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?'

And how exactly, Hasbeen, are you suggesting to close the place down? Are you proposing to lead all the people of SA in chains into exile?

There are plenty of cities in the world where life revolves around economy, productivity, competition, entertainment and media. Adelaide is different, which is why it attracts so many overseas migrants who seek its unique peacefulness. Most Adelaide residents are content with what they have and having a rich inner life they simply are not looking for more outside.

Of course there is also economic activity and business in Adelaide, but that's the exception, not the rule, just sufficient for providing South Australians with a decent yet modest living. Adelaide is not for the busy-busy lifestyle, so if you are after it, Malcolm, then perhaps you made the right choice when moving to Melbourne and you should probably better stay there.

Now Cheryl, I am glad to read that there is no development in Adelaide's CBD - why should you want any? If you are after middle/executive-level jobs then you should look elsewhere. What's more respectable than looking after one's ageing parents? seems far more respectable to me than shuffling paper in a high-rise office.

Yuyutsu that's fine, provided you fund your laid back life style yourselves.

While you want the other states to subsidise your life style, it's not OK.

Give up your demand for subsidies for the car industry you still have, & the defense force contracts, & eastern states water, which is all that keeps you afloat, & no one will mind how you chose to live, just you have no right to expect a slack life paid for by others. Greece anyone.

Just by using our rainfall where it falls would close the place down, unless a lot more SA money was spent on supplying your needs, from your own resources.

Dear Hasbeen,

"While you want the other states to subsidise your life style, it's not OK."

- I could not agree more, except that I never wanted such subsidies.

"Give up your demand for subsidies for the car industry you still have, & the defense force contracts, & eastern states water"

- Please don't hold me responsible for the policies of the stupid South Australian government! You know that from a logical point-of-view it is quite impossible to give up demanding something that I was never demanding in the first place!

BTW, regarding car subsidies, if South-Australia was independent (my favourite option!) and didn't need to use the Australian dollar as currency, then its car industry would do much better. As for the defense-force contracts, that's a commercial/business deal: South-Australians actually work hard and produce weapons that Australia needs in return for the funds - what's wrong with that?

Regarding water, well of course I would like to see South-Australia independent, which it could be long ago if not spoiled by the Murray or burdened with environmental ideology. Overall long-term rainfall is adequate, but currently mostly wasted. In fact, Adelaide already has its desalination plant, and dams are quite sufficient in most years, but yes, some more has to be done.

Oh dear Hasbeen that the mouth of the river is in South Australia is but a passing folly. What part of NSW do you come from? I'll guess the part the part that still sells Bex. I think you should take one and have a lie down.

Can't imagine what heavily subsidise industry you made your career in but now that you've retired you've taken up hate, and your good at it so well done.

Cheryl so you got knocked back too then?

I'm living in Adelaide again after 20 years overseas. It's quaint and has a great lifestyle for me and the family. Perhaps it should be converted to a large retirement village.

This article has deep resonance for me. Moving to Adelaide was a huge mistake. It's possible the 'fault' was mine - as in, I should have realised that a 'city' which boasts of a restaurant called the Bengal Bicycle Club (booked out for months in advance) is not going to offer a great welcome to an inter-racial couple. Certainly the professional establishment closed its doors in our face. And career advancement was totally blocked for both of us. When my marriage broke down, however, was when the knives came out, especially for me. Competence, imagination, workaholic disposition, entrepreneurial bent - nothing saved me! So - how to improve the place. For you, me, everyone. The climate is wonderful, and the kookaburras, koalas and kangaroos are pretty good. How about anyone who fancies doing something positive tries to get in touch, with a view to setting up a suburban/hills think-tank dedicated to getting things moving up, instead of down - at least for everyone who teams up in the group. If this idea interests you, begin by checking with www.photo-art.com.au

A range of entrepreneurial options already exist, and could be added to, with the group acting as a resource and idea-pooling energy bank.

No doubt that entrepreneurial options exist, but why would you want to come and disturb other people's peace? are there not enough kookaburras, koalas and kangaroos in your place?

You confess to a workaholic disposition - that is certainly unwelcome in Adelaide where people want to preserve their non-competitive lifestyle. If you come and try to impose your ideas of what's up and what's down on others, trying to "improve the place" despite the locals not wanting to be "improved" that way, no wonder they do not like you. You then attribute it to racism, which could not be further than the truth - racism is a feature of the eastern states and the last thing on Adelaide residents' minds. It's all about your pushiness, Veritas, not your race.

I'd say with a name like Yuyutsu he ain't from around here either - unless he's an international student, in which case, he's keeping the local economy afloat.

Veritas, while the writer of the article exhorts Adder expats to return, I suggest you do everything in your power to leave. Adelaide is an inverted anglo proddy-fantasy best left to hoons and murderous sex offenders. You sound entreprenurial and a go-getter. They belong in Sydney or Melbourne.

Would you please leave your tax file number though so we can afford to pay the extraordinary number of welfare and dole bludgers Adelaide has accrued over the last 30 years.

Yuyutsu - could I suggest that when a tsunami is coming your way it's a good idea to move to higher ground. You can get a fix on the tsunami if you check out http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/perfect-grammar-scores-stand-out-20111216-1oyu2.html It will not spare you.

Cheryl - why not call me. At least we could share a coffee and a few opinions. As for moving to Melbourne or Sydney, frankly Adelaide has worn me out. Two of my three kids have gone. But it's too late for me to move. Either I crack the system here, or just fall in a heap.

There is a great forum about South Australian developments and construction at sensational-Adelaide.com

Every major development for the past 7 years is captured, as well as constructive discussions about proposed and visionary development for the future. I look forward to chatting with those interested over there. It's a much more positive, mature and constructive forum.

All you got in your head, Veritas, is economics. You simply cannot understand that there are people who have other values and better things in their life, so they are not interested in material wealth. It seems that you came to bother them, to "crack" them in your own words. You are doing no service to yourself, nor to the people you came to live among.

Your "Tsunami" does not scare anyone - it is superficial and doesn't touch the core. South Australia can be self sufficient and manage well even without those students. Having different values, it should not have been part of the commonwealth of Australia in the first place. It will be better for everyone involved if South Australia transits into an independent country.

Sensational-Adelaide? Jesus, it's like Rann's still in power. Spin, spin, spin.

You want a tsunami? The state public service super fund is $1.3 billion short in it payout of public servants and the short fall is getting worse every year. That's just for starters.

Veritas, go with God and find your destiny elsewhere. You're too good for Adders.

Anyone else think Cheryl is Malcolm's Friday night persona? So much negativity and hate from one person. I feel for you living your life in this way.

OK - let's try another info byte. SA consistently performs poorly in the NAPLAN tests. And every year (this one being no exception) there is a discussion about how to reduce the scope of the curriculum in this subject or that, "in order to improve student performance"! (This year it is 'science' in the spotlight). If you have children, Yuyutsu, or grandchildren, or an acquaintance with the children of neighbours or others, try and figure where they are going to be as adults. Your halcyon retreat, with rose gardens in hills settings, and sipping wine in the golden glow of the setting sun, this won't be an option.

veritas,

NAPLAN SCHMAPLAN....this American-inspired style of testing is a blight on "education". Diane Ravitch, who was the under secretary of education during the Bush Administration and a champion of school testing has written a book panning it as "failed'.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/books/review/Wolfe-t.html

The sooner we stop "teaching to test", and learn to inspire our children, the better.

Hello Poirot,
Welcome on board. Now about Ravitch, seems to me that Ravitch Mark I was cleverer and more on the ball than Ravitch Mark II. Furthermore, her transformation seems to have had more to do with the failure of her friend to get an appointment within New York's educational world than with anything else. However, taking the point seriously, that testing as practised has some drawbacks, is not an argument against the utility of tests, examinations,accountability, challenges that require children to rise to meet them, etc. We had forty years of 'inspiration' based teaching, and look what happened. The only way 'progressive,'child-centred','constructivist'pedagogies actually work is when you have highly knowledgeable teachers using their techniques. At the moment the western world is heavily reliant on graduate expertise derived from students reared in Chinese, Indian and Jewish families who respect knowledge, skills and manifest achievement as the basis for a good life. The greatest enthusiasm in Australian culture is reserved for football and other sports. We thus follow Sparta rather than Athens. So our little 'Athens of the South' is currently spending a heap of its resources on ovals and stadia. If the new hospital gets built (on rehabilitated land!) it will need to be staffed primarily by those from other cultures who value knowledge and like passing exams. Ditto for most other fields of endeavor in the great south land of ours - within which we will shortly find our smug Anglo selves to be the new class of hewers of wood and drawers of water. Already we have a managerialist and largely culture free bunch of bureaucrats running the show. They can't last. The tsunami (see earlier comment) will comprise genuinely well-educated and substantively knowledgable people.

veritas,

"The greatest enthusiasm is Australian culture is reserved for football an other sports. We thus follow Sparta rather than Athens".

I enjoyed your post and agree that we present as a culturally barren society at present. We absorb a generic mish-mash of Western consumer culture and struggle to grasp a strand that identifies our own place in the modern world.

My main point was pertaining to the robot-like rote "teaching to test" that has become an integral feature of the system. Where are the skills taught that encourage children to develop an ability to think for themselves and to embrace some self-direction in their learning? By the time they leave school they are thoroughly conditioned to passively absorb...and they continue to do so whether it's sport or consumer mass culture.

The idea of "paideia" is a far off dream to some of us.

I went to WomAdelaide in 2010, the first time I had visited Adelaide since the 1980s. I had a great experience, found the recycling set-up at WomAdelaide first class (better than anything I had seen at NSW festivals - there was compost collection and even plates and cutlery were compostable). We had time to explore the city and hire free city bikes (no equivalent in Sydney), and travel on the free inner city buses, and see the wide streets with bike lanes Sydney residents could only dream of.
Adelaide's lack of "cranes on the horizon" could be due to respect for the city's heritage: meanwhile in a Sydney suburb just this week I viewed a proposal to build 14 storeys over the top of a heritage-listed building (this is really back-to-the-1970s stuff).
At WomAdelaide I was struck by the number of couples in their 20s with young children in tow (couples in their 20s in Sydney can't afford to have children), and we were driven to our accomodation from the airport by a young Afghani who had first settled in Melbourne, but moved to Adelaide for the cheap housing.
Yes, Adelaide is a small city but it has some great positives.

Fair comment John. I enjoyed Womadelaide too but alas, we can't live in an alternative music festival all of our lives. There is no doubt that Adelaide has made some solid contributions to alternative living and to the arts and unlike the writer, I tend to think Adelaide will scrape through on mining royalties. As they say over here, nothing is as precious as a hole in the ground. Be mindful that if GST revenues crash, Adelaide is shockingly exposed.

Adelaide is not the only Australian city suffering internal out-migration exceeding internal in-migration: Sydney also has more Australian residents moving out of it every year than those moving in. The only reason Sydney keeps growing is because of international migration. If Adelaide wants growth and dynamism, all it needs to do is attract more international migrants, which the city already appears to be doing to some extent due to the attraction of its cheap housing.
My final impression of Adelaide after WomAdelaide 2010 was jealousy, a feeling of: why do I put up with Sydney traffic jams, lack of bicycle lanes, lack of any free transport? However, being a professional in a very specific discipline, and my spouse being in a similar position, Sydney is where the work is, aside from any "closed shop" syndrome that may be operating in Adelaide.
Adelaide looked like a great place to retire though...a lot more civilised than beach retirement locations along the NSW coast with poor health infrastructure, summer traffic problems, and few cultural activities. It's no wonder older people don't want to leave Adelaide.
Finally, the worst aspect of Adelaide and South Australia generally, in my opinion, is the print media being entirely Murdoch-owned. Sydney's Daily Telegrapth is a total rag, but at least we have an alternative and can ignore it if we wish to. Adelaide residents: get yourself an online subscription to the Sydney Morning Herald/National Times/The Age

"If Adelaide wants growth and dynamism"

NO, THANKS!

Adelaide is one of the few places to escape from the above and lead a quiet peaceful life.

"the print media being entirely Murdoch-owned"

The print media? Actually I own it because I got enough stock of it to last my life! It's only used to check the oil level in the car, brush shoes, glue broken stuff on top, etc.

I am sure that some of Adelaide's problems derive from the skewing of its foundation. The first shipload of folk to come here acquired large tracts of land, but each took too many acres to be able to run their new properties without help from a (non-existent) extra work force. They are inspired by a Newgate prison inmate (jailed for trying to run off with an heiress)to get the labour power t hey need by putting sizable price on land for the second shipload of English emigrants - who therefore, unlike the first mob, had to undertake manual work to get the cash to buy some land. A two tier society was thus established at the outset. This was re-inforced as a social class distinction, I am reliably informed by a local historian, by the practice of holding land sales of the cheaper tracts (such as comprised by the Port Adelaide peninsula) on the weekend, while desirable and more fertile land out in the eastern areas, was sold during the week. This meant that the better off folk were able to attend the better land sales, while those who had to toil for their bread with 'regular' employment and no time off during the week, were automatically restricted to the cheaper land. Thus was born the famed "Adelaide Establishment".(to be continued)

(Continued from previous post).... The political geography of Adelaide became North Terrace (read 'Adelaide Club') versus the plebs on the plains. The sense of entitlement that accrued to the former, and the sense of deprivation which accrued to the latter, became entrenched. Later, in the Dunstan years, the old Adelaide Establishment was elbowed aside by the 'new bureaucrats' (see Djilas for an academic analysis of this kind of phenomenon, albeit of elsewhere). At this point the ethic of 'noblesse oblige' which was found in the earlier stages of elite formation,and gave the city Elder Hall and Bonython Hall, got lost with the ambitions of the noveau riche to get a firmed up place in the scheme of things with the acquisition of personal wealth derived from managerial salaries created in the career structures of a much expanded 'public service'. This version of Adelaide's history seems to me to square with what I have encountered in living here. It is softened by recent initiatives in media/IT arenas. But has anybody got a better overall framework within which to understand how Adelaide became the Adelaide we know today?

A pretty good historical take on Adelaide's foundations. The City of the Plain.

Adelaide really took off in the 40s with manufacturing, agriculture and livestock and it is still predominantly in that low tech phase. It's a stand out example of not going with the times so while it's rural village atmosphere may be charming, it's a veneer that hides the working poor and the under employed.

SA will need Commonwealth Gov handouts over the next 20 years.

Dear Cheryl,

Unlike the eastern states that were created by convicts, South Australians arrived by choice and are not there to be slaves. They may not work that many hours in a formal job or have that many dollars, but are therefore rich in free time.

"Low tech" is what makes South Australia self-sufficient, with enough people still knowing the good old skills. Once the world-economy collapses, which no doubt it will, and electronic goods no longer arrive at our shores, or any other cheap merchandise for that matter, South Australians are to be the least affected.

When the rest of the world goes over the cliff, South Australia can remain and flourish. You are encroaching on a sanctuary of sanity with your "going with the times" fantasy, like an elephant in a china store.

Nobody wants the commonwealth's pittance - South Australians want independence!

You're not alone in your Federation fantasy of independence for SA, Yuyutsu. Not other state is so dependent on GST revenues to survive. Indeed, your luddite and protectionist attitude is positively endearing and worthy of Menzies or the old Country Party. It is truly historic.

Low tech jobs go to Asia. Your end of the world comments are typical of the fiscal death wish of the protectionist, anti-market sect which live comfortably (for now) in Adelaide.

Adelaide has circled the wagons and can't seem to understand why tourists pass by, why Asia doesn't come knocking or why the rest of Australia (Qlds and WA) is sick of carrying SA.