Page 1239 - Week 04 - Thursday, 26 March 2015
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under this government’s stewardship Canberra is the world’s most livable city. This did not happen by accident. It was not through indifference or complacency that this occurred. Our government’s vision and commitment, our innovation and hard work, supported across this community by business, by community organisations, by individuals, has seen this city achieve that particular title, the most livable city in the world.
But of course our work is not complete, and just as we have worked hard as a city and a community to bring Canberra to this point, we will need to continue to work hard to ensure that we stay where we are and, in fact, advance in some of the areas that I think we all recognise we need to improve in. So as our city grows we need to continue to maintain vibrancy but also the livability of our city. We want Canberra to be a city that our citizens are proud of, one that embraces its future but also holds onto the best of our city’s history.
We are a city now of over 100 suburbs, each with its own distinct character and its own community. And our government is investing in making our suburbs stronger and more sustainable so that Canberrans of our city’s second century can enjoy these suburbs as much as the Canberrans of our first century have. So we are investing in our local shops right across the city, at Cook, Rivett, Kambah, Chapman, Griffith, Theodore, Charnwood and Banks. We are investing in our suburban parks and new community facilities in Latham, around Lake Ginninderra, Lake Tuggeranong and in Gungahlin.
We are a more diverse city today than we have been at any point in our history. And I think it is clear that Canberrans value that diversity in our communities, in our jobs, in our workplaces but, just as crucially, in how and where we live. This diversity means there is no one-size-fits-all approach to urban renewal. The government will work closely with our communities to make sure that their context is at the centre of future decision making. Making our communities sustainable through urban renewal requires close cooperation between government, business and local communities to make sure that there is a shared vision for the future of our city’s suburbs.
The one thing we know Canberrans want more of is choice—choice about how they move around their city, choice about the kind of work they do, choice about the kind of home that they live in, choice about the sort of community that they live in. We are a big enough city to provide people with this choice. The range of urban renewal projects that are underway across the city and those that will come aim to improve housing affordability and give more housing choice to the diverse mix of household types and communities in our city now but also those who will join us in the future.
Urban renewal will cater to the diverse and growing needs of our city’s population and at the same time will help ease some of the economic and environmental pressures that our city faces as it grows. We are, by any measure, a city spread over a very large geographic area, and that spread comes with considerable cost to the city’s budget and to the city’s environment. The structure of Canberra means we are well suited to grow around our defined town centres and our transport routes.
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