Keep the real estate market buoyant; that is the priority. Maintain a steady flow of Chinese criminals carrying their booty in suitcases to the Saturday morning auction, add $6.000 government grant and a free visa( as in NSW until the scam was rudely exposed), and *viola* the books are balanced! Go for it Adelaide!

Well said Malcolm
I have been saying exactly the same things since the GFC hit
but few appear to have been listening.
SA is not in danger but Adelaide is becoming an irrelevant city to the world. Unfortunately until people are willing to see the problems instead of denying them you can't begin to work on solutions.

Thanks State of Irrelevance,

Sometimes a social phenomena will rise up above the horizon and you'll find one piece of a jigsaw that leads to others. The American band The Eagles is doing a national tour in Feb/March 2015. It's the bands final superannuation top up tour. It's a Boomer nostalgia climax. They're doing every other capital but not Adelaide. In fact, most major international acts (Leonard Cohen excepted), bypass Adelaide (ditto Hobart). But Adelaide has 1.2M people. Why?

Two reasons: Adelaide folk don't book early online, which sends a signal to the promotor that they won't fill a house. The other reason is that promotors don't believe Adelaide live music consumers will ante up with the $$$. Why? Because the economy is so dire. Too much risk. Not enough liquidity.

You could rightly counter 'but we've got a fab new Adelaide oval!!' Doesn't matter. They've been burnt too many times. You could counter 'but we've got the Rolling Stones!' Paid for by the state government. Adelaide is the Gulag Archipelago for international acts.

Malcolm 'Paddy' King

I’ve just had a blood transfusion, because my heart bleed so much.

Adelaide is a good example of how non-viable the capital cities are becoming.

Remove manufacturing and taxpayer funded public servants from capital cities, and the capital cities are mostly non-viable.

There would be a good case for bulldozing down large areas of capital cities, and returning those areas back into natural bushland.

Or maybe this is the epitome of life as we should know it.

http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2010/07/29/1225898/272614-house-prices.jpg

Yes Malcolm, it's pretty bad. But you promised a forensic analysis of the psycho-social, and you've only given us the run down on the economics of it all. I am of the opinion that the economics do not reflect global factors so much as the crippling negativity that prevails in general cultural attitudes. I'd like to see equal attention given to "the problem of the bureaucracy", "the problems of the courts", "the problem of the surveillance regime that has taken to targeting individuals with ideas the SAPOL surveillance unit doesn't like", "the problem of the education department's managerialism in lieu of intellectual leadership" etc.

To make an offer that could have a positive impact, as well as make my life more interesting, I am right now looking for someone to help me recover a property that has been let go for nearly three years. It is in reasonably bad shape. The house needs attention even more than the property. I am not interested in paying an hourly rate. I am looking for someone who wants to help plan what needs to be done, and who would like to get involved in helping me make the place economically viable and then share in the profits from that - a joint venture type set-up where I made the property and the house available, and someone else puts in most of the labour. I have quite a few ideas about what could be done around here, but cannot get anything up and running unless I find the right person to work with me on it. Private message me (Glynne Sutcliffe Huilgol) on Facebook if you'd like to help me fix up one small part of the Adelaide economy. (Arrangement could be on basis of cash investment or on earning sweat equity)

Incomuicardo, what's the relevance of the Oxford Martin School link to a research report on computerisation? Do you have a page reference supporting anything in particular?

Trying to look scientific or academic are we? This is the same school that was dismissed the other week because Oxford Martin sees managed population and growth as essential for healthy economies and societies, you know having a job?

Knowing the Oxford Martin School their diagnosis of Adelaide problem would be declining and ageing population, which will become worse and impact all these living in Adelaide in future, leading to even more young people leaving and less local and inmternational immigrants ....... but that's the objective isn't it?