Brisbane locals know all too well the feeling of bumping into someone you know on every corner. You could almost get away with calling Brisbane a town, rather than a city. But it seems Brissie is changing it’s look. An abundance of infrastructure developments are taking place, giving Queensland’s capital a ‘glow up’.
Most notably, a $3.6 billion integrated resort is being built at Queen’s Wharf. It’s got all the bells and whistles: five luxury hotels, 2000 residential apartments, 50 restaurants, a pedestrian bridge to Southbank, a casino gaming floor and a ‘sky deck’ overlooking the city. Add onto this two new CBD transport systems, an airport expansion, road upgrades and a new entertainment precinct, and it’s like puberty is smacking Brisbane in the face.
The reason for our city’s makeover? Brisbane’s trying to position itself as a New World City.
World Cities, or Global Cities, are cities that functions on a global scale, rather than a national one. They’ve usually got a large, diverse population, good education, multi-national corporations and a strong arts and culture influence – think London or New York.
In basic terms, they’re a hub. Author Richard Longford, in his report On Global Cities, says “Global Cities are where everyone wants to be. They are the arenas of modern commerce. They move faster, think faster. They offer greater rewards and harsher penalties. They are super-competitive. As they say in New York, ‘if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.’ And if you can’t make it in New York? That’s tough—the rest of the city is too busy to care.”
This is where the ‘new’ part of the New World City term comes in; Brisbane’s not trying to compete with London or New York. Instead, we’re in a whole other category, ranked on the same level as Auckland, Cape Town, Barcelona or Copenhagen. There are 10 different categories of World Cities and three different types of New World Cities – the gist is that Brisbane is a relatively small, growing, very liveable city.
University of Queensland Human Geography Professor Doctor Thomas Sigler says it was Expo ‘88 that kicked Brisbane into gear. “It’s only been in that last 30 years that Brisbane has been a place that was recognised as a globally significant city; it sort-of had that reputation of being a large country town prior to that,” Dr Sigler said.
He says Brisbane has become multicultural and we have good, globally-recognised education facilities, as well as a great tourism link with the Sunshine and Gold Coasts, and connections in Asia.
According to Dr Sigler, Brisbane’s had ‘mega upgrades’ in its plan for a long time, in the form of “globally-scaled infrastructures, globally-scaled architectures and up-scaled tourism opportunities”. “That’s where this Queen’s Wharf [project] fits in: it’ll put Brisbane on the map and attract economic development that may have gone elsewhere if it weren’t for this project,” he said.
Naturally, our city’s upgrade will bring more visitors, more money, more career and business opportunities and essentially boost us to being one of the popular kids in the school.
Principal Research Fellow at Griffith’s Cities Research Institute Matthew Burke says it’s important for our city to be constantly moving forward. “In economic development terms, it’s important to change and adapt and to stay current. Cities are competing for investment; they are competing to be a destination for small firms, big firms, research firms ... and cities are also competing for labour, they are competing for people,” he said.
Of course we want some of that. As a New World City, Brisbane will get to compete with other cities for talent, resources, innovation, students, visitors and major events.
The higher-ups may rattle on about economic benefit and global growth but with great power comes great responsibility.
Inequality runs rampant in Global Cities because wealthy people move closer to the CBD, raising house prices and encouraging more expensive living, while the middle and working class are pushed further out. The city in the inside blooms with good transport, schools and facilities, while the outlying suburbs get left behind.
Councillor for the Gabba Ward Jonathan Sri, “Jonno” to Brissie locals, says he’s worried about people getting pushed to the side, while the companies in the CBD make money. “I think we need to start by questioning who growth benefits … we’re seeing a rise in inequality and that’s driven by, and reinforced by, these mega developments that make some parts of the city mega wealthy while the rest of us miss out,” he said.
If people are going to be pushed out of the city, we need to help them out there. If there’s people, there needs to be jobs and schools too. “Inner city areas are already doing pretty well in places like Brisbane but there are outer suburban areas, regional areas, that are really struggling to have a sustainable economy, struggling to find enough jobs for people. Putting a bit more government investment into those sorts of areas would help them succeed a bit more but also help spread the population growth around a bit more,” Jonno said.
Mr Burke agrees, saying he thinks some aspects of our city’s growth are more pain than gain. “I have less concern about the well-designed master plan communities. I have more concern about developments that are too far from the existing urban area, and this higgledy piggledy, poorly-planned, scattergun development that you see if you drive on the far outskirts of Western Ipswich, which you see in the southern parts of Logan, which you see in the key parts of the Moreton Bay region.”
This disjointed development means people are traveling further just to get to places like schools and shopping centres. “But they’re doing so because housing is so expensive and they’re seeking a sizable house with a garden, in a location that they can afford,” Mr Burke said. Rather than spread out, or build up, we should be looking to cities like Copenhagen building “affordable, sustainable, mid-rise development”.
Mr Burke says our “very automobile-based development” also adds to the battle of climate change. “It’s a kind of development that’s locking people into complete auto-mobility. These are people who will have to burn two litres of fuel to purchase one litre of milk. It’s a really unsustainable travel pattern.”
But it’s not just spread-out cities; Mr Burke says high-rises can be just as harmful to the environment because of the amount of carbon dioxide emitted when the buildings are made. “With the very large amounts of concrete, the embedded energy in that is so carbon-intense and so destructive with climate change that it almost doesn’t matter that those people use cars less because the embodied energy in those buildings is so large. If we’re serious about the climate emergency, there’s certain practices we really should be starting to reconsider.”
And for World Cities, climate change is an emergency that needs to be looked at closely and quickly. With millions of people a fast-moving city, more and more pollutants are pumped into the atmosphere. In fact, cities make up 2% of the earth’s surface, but make up for 78% of energy consumption. Unless theses cities are smart about the way they work, this pollution will kill their city in a number of years.
And while the city gets bigger and begins to trade with overseas corporations, it tends to leave local business behind. Many cities become detached from the towns or rural areas around them. This has been the case in Sydney and in Melbourne where many companies trade with overseas businesses, more than, or instead of, local businesses.
Jonno says, on top of this cost and benefit debate, he’s concerned Brisbane will become like every other city. “We need to remember the importance of preserving our unique local identity,” he said. “Rather than just trying to be like every other city with big high-rise towers and massive casino resorts, we should probably be focussing more on the things that make Brisbane special, like our river. Brisbane is one of the few cities in the world where there are dolphins in the river in the CBD. That’s the sort of thing that we don’t celebrate enough and that’s the sort of thing that we could attract tourists with rather than high-end shopping and luxury restaurants.”
It’s important to remember that the concept of a World City, or New World City, is just concept, and while having influence and power is good, there is continuous momentum. Every city in the world will continue to grow and change, and the very idea of a World City will change too over time. The rise of these New World Cities has been quick and impressive, but the future of them is still uncertain.
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