This is Adelaide… a tribute to the Great Australian Dream
Housing demand is chipping away at the Great Australian Dream to own a half acre block. As the state government plans new rules for taller buildings and bigger garages, renowned photographer Alex Frayne captures a quiet moment in the suburbs.
Image title: “The Quiet Suburban”, 2021, western suburbs of Adelaide.
The Great Australian Dream to own a suburban home surrounded by garden is rapidly disappearing for young South Australians trying to scrape together enough money for a home deposit.
Million-dollar homes on tight blocks are increasingly the norm as the federal government tries to put the brakes on older Australians getting tax breaks for their second and third homes.
Images like this suburban home with its galvanised iron backyard fence and clothes flapping from a Hills Hoist clothesline are being eaten up by subdivisions and tower blocks.
New building rules and ever-growing housing demand are chipping away at the Australian dream aspiration first coined in the 1940s, where owning a detached house on a quarter-acre block was seen as the path toward a better life.
This week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was in Adelaide seeing spanking new high-rise apartment blocks completed in the $80 million Prospect Corner development as he applauded the state government’s work in getting more homes on the market.
Housing and Planning Minister Nick Champion also signed off on the Southwark Grounds Code Amendment that will allow taller towers at the former West End Brewery site. The new rules mean towers can now reach 14 levels on the eastern section and 12 levels across the remainder of the site in a bid to add another 400 homes to the Port Road development.
Now the state government is planning to again change the shape of our suburbs by taking its Statutes Amendment (Vehicle Parking and Urban Renewal) Bill 2025 to a vote this term.
The new law would make it mandatory for all new one-bedroom dwellings to have one vehicle park, while those with two or more bedrooms would need to have at least two vehicle parks.
Stay informed, daily
Premier Peter Malinauskas first spruiked the change last year, saying it would get cars off clogged suburban streets – but then parked the plan after encountering fierce opposition from an “unholy alliance” between the Greens and developers.
The Greens Party was concerned about the rule change encouraging South Australians to have an even greater reliance on cars while developers were worried about being hit with a “parking tax” in building new homes.
At the time, Champion warned that if the bill failed to win support in state parliament’s upper house, Labor would make larger garages an election issue. The threat failed to materialise with the plan receiving scant attention during the March campaign.
Alex Frayne is a regular contributor to InDaily and wrote a series of essays for the publication in 2025.
Click here to learn more from Frayne about taking the best photographs at night.
Want to see more stories from InDaily SA in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDaily SA as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDaily SA". That's it.
