Adelaide vs Global Trends in Urban Planning

1. Human-Centric Design

• Global: Streets are being reclaimed for walking, cycling, and civic life (Paris, Bogotá, New York).

• Adelaide: Some gains (eg. Frome Bikeway, Rundle Mall renewal, Victoria Square rework), but still heavily car-centric in planning and politics. Major new projects like the Festival Plaza redevelopment lean toward office towers over open, people-first public spaces.

2. Green & Blue Infrastructure

• Global: Cities are embedding green corridors, urban forests, and daylighted waterways.

• Adelaide: Park Lands are a historic asset, but piecemeal encroachments (hospital, oval, towers) show a willingness to trade green space for development. Few bold moves on ecological integration in the city core.

3. 15-Minute City & Mixed-Use

• Global: Paris, Portland, Melbourne are re-zoning for compact, mixed-use, local living.

• Adelaide: Outer suburban expansion continues (eg. Playford, Mount Barker) while inner city still dominated by single-use commercial precincts. Some infill and small-scale mixed-use in Bowden and Tonsley are promising but not yet mainstream.

4. Climate Adaptation

• Global: Major investment in flood, heat, and sea-level resilience (Rotterdam, Singapore).

• Adelaide: Facing serious heat island risk; yet planning responses are modest (tree canopy programs exist but canopy cover is still declining). Water-sensitive design is under-used.

5. Equity & Inclusion

• Global: Participatory design and inclusive spaces are more common.

• Adelaide: Consultation often perfunctory—Festival Plaza controversy shows community input sidelined. Indigenous perspectives (eg. Tarndanya significance) are acknowledged in principle, but rarely embedded in design outcomes.

6. Smart & Data-Driven

• Global: Smart lighting, transport apps, and adaptive streetscapes.

• Adelaide: Trials exist (smart poles, sensors, “smart city” branding), but largely tech add-ons rather than embedded systems shaping planning decisions.

7. Tactical Urbanism

• Global: COVID accelerated outdoor dining, pop-up bike lanes, and street experiments.

• Adelaide: Pop-up activations (eg. Parklets, food vans, Fringe hubs) thrive, but often seasonal and festival-driven, not structural changes to streetscapes.

8. Placemaking & Re-urbanisation

• Global: Dense, character-rich cores are the focus of renewal.

• Adelaide: Re-urbanisation remains cautious. Big-ticket developments (towers, casinos, stadiums) often overshadow finer-grained placemaking. Meanwhile, heritage retention is patchy and under threat from commercial imperatives.

🧭 Characterisation

• Globally, the arc is towards people-first, green, and resilient cities.

• Adelaide, despite its extraordinary natural assets and cultural heritage, is swimming against the current in key areas: prioritising large commercial builds over civic space, neglecting climate resilience in the city core, and undervaluing consultation.

The paradox: Adelaide has the bones of a “model city” (grid, Park Lands, manageable scale) but risks drifting out of step with the most forward-looking planning trends.