By DPA
Sydney : Cities like Berlin and New York take a delight in their seedy precincts while others like Singapore and Sydney are ashamed of them and clean them up.
The city fathers of the former are wise and those of the latter are misguided, says Australian cultural researcher Fiona Allon.
“Creativity, innovation and ‘coolness’ often emerge from the grungier areas of a city,” Allon said. “The suburbs least desired by most residents are frequently the most desired by the creative and alternative communities — largely because they are cheap to live in but also because of the creative tension that comes from a group of like-minded citizens.”
The University of Western Sydney academic, speaking at a conference on urban planning, said Sydney ought to take its cue from Berlin — “a classic example of a city that embraces its seedier side to energise a buzzing arts scene, alternative music and numerous other cutting-edge subcultures.”
She worries that with the disinfection and gentrification of Kings Cross and other bohemian Sydney suburbs the centre of Australia’s biggest city will be “reborn as a bland, homogenous landscape designed by the hands of eager developers.”
The elders of New York have taken pains to keep the counterculture of Greenwich Village alive. Berlin, recently named the “European epicentre of youthful cool,” doesn’t fret about the naughty and tries to make it nice.
But Sydney? In Kings Cross the rich have moved in and are forcing the sleaze out.
Allon could point to Singapore, which cleaned up its Bugis Street quarter, realised a mistake had been made and was then unsuccessful in re-establishing the grunge factor there.