September 04, 2003
reviving downtown
Adelaide is historically similar to Los Angeles. Both have inferiority complexes in terms of creativity, and to their identity in relation to global cities such as Sydney or New York, or beyond that London and Paris.
Both cities have not seen their uniqueness as strengths to draw strength from and to build on.
Both had turned away from a civic culture through abandoning what the Americans call downtown (the inner city) and beginming the long flight/dispersal into suburbia. That meant the end of public space. Downtown was no longer the centre. It lost its reason to exist. Both cities became suburbian. Their culture was suburban, which meant it was primarily about private spaces.
In the 21st century both have reacted to this embrace of suburbia in the second half to the 20th century by turning back to an urban culture. Suburbia is reaching its limit. If it spreads out any more it isn't going to be able to function. People cannot get to work because the freeways and the arterial roads
are clogged.
For LA this promises to be the way to revive downtown through a flowering of LA culture.
Frank Gehry Disney Hall.
More here and here.
This architectural form is not about Hollywood. It's about public space and public functions.
Unlike LA where nobody lives in the "centre", Adelaide is enticing people back to the inner city. People are going to be the heart of the inner city.
However, it is unclear what either strategies to revive downtown have to democracy.