melbourne. In particular, it takes advantage of floorspace and employment surveys carried out in these central areas in 1987 and 1992 to identify not only trends but important points of similarity and difference. Some of the more important reasons for these changes are canvassed in the context of current literature. The different policy responses of the two state governments and central city authorities are also examined as there has been a change in both cities to a state Liberal government following Labor governments which have incurred heavy financial losses and increased state debt.     

Greening Port Misery: Marketing the Green Face of Waterfront Redevelopment in Port Adelaide, South Australia

Port Adelaide is on the cusp of an urban renaissance. Once a thriving industrial centre, economic restructuring has left the Port in a vulnerable position. Suffering from the ills of economic and environmental decline, collaborative efforts between the South Australian State Government and private sector property developers have aimed to transform the Port to a cosmopolitan and progressive landscape. While much urban regeneration literature has focused on the social and economic issues associated with such large-scale redevelopments, the environmental improvements purported by these developments are largely unexplored. A significant aspect of Port Adelaide's transformation is the deliberate mobilisation of an environmental discourse in marketing materials. These materials are key texts serving to both promote and legitimise the redevelopment. Data presented in this article problematises the purported environmental benefits associated with the marketing of Port Adelaide's redevelopment, revealing it as a rhetorical form of 'greenwashing'.     

Public Consultation and Place-Marketing in the Revitalisation of the Port Adelaide Waterfront

The Port Adelaide waterfront redevelopment is a property-led urban venture that is being driven by a logic and ideology of new forms of urban politics that are oriented towards post-industrial capital accumulation. While local residents are in favour of the waterfront being revitalised there is concern about the nature and scale of the redevelopment being proposed. Through a carefully managed 'place-marketing' process, the Port's industrial landscape is to be re-conceptualised as a future-oriented landscape of cosmopolitan residential-work-leisure lifestyle as an expression of desire for professional occupancy. The study reveals that local participation and influence in planning decisions of this public-private venture is somewhat marginal to economic considerations.     

阿德莱德港州立文化遗产保护区─—对重要的文化遗产保护区的保护和城市改造

阿德莱德港是阿德莱德市的一个重要地区,在1982年被确定为州立文化遗产保护区。它的命运随着阿德莱德市经济的发展而兴衰。尽管许多历史性的要素已经消逝,但阿德莱德港州立文化遗产保护区的划定在保护这一地区重要历史性要素的同时为有效管理今后的发展提供了条件。     

基于3D建筑物数据的天空开阔度估算及其城市热岛应用研究——以Adelaide为例

城市热岛效应(Urban Heat Island,UHI)越来越受关注,城市冠层之间的辐射传输和交换受到周围建筑物阻挡,是城市热岛现象产生的重要原因之一。天空开阔度是描述天空被建筑物阻挡程度的形态学参数,经常被用于城市热岛现象研究中。以澳大利亚Adelaide中心城区为研究区,基于高分辨率的3D建筑物数据计算天空开阔度(SVFs),并与鱼眼技术方法计算的SVFfish-eye值进行对比,在此基础上分析了不同季节、不同时刻的SVFs与城市热岛强度之间的相关关系。结果表明:SVFs与SVFfish-eye非常吻合,二者之间的相关系数为0.97;SVF和UHII(城市热岛效应强度)在无雨天气下的夜间都呈显著线性负相关,在夏季、秋季和冬季的中午附近,两者呈明显的线性正相关,而在春季的中午附近,两者的线性正相关不明显;对于晴天、阴天和雨天3种天气来说,SVF和UHII在夜晚的负相关性差别不大;在白天,晴天的正相关性大于阴天和雨天。     

Festivals as a vehicle for place promotion: cars,contestation and the creative city ethos

The creative city proposition has proven highly attractive to policy makers and urban managers all over the world. Creative cities are construed to be dynamic places characterised by diversity, openness and tolerance. As a specific manifestation of this ethos, festivals are equally positioned temporal manifestations of community diversity that foster social development in space. However, not all is as positive as such notions would infer as festivals also herald negative outcomes. Drawing upon a case study of the Clipsal 500 V8 Supercar race and associated motor-sport festival held annually in the City of Adelaide, this article explores this complex policy terrain. Evidenced through analysis of policies pertaining to festival promotion, marketing agendas, participant observation at the Clipsal 500 and interviews with key stakeholders from government and non-government organisations, this article presents a richly textured discussion of the opportunities and challenges facing policy makers considering and managing festivals. In doing so, the article contributes to the literature on festivals and creative economies revealing the complex and contested terrain that confronts policy makers and planners managing festivals as part of a wider city marketing agenda.     

The Precinct versus the Shopping Centre: Order,Complexity and Endogenous Dynamism in Suburbs and Towns1

While complexity theory has become influential in the understanding, analysis and modelling of cities, it has been far less influential in planning and designing them. In complexity based analyses, cities are self-evidently complex adaptive systems, and this is a virtuous thing. A defining principle of complex adaptive systems is that they are scalar and hierarchical, i.e. global systems, such as cities, are formed by accumulations of other complex adaptive subsystems. This article argues that with the rise of the shopping centre and the decline of traditional precincts, the subsystems of the city, its regional, district and neighbourhood activity centres, have been increasingly organised by mechanical order rather than the self-organisation required of complexity. According to the principles of complexity theory, systems self-organised as complex adaptive systems will have greater mass and diversity, and be more resilient and stronger than systems organised via mechanical order. This article tested these principles by comparing activity centre mass and diversity between South Australian suburbs and towns. The research found that activity centres self-organised as complex adaptive systems do have greater mass and diversity than those organised via the mechanical order of the shopping centre.     

Re-imagining City Waterfronts: A Comparative Analysis of Governing Renewal in Adelaide,Darwin and Melbourne

Urban waterfront regeneration is one of the largest changes to the structure of Australian and many world cities over the last two decades. There is no comparative research which evaluates their governing with particular attention to the relationship and responsibility of quasi-public agencies and local government. This study advances the competitive-city paradigm from a focus on global cities to an examination of inter-city urban competition between differently located cities in the urban hierarchy by comparing waterfront renewal projects located in Adelaide, Darwin and Melbourne. Through interview, policy and document analysis, the article offers preliminary insights on current and emergent governance arrangements involved in urban waterfront renewal. In an era of increasing inter-urban competition, the study reveals hybrid forms of urban governance are driving the planning and delivery of these three waterfront renewal projects. Further, there exists a ‘knotty’ tension between these models of urban governance and the capacity for meaningful consultation and participation between governments.     

Housing Diversity and Affordability: The Effects of 35 Years of Exclusionary Land Use Regulations on Housing Affordability in Adelaide,South Australia

ABSTRACT

Australia is often described as being in the midst of a housing affordability crisis. This research analyses the effect exclusionary land use regulations have had on housing diversity and affordability in Adelaide, South Australia. The research shows there are significantly greater numbers of relatively affordable dwellings available areas where an absence of land use regulations for significant periods of time has enabled housing diversity. It also shows that metrics that compare median incomes with median prices are unreliable indicators of affordability as median prices alone are unable to capture the breadth of housing prices that exist within them.