January 13, 2005
This article about development along Australia's fragile coastal shore by David Campbell is so true.
David understands the conflict to be one "...raging between the demands of burgeoning development on the one hand and local concerns about the preservation of neighbourhood character on the other."
Andrew Dyson represents this conflict well.
My experiences in Victor Harbor, south of Adelaide, confirm Campbell's description that the conflict works in terms of "developers [being] extremely persistent, constantly pushing neighbourhood character boundaries as they gradually grind down any opposition.
And so it goes: a resort here, an apartment complex there. Another precedent is set and, before you know it, the village atmosphere that originally attracted you to the area has gone."
It is called progress. As Campbell observes the booster lobby usually says that development means more people bringing money into the town, more work for local tradesmen. Things change. You can't live in the past."
Campbell acknowedges that but says a significant influx of people places greater pressure on already limited coastal infrastructure. That is true too. But other considerations are cultural heritage, character of place, the life of a place and an appropriate kind of development. A 100-room multi-storey resort does not fit with a sleepy, windswept little fishing village.