THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE AN OLD PLACE Okay, so now here’s the thing – I have just been away for 6 weeks – (not bragging here, there’s a point to this) and travelled through Russia, Latvia, Estonia, Croatia, Venice and England and the most compelling thing about all those places was their history. Everywhere we went there was the “Old City” or the “Old Town” or the “Old Village” and this was always the highlight in every country we visited. It’s where tourists flocked to, it’s what the residents were proud of and it’s what gave these countries their “soul”. The pride that these people took in their heritage was undeniable as was the attraction to these places by tourists who were everywhere. Here in this country, which is not that old, it is especially important to retain what history we have and not destroy it, as this is where the richness of our society comes from. Our Government bodies in this country, including
our local councils, do not seem to be very sensitive to our history and I believe should be taken to task over it. Their solutions to our perceived problems seem particularly misplaced. Take this re-zoning of Subiaco for instance –
pretty sad, believe me. I mean for starters we have this amazing river that could ferry people all over this city and surrounding suburbs. Do we use it? No, we rather cause commotion
...it is especially important to retain what history we have and not destroy it encouraging us to destroy all our old homes to make way for units so people can be close to the train station. Can this kind of thinking be more ludicrous? Why not instead look at improving our transport system? In all the big cities that I visited you could get anywhere, anytime in many different ways. It made the transport in Perth look
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on the one freeway and the one bridge that leads into the city and create huge traffic and parking problems in the process. And okay. I get the problem with the urban sprawl – but why did you not think about this before? Instead of building dinky little houses out to the nether regions, why were there not more well planned
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apartment complexes built along the train line to Joondalup? So Government… think again – do not destroy our heritage through a knee jerk reaction to your failure to plan ahead when you had the opportunity to do so. Go overseas and take a look at countries that have got it right and move people quickly, easily and efficiently without destroying their history, which attracts millions of tourists every year. London is a great place to start, Istanbul is equally impressive and you should see the number of people they have to move there! So please, get with the programme and protect our city – don’t destroy it.
by
Niki Peinke
Real Estate Advisor
niki@thepropertyexchange.com.au