Surprise surprise - Kings Cross residents like the nightlife

As reported in the SMH today:

The University of Western Sydney's City After Dark project found 88 per cent of residents in neighbourhoods such as Kings Cross and Darlinghurst said nightlife added to the appeal of their suburb, a view particularly strong among younger renters.

Fortunately even Clover Moore seems to have got the message that the local temperance union are a minority who simply moved into the wrong suburb, and pandering to them is a vote loser. Her rhetoric has changed from talking about "shocking evidence" of alcohol fuelled mayhem to a more balanced approach of fostering a diverse night time economy. Let's hope.

Now if I could only find a small bar where I could afford the drinks...

Beware a new police state in NSW

David Clarke at home in Cherrybrook,
heart of the hills district bible belt
Photo: Hills Shire Times

Inner city subcultures beware: hard times are a-coming.

I was dismayed this morning to hear that hard-right Christian Liberal prohibitionist David Clarke ha been appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Attorney-General AND head of the Standing Committee on Law and Justice. He had held these positions in the shadow government before the elections. On top of a $17,000 pay rise, this gives him powerful influence over the NSW law and order agenda.

This is where the nice avuncular face of Barry O'Farrell, who supported Clarke in his preselection, gives way to persecution and intolerance. Front and centre will be a crackdown on users of illicit drugs as Clarke is hand-in-glove with a worldwide network of fanatical right-wing Christian prohibitionists who really want to use the law to force everyone else to live like them.

Organisations such as Drug Free Australia (linked to Drug free America) incessantly lobby politicians to get tougher on drugs, wilfully ignoring mountains of evidence showing that prohibition causes more harm than drugs, and stereotyping drug users (other than alcohol, prescription drugs or tobacco, of course) as crazy dysfunctionals as per the film Reefer Madness.

They call for mandatory drug testing and ever-harsher penalties for drug offences. For a taste of what we may face, see Florida USA* which has just brought in mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients (who have to pay for the tests!). Those caught face a year or more without benefits - can you imagine the crime, distress and mayhem that will result from creating a new underclass of unemployed drug users with no income.

Some cities transcend the mundane

Just for some light relief, a friend put me onto the Village of Joy site which has a lovely collection of things of the imagination made real. I liked the 'Strange buildings of the world' section.

Sydney developers would do well to spend some time browsing these triumphs of playful, self-confident flights of the imagination.

Pictured is the National Theatre of Beijing (apparently photographed on the one clear day they have had since it was built).

Farrelly takes aim at Oxford Street

The credibility gap between Council and on-the-street reality got a good workout from Elizabeth Farrelly in the SMH today.

Even as Kings Cross is hinting at a partial retail resurgence, Oxford Street remains bleak.

Several blocks on the north side of the street are owned by Council, and there has been friction with many of their tenants -- the small, independent unique ones on the whole, whose turnover was slashed while the uniform granite and Smartpoles 'upgrade' was installed at public expense.

But Council has a vision for the street. Unfortunately it is controlled by their property department who differ from the white shoe brigade only in that they are not risking any of their own money. They love the expensive places and the franchises, seeing it all in terms of dollars per square metre. Words like unique, local, creative and affordable are absent from their vocabulary.

As Elizabeth Farrelly put it, they are 'still seeing revitalisation as a means of precluding rent reduction, rather than a response to it.'

This cultural dissonance exists within some other Council departments as well, and no Councillor seems to comprehend it (except, I suspect, John McInerney). Placing the issue into public dialogue is not easy. Congratulations to EF for doing so.