Myth-busting #12 - You Have No Vision
by Shane Sody
If you Love Your Park Lands, like we do, you might occasionally hear criticism from people who have latched onto a Park Lands myth.
In this article, we’re MYTH-BUSTING the claim that Park Lands supporters lack “vision”.
Wannabe Park developers, or their cheerleaders frequently tell us that they want Adelaide to come alive, with new developments. There is space available for their favoured, proposed development, (so they tell us) on a site within your Adelaide Park Lands.
They say that Park Lands supporters are holding back a rosy future. Why can't you envisage what the city could become? they ask us.
Fact: We do have a vision. Here it is:
"In a crowded world with more and more people squeezed into megacities the world of the mid-21st century will come to prize and glorify the last remnants of open space that still survive in any of those vast urban concrete sprawls. In this over-crowded future, open space will be a rare jewel, and in that world, the city with the most abundant treasure trove will be Adelaide. Then, as now, Adelaide will still be the only city in the world surrounded by open Park Land. Tourists from all over the world accustomed only to tiny crowded parks (or no parks) in their home countries will come to revel and enjoy the untold riches that we (in our wisdom) would still have preserved, more than 200 years after the founding of our city. "
Your Park Lands - protecting and restoring the world’s only Park with a city inside it - a rare jewel. That’s our vision.
Some people want to make sure that this vision cannot occur because they are intent on building over or selling off Adelaide's priceless heritage, piece by piece.
They are the ones with a lack of vision - or perhaps they just have a radically different vision, something like this:
Barcelona in Spain. It’s among the 100 European cities with the highest mortality due to lack of green spaces, according to a study by ISGlobal. Photo by Kaspars Upmanis on Unsplash.
This alternative vision is a nightmare. A lack of green spaces in cities is linked with higher mortality and worse child development. https://ellipse.prbb.org/lack-of-green-spaces-in-cities-higher-mortality-and-worse-child-development/
Adelaide ranks second lowest among Australian capital cities in the amount of urban green space available per person.
That situation is worsening as your Park Lands continue to succumb, piece by piece, to more and more development, each one subsuming more of your Open, Green Public space.
Our vision” includes to PROTECT this treasure against further losses, and (where practicable) RESTORE Park Lands sites previously lost.
See the other Park Lands Myth Busters https://www.adelaide-parklands.asn.au/myth-busters