Adelaide,
South Australia
| CBD | |
| Relation to Models | |
| Entertainment/Culture | |
| Connections to World | |
| Links | |
| Bibliography |
|
|
|---|
Connections to the World Urban System. Is Adelaide a world city? Probably not. It is fairly small, and well behind Sydney and Melbourne in world-city status. The airport is very near to the city, but air travel is the only practical way to get from Adelaide to any other large city; even Melbourne is a long, overnight bus ride away through scrubby landscapes. The geographic isolation of Adelaide, like many other Australian capitals, has made it difficult to establish connections elsewhere in the world. However, with the postwar wave of immigration and a growing realization that Australia is poised to join the economies of the Pacific and Asia, Australian cities are beginning to realize that their opportunities will come from the outside rather than the inside. In 1971, Adelaide had its own bank, its own newspapers, its own radio stations, and most of the television was even produced locally. Aussie rules football and other club sports were played by teams from different suburbs and neighborhoods. Now, the Bank of South Australia is struggling and the Bank of Adelaide is long gone. Only one local newspaper remains, which is reporting more and more international and national news (from personal experience, I found the amount of international news very impressive), and most TV and radio programming is nationally syndicates and networks. The Aussie rules team, the Adelaide Crows, now plays in the AFL (Australian Football League) and support for local league teams is quickly waning. This is just one illustration of the relatively rapid changes taking place in Adelaide. On the other hand, people from Melbourne and Sydney still consider Adelaide something of a country town and a frontier outpost due to its smaller size and relative isolation. I would propose that Adelaide is trying to balance having the best of both worlds: while it has the cosmopolitan nature of an international metropolis, it is small enough to retain familiarity and charm to residents and visitors alike. |