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January 4, 2004
It has been very hot in Adelaide this last week or so--in the mid to high 30's. As I moved around the inner city doing my shopping I could not help experience the city as a heat zone. The urban environment of the inner city traps heat and it builds up. It is like walking in a furnace.
Despite all the talk about planning strategies and redefining Adelaide starting from the 2001 City as Stage Forum----nay Michael Lennon's 2020 Vision (1991)---the city has become a hell hole in summer. It has not been designed as a city for people let alone quality of urban life.
Like most of the houses, the brick and the asphalt of the city street has not been designed to provide shelter from the sun. The streets have been designed to move traffic so they become heat traps for people walking. There is very little greenery or shade provided, apart from shrubs in planters on the footpath and a few plane trees. There is nothing to make you pause, relax, or walk with dignity.
So why not reduce traffic flows and introduce more greenery? Is there not a push for more people to live in the inner city. Yet the city is more than a ugly space full of depressing buildings --a renovator's dream. It is also inhospital during the heat of the summer. If sustainable development depends on higher standards of urban design and making cities liveable, then Adelaide falls well short.
Then it occurred to me. Those who designed the city had no bloody idea how to deal with the summer heat. The city was not a place to enjoy and live in.
It was designed for utility: as a space for making money and for the paying customer. It was designed with a core called the central business district (CBD), which was a place to work for the managers and white collar workers; it had industrial estates and suburbs for living with lots of transport routes from the suburbs to the CBD. The inner city (CBD) is now being transformed as a consumption space: it is full of shops and cafes. The footpath becomes a cafe and there are few public spaces or seats.
So it becomes a hell hole in the summer. Jan Gehl, the urban designer, talks about cities invaded, deserted and re-conquered. Well Adelaide has been invaded by the car; deserted by local authorities, state government and people; with a few pockets of rehabilitation by progressive City Councils.
Russell over at Civil Pandemonium addresses this. He has two photos of urban streets: one of Strasburg and one of Melbourne. One is green one is not. Guess which is more green? The European one.
Adelaide has not begun to re-envision itself as an ecocity. In terms of change it has been in a state of paralysis for over a decade. Things just go round and round in a circle. You can see the dead hand of Treasury everywhere.
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The city was designed in 1836; and once done, these things are hard to undo. There's not a lot that can be done about the heat per se. In one sense, complaining about heat when you live in Adelaide is like complaining about cold in Antarctica.
It is true that developers don't take a scrap of notice when they are designing these things. Your townhouse is a classic example; I wouldn't live there for that very reason. I'm in the process of looking for a new flat, and one of the criteria is that it isn't a furnace.
There's not a great deal that can be done about this; why people put up with it is beyond me.
One reason why there's not much political energy about this issue is that most people don't actually have a lot to do with the CBD; if you don't work there, you don't go in there. And if you don't go there, you don't feel the problem. And the geographical nature of electorates means that there's probably one MP that has to deal with the issue.