How did central Adelaide’s reputation for urban mediocrity come about? Unfortunately, decisions made by state and local governments are the root cause and, based on recent evidence, the reputation seems likely to stick.
It is the latest iteration of yet another slow motion car crash (well, ambulance crash more fittingly) of Adelaide’s infrastructure provision.
Following the recent completion of the controversial new Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH), a new Women’s and Children’s Hospital (NWCH) is proposed nearby (see title image).
With a projected price of some A$3.2 billion, the cost of the NWCH would be on par with the RAH, which already features in lists of the world’s most expensive buildings.
No one seriously opposes the need for a new hospital yet the proposal has raised howls of protest.
The logic of this opposition is impeccable.
It stems from the proposed location in Adelaide’s parklands, the consequent need to demolish some heritage listed buildings, and from the state government’s attempts to ram the approval through with minimal community or parliamentary review.
Many are flabbergasted.
Why would a popularly elected representative government, entrusted with the care and integrity of the parklands and the retention of listed heritage buildings, then embark on a project that damaged both and ignored entreaties for a project review?
Imagine the uproar if a new similarly-scaled hospital were proposed by a NSW government in Sydney’s Centennial Park.
Why build in parklands?
To be fair, the location is already “alienated” from parkland use by the Thebarton Barracks, a now decommissioned police training facility.
And, as occurs in the parklands of other Australian capitals, there are numerous other instances of alienation in Adelaide’s parklands.
However, there are alternatives.
The local architects’ union – the SA chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) – recommended three other sites within or next to the city proper.
The detailed reasoning was set-out recently by the AIA’s Nicolette di Lernia in The Fifth Estate.
The AIA can’t be accused of bias or self-interest because its members will be engaged wherever the NWCH is built.
Nor can land cost be an issue.
Smaller projects are often considered to be within budget even if they exceed initial estimates by no more than 10 per cent – some $320 million if the same analysis were applied to the NWCH.
Yet, if the land suggested by the AIA cost, say, $30 million, it would comprise less than 1 per cent of the initial budget – lunch-money, comparatively.
What’s the problem then?
So, what’s all the fuss about? A much-needed new hospital, already compromised parklands, the loss of a few old rocks, and a popular government taking the hard decisions it was elected to make?
Well, it is obviously axiomatic that responsible parkland curation should entail a trajectory away from alienation by urban development, not its further entrenchment.
Similarly for heritage conservation: listed items are not conserved by their demolition.
It might be observed that it is wholly within the state government’s powers to allow development in the parklands, so get over it.
However, this is a claim about legality, not urban merit; a city wholly designed by law-makers might be legal but as arid as a law library.
However, beneath these observations there are three more that warrant further examination.
The fading of Light’s vision
Firstly, the NWCH as proposed will accelerate the current decline of Colonel Light’s underlying city-making impulse.
In sharp contrast to the development of some other Australian capital cities, the fact that Adelaide was planned from the outset alerts to a conscious underlying concern for city-making.
Adelaide’s parklands surrounding the inner-city grids are Light’s defining feature of what would otherwise have been an infinite grid-city. They serve to demarcate a denser inner city from what have become Adelaide’s sprawling suburbs.
Light’s plan more or less obliged subsequent urban decision-makers to re-invent the city coherently and regularly over many generations.
This coherency was reflected in generally consistent and much-admired urban development, though in recent decades the effects of new technologies and concentrated highly mobile capital eroded that consistency somewhat.
As surveyed in my recent series of articles, which explored the extent and origins of central Adelaide’s growing reputation for urban mediocrity, the erosion has accelerated over the last two decades just as its city-making impulse seems to have shrivelled.
It is probably fair to add that the challenge posed by these new forces has not been adequately addressed by Adelaide’s planners.
For example, one instalment in that series reflected on Central Adelaide’s urban form.
The recent and apparently haphazard eruption of towers – most individually very well designed – is unravelling the once-valued coherence of the central city.
That process appears to be accelerating under conditions that now suggest the underlying coherent city-making impulse of Light’s plan has largely been forgotten.
Though the erosion is chronically resented – and blame assigned to developers, architects, and more recently to state government – most of the responsibility rests at the feet of the city council.
To illustrate, in the early 2000’s the City of Sydney recognised that state governments have much broader responsibilities and a much more remote exposure to the swirling currents that define and enrich urban life – and urban economies.
In comparison and due to their intimate daily engagement, councils are uniquely best placed to understand and then shape these city-making forces over coming decades. This insight was the foundation of the Sustainable Sydney 2030 plan.
In contrast to Sydney’s vision, Adelaide failed to develop an equally broad, inclusive, far-sighted and compelling account for how inner Adelaide might manage these emerging forces and expectations.
Adelaide’s failure is now starkly evident, not just in the NWCH project but in many other contemporary inner-city developments.
For example, commenting on a current proposal for an unusually tall apartment building opposite an inner-city heritage-listed former church, the state assessment planner observed that while it would significantly exceed the height of Adelaide’s current tallest building, there was little policy guidance on “what would constitute a desirable overarching city form”.
A key feature of these remarks is that the principal foundation of city-making has largely ceased to be strategic, guided by evolving community visions, and has become transactional, guided by and confined to the particular circumstances of projects and the brevity of their trajectory through the development assessment process.
Furthermore, assessment conducted under transactional conditions resembles more a narrative of validation, a confirmation of decisions made behind closed doors, rather than a genuine appraisal of longer-term community impact and benefit.
This is also evident in recent planning changes, which despite a superficial complexity, seem little more than a codification of laissez-faire, as many planning provisions can be combined either to approve or refuse any development, depending on the assessment mood.
Returning to the NWCH, its opposition by various groups and its promotion by government is marked by these fundamentally different approaches – of strategic continuity versus narrowly focused transactional city-making.
It is no accident that transactional planning is attractive to mobile risk-averse capital – and laissez-faire governments – whereas concerns for coherent city-making understandably appeals to a city’s inhabitants.
Sadly, the integrity of the parklands now depends on the strength of highly variable city-making credentials of government.
Hospitals are cities in microcosm
The second problem concerns the nature of the NWCH facility.
Unlike sports stadiums, which are generally compatible with parkland uses, hospitals are quintessentially urban mini-cities.
There are few urban activities that do not have a counterpart expression in hospitals.
Hospitals host essential services, highly trained and skilled experts, teams of supporting workers, and sophisticated technological equipment. They depend on specialist knowledge, innovation, the development and exchange of esoteric information, coordination of complex activities and sophisticated logistical support.
They are also significant economies in their own right, entailing substantial capital investment ($3.2 billion for the NWCH), extensive ongoing salary expenditures, sizable payments for goods and external services, and ongoing government outlays. Hospitals also support many surrounding ancillary economies, including specialist advice and services, suppliers of goods and equipment, and many supporting small businesses.
Hospitals are obliged to grow and adapt to changing community expectations, economic conditions, technologies, and demand for services.
Furthermore, hospitals are centres of cultural activity, educational institutions, and hosts of challenging personal and community events. More than many other institutions, hospitals are exemplars of civil society. Many hospitals have an international face, exchanging information, people and services with other nations.
Like cities, hospitals also need room to grow, yet as expansion pressures mount for new accretions to accommodate new services and specialities, it is not fanciful to imagine the NWCH will grow irresistibly within the parklands as a metastatic fragment of the city.
From almost every perspective it simply makes no sense to isolate the NWCH in parklands. It makes every sense to embed it within the city, not least because with a price tag of $3.2 billion it would have the best chance of growing the city’s economy.
In other hands and in other cities, this eye-watering investment alone would prompt vigorous efforts to build something truly wonderful within the city.
Compare the NWCH to its Brisbane counterpart – also one of the world’s most expensive buildings.
Though not exactly to this author’s taste, this building designed by Conrad Gargett Lyons is undeniably urban; a bold and confident depiction of a state government’s values and commitment to the community it serves, and to the urban economy.
Consequence of political decisions
The third problem concerns the way in which significant urban decisions are now being made.
Adelaideans obsess about the parklands. Their first settlement origin contributed to their heritage listing. Their recreational popularity is often evoked as an ancestral gift. Any form of development proposed within their curtilage usually generates heated debate. In short, Adelaideans expect those charged with management of the parklands to treat them with the same ongoing strategic care.
Yet, the reasoning for selecting the site dwells on comparative operational benefit above few other options – a logic that is also essentially transactional in flavour.
One of the many dangers of a transactional approach to city-making is that it elevates precedent to the position of overarching strategic guidance.
Thus, what has occurred previously, particularly if done at the volition or direction of government, becomes the overriding arbiter and indicator of future planning merit.
Hence, the decisions around the NWCH obtain extra significance because they signal to all-comers what the underlying city-making concerns really are and who will really make the decisions.
These conditions resemble the planning-by-fiat practices of frankly autocratic regimes; features that are directly at odds with the state’s socially progressive origins.
Eventually, the blandishments of private developers to develop in the parklands will become impossible for government to resist on the what’s-good-for-the-goose-is-good-for-the-gander principle, and as assessment increasingly becomes a special-pleading project directed to and by the government of the day.
The tee-shirt slogan
Perhaps the decline now warrants popular recognition.
As precedent, the NWCH winks and purrs, “Hello sailor! Wanna develop our sacrosanct parklands? Sure! Knock over inconvenient heritage items? Be our guest! Want free land? Why not! We can make you very happy because we are very flexible and our expectations are very low.”
Unlike the many developer-led examples of Adelaidean mediocrity, this one comes from the top; it exemplifies state government urban values, methods, interests, and authority. It also marks a further decline in the city-making instincts gifted by Light; a decline that has contributed, it is contended here, to Adelaide’s growing reputation for urban mediocrity.
Perhaps the decline now warrants popular recognition, so here’s a tee-shirt suggestion: on the back “Myeh-delaide” and across the front “It’s official; it could be worse”.