Post by Chips on May 16, 2008 10:54:19 GMT 9.5
I've been all over, but it's Adelaide that captured my heart
May 16, 2008
Adelaide is Australia's quality city. I have visited most of the world's major cities, from Santiago to Istanbul and from Rome to Tarawa. I have lived for several years in London, Brussels, Sydney and Canberra. Yet unlike John Montgomery in his bitter rant ("Adelaide: beautiful one day, comatose the rest", May 15), I appreciate one thing about Adelaide above all else: the quality of life.
For my taste, a high quality of life is defined by two things. First, high-quality sport, entertainment and arts. Adelaide and Sydney both have that. The Adelaide Festival of Arts and Womadelaide are unequalled in Australia. Adelaide Oval is the nation's most beautiful cricket ground, Adelaide's AFL teams have won three premierships in the past 11 years, Royal Adelaide and Kooyonga are among the nation's 10 best golf courses. Adelaide has a top-quality orchestra, an opera company, theatre, the best V8 motor race.
Adelaide, then, has a wealth of entertainment and creativity. That's obviously true of Sydney too. And Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne. It's true in spades of cities such as London, Paris and Rome - but not Tarawa. If rich cultural experiences were all you wanted, you would not necessarily choose Sydney as home. In Western terms, New York and London are the leading cultural centres. But that's not all Sydney has to offer and nor is Adelaide's rich array of entertainment.
The second requirement for a high quality of life is access to the natural environment. You can live on a five-hectare block of land in the Adelaide Hills just 30 minutes from the theatre, the opera or the cricket or, for that matter, from work.
Some people like traffic; to enjoy living in Sydney, London or New York you'd have to love it. Adelaide has traffic problems, but compared with most cities, it's free of gridlock.
Living in Adelaide means being 40 minutes from the verdant vistas of McLaren Vale and an hour from the exceptional wineries of the Barossa. Thirty minutes out of central Sydney, the kids are squabbling in the back seat and asking dolefully, "Are we there yet?"
While Adelaideans are opening their first bottle of sauvignon blanc after 40 minutes, Sydneysiders are still staring into the exhaust of a Mack truck on Pennant Hills Road.
Mr Montgomery may have found drunks in Adelaide. If he wants a city without drunks, perhaps he should move to Riyadh. But if you want to live a quality life, not just a trendy, smog-infested existence watching the cars go by, move to Adelaide.
Alexander Downer Canberra
May 16, 2008
Adelaide is Australia's quality city. I have visited most of the world's major cities, from Santiago to Istanbul and from Rome to Tarawa. I have lived for several years in London, Brussels, Sydney and Canberra. Yet unlike John Montgomery in his bitter rant ("Adelaide: beautiful one day, comatose the rest", May 15), I appreciate one thing about Adelaide above all else: the quality of life.
For my taste, a high quality of life is defined by two things. First, high-quality sport, entertainment and arts. Adelaide and Sydney both have that. The Adelaide Festival of Arts and Womadelaide are unequalled in Australia. Adelaide Oval is the nation's most beautiful cricket ground, Adelaide's AFL teams have won three premierships in the past 11 years, Royal Adelaide and Kooyonga are among the nation's 10 best golf courses. Adelaide has a top-quality orchestra, an opera company, theatre, the best V8 motor race.
Adelaide, then, has a wealth of entertainment and creativity. That's obviously true of Sydney too. And Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne. It's true in spades of cities such as London, Paris and Rome - but not Tarawa. If rich cultural experiences were all you wanted, you would not necessarily choose Sydney as home. In Western terms, New York and London are the leading cultural centres. But that's not all Sydney has to offer and nor is Adelaide's rich array of entertainment.
The second requirement for a high quality of life is access to the natural environment. You can live on a five-hectare block of land in the Adelaide Hills just 30 minutes from the theatre, the opera or the cricket or, for that matter, from work.
Some people like traffic; to enjoy living in Sydney, London or New York you'd have to love it. Adelaide has traffic problems, but compared with most cities, it's free of gridlock.
Living in Adelaide means being 40 minutes from the verdant vistas of McLaren Vale and an hour from the exceptional wineries of the Barossa. Thirty minutes out of central Sydney, the kids are squabbling in the back seat and asking dolefully, "Are we there yet?"
While Adelaideans are opening their first bottle of sauvignon blanc after 40 minutes, Sydneysiders are still staring into the exhaust of a Mack truck on Pennant Hills Road.
Mr Montgomery may have found drunks in Adelaide. If he wants a city without drunks, perhaps he should move to Riyadh. But if you want to live a quality life, not just a trendy, smog-infested existence watching the cars go by, move to Adelaide.
Alexander Downer Canberra