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June 4, 2010
Politics in South Australia is mostly about management---competent and relatively mistake-free administration----of the economy and the consequences of globalization on manufacturing and the industrial working class The big issues of the day are never about the place of South Australia in a globalized world or making Adelaide more sustainable.
They are about rebuilding a public hospital or a sports stadium. These issues stand in, or a re placeholders, for the revitalization of a rust bucket industrial city with a declining manufacturing base.
It is the proposed redevelopment of the Adelaide Oval that is the current hot button issue. Should it be done? Is it being done on the cheap? Has Treasurer 'slash and burn' Foley mislead everyone about knowing that the estimates of project costs were in excess of the $450 million Government commitment? Should Foley resign?
David Nason in The Australian puts the standard case that what is best for football is not necessarily what is best for South Australia.
Adelaide has a wonderful old-style food market and some March Madness fizz with a bike race, car race and an arts festival that's holding its own.But after that Adelaide doesn't give Croweaters too much to crow about. No amount of government cheering can hide the fact that Adelaide's business culture is flat, its street culture essentially bogan and young people are still dying to get out.
Fair enough. Adelaide is is need of revitalization and urban regeneration. Nason's solution is a sports stadium in the city:
footy's long-overdue relocation to the city from the outer suburban wasteland of West Lakes holds the promise of a renaissance...the influx of 50,000 local and interstate footy fans each weekend for seven months a year is a massive opportunity...If the sporting experience is classy....investors will turn Adelaide's sleazy and near-derelict west end into a totally modern city experience with exciting new shops, restaurants and hotels. And once all this is established, bigger businesses will look more favourably on Adelaide and what it has to offer.
It's the footy fans who will give Adelaide a vibrant CBD--not the people who live in the city and the business that service their needs. It is the opposite to Richard Florida's creative class urban development.
The trouble with sports-led urban regeneration is that such redevelopment is being done on the cheap by the Rann Government. The numbers don't stack up to rebuild a 50,000-seat stadium to host AFL, World Cup soccer and cricket for $450m. Another problem is that the sports stadium will take all the money away from other projects to help revitalize the CBD, such as redesigning Victoria Square.
More seriously though, urban regeneration comes from increasing the people who live in the CBD as opposed to just dropping in once a week for a few hours. Adelaide's sleazy and near-derelict west end is changing due to increasing numbers of people living there and the large numbers of international students. Football and cricket place their own interests first and have little concern for the more substanbive need to reinvigorate the city.
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Labor won the election so the now has its mandate to redevelop Adelaide Oval and build the new hospital. Can football and cricket design a multi-purpose stadium which meets the State Government's $450 million budget - and is still significantly profitable for the teams that play at the new Adelaide Oval, in particular the Adelaide Football Club.
There has been four-decade-long cold war between the SA Cricket Association and SA National Football League which shared Adelaide Oval as their sports' headquarters until the end of 1973.