a suburban city

In these “roof to roof” estates, huge houses cover an increasing proportion of the land, whatever the lot size. Most of these houses have little or no provision for cross ventilation, lack eaves and require reverse-cycle airconditioning. Many of these new dwellings don’t have enough space for a vegetable garden – and if they have a pool they don’t allow enough space for the 20,000-litre tank they should have to keep it topped up. Sustainability is not a concern of the urban fringe.

If Adelaide’s 30 year plan, like most other metro plans, advocates “transit oriented developments”–eg., Bowden Village— its outer suburbs still remain entirely dependent on the private car. It has made minor steps to reverse the garrotting of its tramway system and it has plenty of the abandoned excavations for a failed inner-city office block or apartment towers.