Vibrancy’s missing ingredient
MICHAEL SNOSWELL: Joanne Cys’s article on the missing focus on vibrancy and people in Adelaide’s city centre rings true for me and many people I know who come here.
I worked on Flinders Street recently and on any given day between about 10am and 4pm I looked out my office window and saw almost no traffic at all. Many times the lights at intersections would change with no cars to be seen. You could just about walk across the road with your eyes closed.
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Is there any city in the world of one million people that is so dead in the middle of the day or after 6pm on any night? There is some life on Rundle, Grenfell and Pirie streets and around the Central Market area, but walk back one street during the day, in the evening, including Saturdays, or on Sundays and it’s very quiet.
I agree with Joanne that Adelaide simply does not have the people density it needs to seem alive. Having lived in and visited many cities in the US, Europe and Asia I can only shake my head in disbelief. I tend to agree with a couple of tourists I overheard in Rundle Mall about 7pm on a Saturday night recently. The woman said to the man: “it must be a public holiday because everything is shut on a Saturday and this is the main shopping strip in the city”. That is emblematic of the whole problem.
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