South Australia future is in Agriculture and Mining, Adelaide will become a fly in Fly out town most likely, a ghost town at worst.
Do nothing governments ( Labour and Libs) that fiddle with the CBD and nothing north of Gepps cross will see to that.

The state need infrastructure to unlock it's mineral wealth and that will be funded by China central government not ours.

Waiting for the baby boomers to die out as a logical solution, may see their homes being taken up by new generations of retirees, and does nothing to address the immediate problems!

Even a fly in fly out concept still needs dormitories or habitable lodgings and service industries!
But apart from that the essential central point is well made.

And the bricks and mortar mindset is simply holding up far better more sensibly targeted investment!
And that investment needs to be directed at our/your best people and their better ideas.

And if those ideas receive essential commercialization funding; those ideas will be the very vehicle needed to create the jobs of the future!

As anyone can see for themselves now; one doesn't need to shed many real manufacturing jobs to have enormous flow on consequences for the entire economy!

Conversely, one doesn't need to create very many brand new make stuff jobs to entirely reverse that same domino effect/economic outcome!

Look, basket case economy, Ireland, went on to become one of the most successful tiger economies, just by investing in their best people and their better ideas; even where that then meant they'd have to pick winners!

And only ever undone by allowing foreign speculators into the domestic real estate market and or development, and insanely, with almost exclusive foreign debt funding!

And then compounding that problem by trying to bail out those very same foreign investors, with scarce public money!

Don't take my word for it, just look at the irrefutable evidence; and having done just that, be guided by it!

Or is that too hard; given I'm not from around here mate!
And indeed, none of my Irish ancestors!
Rhrosty.

The only function of a CBD is to block the traffic: more so if Adelaide is indeed a fly-in/fly-out town, then the last thing one needs is this CBD blocking the way to/from the airport!

As for vacant office-space, not only is there plenty already, but even more can easily be vacated: for example that building near the train-station, the one with the steps that attract so many demonstrators - due to its proximity to the Adelaide zoo, its residents could provide nutritious meals for the lions and tigers without anyone noticing.

You are aware aren't you Rhrosty, that Ireland is now the biggest basket case in Europe, & you have to be going some to win that title.

All that investment can only do so much. Investment needs a return, without which it was no better than peeing up the wall.

Any investment in South Australia will be about as useful as the Irish experience, a total waste of time & money.

As a backwater to grow a little wine, bread & milk, SA is OK, but anyone expecting any more is kidding themselves. It along with Tasmania will continue to bleed the rest of the country white, if we let them. Time to shut down the money pipe & tell them to use their own resources to support themselves. They have them, but just won't use them while we are silly enough to keep them in milk & honey.

Things are about to get too tough for the rest of the country to keep non paying passengers along for the ride.

I really started looking at some of Adelaide’s problems four or five years ago while studying demographic shifts and generational transfers. It was a digression but when I went back 30 years, you could see that both SA’s politicians and the business community did almost no forward planning. No alarms went off about population drift, an undiversified economy and low exports. These weren’t sexy tabloid topics, so The Advertiser (monopoly daily) didn’t report them. The more I dug up, the more confounding and serious those problems were. They have come home to roost.

I must admit that in the face of major structural issues in the labor market, the construction lobby is an irrelevance. It’s like peeling back an onion. If you remove the advertising and PR businesses, the lobby groups and various non-value adding associations, the state public service and all non-capital (not including knowledge generation), then you actually don’t have much one can make, buy or sell. In SA, thank God for the farmers.

It’s odd in SA – no one talks about this stuff. I have more meaningful conversations on solving or ameliorating the state’s problems with international students, migrants or unemployed locals who come to me looking for career advice. It’s amazing how unemployment fixes ones gaze on problem solving.

Yes Has, but if you cared to actually read all of my post; [and wouldn't that make a nice change,] you will see where I explained how and why; and where I pointed out in the clearest possible terms; how to avoid repeating Ireland's economy killing mistake.

If you look at any of the tiger economies, you will see they all prospered on the back of the social democrat construct,[investing in their best people and their better ideas,] and then went backwards on capitalistic individualism and monumental real estate over leveraging!

Moreover, it really is a case in every case, that together we stand, divided we fall!
None more so than a totally bankrupt post war Japan and its economic miracle!

Now if SA could just examine that excellent example and emulate it; they too could do exactly what a war torn and bankrupt Japan did!

And the biggest failures are very much connected to an indigenous real estate market that can and did go backwards or shrink!

And the numerous examples include the USA, the UK, Ireland, Spain and over valued over leveraged Japan; and is now starting to infect the powerful Chinese economy!

If the SA government has some spare stimulus money laying about, they'd be better advised not to invest it in any more overvalued over-leveraged real estate; but rather, any halfway decent cooperative venture that makes things, like say an employee owned and operated CNG> electric, car factory!

Japan finally understands its inherent mistakes and is now trying to return to an economy that again makes and exports things!

And if they, with their higher labor costs can successfully do just that, then so can we!

What apart from much smaller population and far fewer resources has tiny Norway or a slightly larger Sweden got that we haven't?

Lee Kwan Yu type pragmatism perhaps; and given outcomes, very obviously missing here; and where Volvo are now building or assembling Swedish trucks!
What's next? Highly maneuverable Saab jet fighters perhaps?
Fools never learn!
Rhrosty.

Yet again Malcolm King writes another Adelaide bashing article based on illogical conclusions and outright lies!

Unlike hot water in a chocolate teapot, more tall buildings would not damage Adelaide in any way. (There is a minor exception: those such as 51 Pirie Street that are on the route for a railway would be very damaging if no provision was made for it.) Indeed having more office blocks in the CBD would be good for Adelaide, as it would drive down rents, making it more attractive for businesses to locate there. And while Adelaide CBD office vacancy rates are currently high, that's mainly due to cyclical economic factors; a few years ago they were the lowest in Australia, and there's not been a mad spate of building since.

Having government infrastructure projects prop up the construction industry in a downturn is a very sensible tactic; it does make sense to have an industry that can respond when private demand returns, and while I disagree with some of the things the government's priorities, I can't dispute the fact that SA needs government spending on infrastructure to make up for their neglect of it in the 1990s.

As for extraordinarily high rents in some suburbs, surely that just proves high demand?
And the 30 year life cycle of commercial buildings is a myth, or at best only applies in a few locations.

Home buyers in the City do have jobs. Indeed most people do, despite the decline of some of our export industries. But there are also a lot of renters in the CBD (not all with jobs; some are students) so the target of 50000 CBD residents in 15 years is entirely realistic.

We have the infrastructure for water, and if we need more we can always construct a reservoir on the North Para.

There will aways be rent seekers looking out for their own interests, but assuming decline like Malcolm would be far more counterproductive than listening to developers.

Rhrosty, sorry mate, but you have to open the other eye too, if you actually want to see the full picture.

Yes I know, it just may spoil a good bit of rationalising, but does lead to being better informed.

Actually Has, I was recounting actual history, rather than rationalizing as you (par for the course) fallaciously contend.
Suggest in future you put brain into gear before engaging mouth!
Always providing you can tolerate the smell of burning emanating from previously unused cerebral circuits!?

Simply put, Ireland built a very strong and robust economy, (the Celtic tiger) by investing in their best people and their better ideas!
And then completely crueled it by very stupidly allowing foreign speculators into their real estate market/development, and on the back of massive foreign debt.

Then compounded their problems by trying to rescue those debt laden foreign developers or rather the private Irish banks that supported them; with taxpayers funds, and in so doing created their own extreme Financial Crisis.

It really was that simple, historical fact and not rocket science or clever rationalizing; for those still able to use their eyes and ears; and brains they were born with!

America tried something similar, given their banks and or insurance companies had allegedly grown too big to fail!
And where now every dollar of public debt now creates just 0.03 dollars worth of economic growth! The foreseeable consequence of trying to protect entirely unearned privilege!

Better one should be a little one eyed than blindfolded, and by personal choice at ones own hands Has!
Suggest in future you refrain from judging all others on your own patently flawed personal standards; or numb nut ideological idiocy!
Facts are chiels that dinna whinge Has!
Pouge ma hone.
Rhrosty.

"In Crowland, it's as if Alfred Deakin was still Prime Minister, so little has the economy diversified; so unprepared is it for trading in a global economy."

Adelaide will be unprepared for trading in the global economy for so long as it's closest international trading partner is Mawson Shelter in Antarctica.

What Adelaide needs is lighting-fast internet and telecommunications and a call-center industry - something that can be placed at the end of the world provided the connectivity is up to scratch. It already has cheap land and boredom - a software industry would leverage those assets.

PaulMurrayCbr, Adelaide does trade in the global economy already. And it has call centres, though competition from India has taken most of the money out of that industry. Adelaide has software companies too, though the main requirements for a software industry aren't boredom or cheap land; they're local demand and the right sort of education.

Like every part of Australia, a proper NBN is certainly needed in Adelaide. But to attract high value emoloyer to Adelaide's CBD (which is Australia's third biggest) a railway is needed under it.

Isn't progress all about knowing where your advantages are and capitalising on them? At the end of the day, it's going to take a lot of digging in storage to reverse a lot of what politicians think has helped the company and go back to the root of the issues and find a simpler solution. I really don't understand why so many people are making this a lot harder than it should be. We should be focuising on education and infrastructure instead of fighting internally about what went wrong right?