Adelaide - a nice city but a shame about the employment culture. Adelaide is well known as paying low wages and as having very poor age discrimination practices. I read the recent productivity figures on Adelaide and they were disturbing. The city relies too much on government contracts and mining. It will struggle on for a while and mining will help but ultimately its lack of diverse economic activity will bring it down.

I does seem that the dynamos leave Adelaide early in their careers, Rupert Murdoch being an example. A student at the Adelaide hills school I went to become a maths professor at a US university at the age of 23. Adelaide seems to be on corporate work-for-the-dole with the car industry getting over $700m we are told and plans to build more diesel submarines since the last lot were lemons. Not only does money come from interstate so does the water that supplies the main river needed for dry years.

They say you should stick to what you are good at. According to Mike Rann South Australia has about 40% of the world's easily mined uranium. Duh, why not exploit that? They want to expand Olympic Dam mine but there is a distinct lack of power supply. Why not nuclear? If SA pursued the full nuclear fuel cycle with mining, enrichment, electricity and waste disposal it would be a very wealthy place. The lowest paid workers would be driving Mercs. It seems typically South Australian that they can't quite bring themselves to acknowledge this. Perhaps the Chinese should move in and run things.

In relation to your comment" Not a crane is to be seen on the skyline" How do you respond to the fact that Adelaide CBD has never had so many cranes on the skyline before as it currently has at 11. This number is due to rise into the mid 20's next year by a number of projects which just have, or are about to commence.

So for Adelaide to have the most cranes ever and then for this to more then double in the next 12 months, I find it astonishing you think nothing is changing.

Adelaide is barely recognisable on street level compared to what it was 10 years ago. I agree from a distance the skyline does look unchanged and one of the challenges that face the city are removing the councils powers (partially done now the DAC asses projects over $10m) but also to significantly reinvent the development plan as it is currently failing Adelaide in it's current form.

There is a new sense of positivity and a lot of ex pats returning to the city to take up opportunities that in the past have not exisited.

I think you need to take a walk around the city to see there is a "buzz" around and lots of change and development.

in regards to population growth you failed to mention that in 2009 Adelaide City Council had the fastest population growth of any council area in Australia. Does that sound like a city on it's way to a decline?

Question: Would you happen to be Victorian by any chance and jealous of Adelaide's and indeed South Australia's rich future prospects.

One can only imagine the author has had a few knock backs wants to blame a whole state rather then face reality. As someone who was born in Bankstown NSW and now works in IT in country SA I have some advice, get over yourself stop compaining and lend a hand to improve things or go back to VIC.

As a city that appears to only want to be a parasite on the eastern states, the smugness displayed above, is not a great idea.

So far you have managed to do a global warming type con job using the demand for "environmental flows" in the Murray Darling system to disguise your grab for eastern water to keep your costs down.

With the anger displayed in country Qld, NSW & Vic today, you may not get away with this con. The practice of using the result of "environmental flows" to give SA irrigators 80% of their allocations, when eastern irrigators are surviving on 20% or less, does not gain any friends.

Then you complain about the water quality. If you don't like it, build your own darns, & desal plants, like everyone else. I can assure there is no problem getting others to use it, & they would even say thanks when they got it.

Until SA does a bit more to harvest more of it's own water, & merely sits back demanding more of someone else's, I would be in favour of simply closing the place down. It really is nothing but a drag on the productive part of the country.

I'm always amazed at the denial in some sections of Adelaide. There is little development. I can tell because my office over looks the CBD.

The only reason ex-pats are returning is to look after ageing parents in an ageing city where there are no jobs at middle and executive level.

Adelaide's main problem is parochialism and a kind of redneck attitude more fitting say to Alabama in the 1950s, ala 'you ain't from around here are you boy?'