Brisbane lacks the high street culture of Sydney and Melbourne, and the finger of blame has been pointed at the family car. Can – or should – that change?
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.A common refrain among those from the Deep South of Australia is that Brisbane lacks the kind of distinct, vibrant neighbourhoods that are so ubiquitous in the southern capitals.
“The southern capitals were both much larger cities by the 1920s when streetcar [tram] systems started their decline in Australia,” he says.“As such, more of their inner and middle suburbs have an urban fabric built before the invention of the freeway. They enjoy small street setbacks and little porches out front. These suburbs tend to have a footpath on both sides of every street, something missing in mid-suburban Brisbane.
“In that postwar period, people left the moment they could afford to leave. They left for new suburban homes because the lifestyle was simply better.“They got more space, they got a yard – yes, it required a car in most cases to get there, but it was a vast improvement on what they left behind.” “I lived in London for about six years and the corner pub is a real institution there – it’s almost an extension of people’s lounge rooms, whereas we just don’t have that here,” Walters says.“Brisbane has never had the concentration of pubs that other cities have had, except maybe in places in the inner city.”Glenn Hunt/AAP
If third places are not already part of a neighbourhood’s fabric, Walters says, it’s a challenge to shoe-horn them in. “You’re always going to piss off people, there’s always going to be opposition. NIMBYism and that kind of thing was probably always going to happen,” Cushing says. “It’s got to be multilayered. You’re always going to have the opposition, but I think it’s shifting the behaviour, but then also shifting the built environment – the physical representation of that.”
“You just wonder how we got there. You’d look at that and think ‘this is 2023’ – it’s just appalling. And why would anyone want to work there as it is?”
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