Sunday, April 1, 2012

Liveable cities

How liveable is Adelaide?
Recently the Sunday mail trumpeted that Adelaide was regarded as the most liveable city in Australia.
Fortunately we do not need to worry about that accolade for the government has a plan - the 30 year plan no less.
The 30 year plan is designed to ensure that Adelaide is not to be left behind in the growth stakes.
The objective is to grow the population - every one knows the more people you can cram into the driest state on the driest continent the better off we all will be.
Adelaideans can visit our future today - just go to any of the big cities of the world. Take a deep breath and suck in the smog - that is progress in your nostrils!
Visit as rush hour and watch as the traffic inches along at a snail's pace - see the blank faces of the people on the busses and trains as they spend 2 hours a day or more getting too and from work.
Watch the aircraft disgorge their daily cargo of fresh food and vegetables - see the trucks in their endless quest to keep supermarket shelves fully stocked.
See farm land turned into housing estates.
That is the future that Adelaideans will have and no doubt we will still be saying that we are living in our most liveable city.
I guess it is a life of sorts - the sort of life that a terminally ill patient has on life support - all that is required for a careless cleaner to unplug the machine to plug in the vacuum cleaner and we will shrivel up and die.