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July 22, 2011
Fred Kent, the founder and president of Project for Public Spaces, for the Liveable Cities Forum that has its roots in the Integrated Design Strategy prepared by Professor Laura Lee whilst a Thinker in Residence.
Gary Sauer-Thompson, cnr Sturt St + Myers St, Adelaide, 2011
The ethos of the 5000+ and the Integrated Design Strategy is reinventing or redesigning Adelaide as a liveable city, a vibrant city, a sustainable city.
It needs to become this kind of city because Adelaide’s youth are packing their bags and heading east, following promises of excitement and opportunity or people, and often they do not return. Why should they: the city is a place where you go outside your house and nobody's out there.
Adelaide needs to innovate and to become smarter. Will it? Well, we have an Integrated Design Commission That's a step.
5000+ is a postcode; a place; with the '+' referring to thinking beyond what Adelaide is to exploring what Adelaide could be. Singer argued that the possibilities existed for Adelaide to be transformed into a people place that it deserves to be. That means taking more of it away from the cars and giving it to the pedestrians. In turn that means making it difficult to move through in a car--- using the city as a throughway for inter-suburban traffic.
Adelaide as a city is at a tipping point: a once in a generational chance to plan and design for the future and effect real, and lasting change to put people at the centre of the city.
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5000+ is still a ‘civic conversation’ on the future of the city that will be open and accessible to everyone. Nothing is actually happening apart from some trams.