By the colossal sandstone pillars of Sydney Town Hall, Jess Miller is a long way from the place she used to call home.
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she → use → place
The light rail whirs past the deputy lord mayor of Sydney on George Street, its bell chiming beneath the gargantuan clocktower looming overhead.
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bell → whir → clocktower
In a few weeks, jacarandas will explode with violet and lavender trumpets on either side of the town hall’s steps.
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jacarandas → explode → steps
In Miller’s sleepy hometown of Somerville on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, meanwhile, the water in Western Port Bay will rise a couple of degrees, and farmers will start shearing their sheep on hectares of green land.
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farmers → rise → land
“It was funny, in your questions, you said, ‘What’s it like to come home?’” Miller says, on the phone from Sydney.
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Miller → say → Sydney
“I reckon it took about 15 years of not living in Melbourne before I was like, ‘Oh, that’s not home any more’.”
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that → reckon → Melbourne
These sprawling cities have lessons to offer each other, Miller says.
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Miller → sprawl → other
But there are some things Sydney just does better.
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Sydney → be → ?
Beyond the concrete wasteland
At a neat park on the Port Melbourne foreshore, a great yellow buoy serves as a repurposed climbing wall for young children.
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buoy → serve → children
Traverse a rope ladder or bridge, and they’ll find themselves in a wooden crow’s nest tower, looking out over Port Phillip Bay.
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they → traverse → Bay
The other side of the tower looks over a behemoth rusted steel wall, running along the perimeter of the neighbouring shipping dock.
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side → look → dock
“Secure area – entry prohibited,” signs proclaim.
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signs → prohibit → area
A few hundred metres up the road, at Fishermans Bend, the Yarra River glitters through gaping holes in a chain-link fence.
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River → glitter → fence
Looking down from the Bolte Bridge in Docklands, there’s little to see beyond the industrial, Miller says.
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Miller → look → industrial
“You’ve really built over it all, and kind of forgotten that that’s water,” she says.
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she → build → it
Sydneysiders are seldom short of a view, Miller says – but they treat water like gold.
“Where in the city you’ve got any glimpse at water, it’s about really amplifying that beauty and that access so that everyone can enjoy it.
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everyone → say → it
When Miller first moved to Sydney more than two decades ago, the precinct was an immense concrete wasteland, disused after the then NSW government moved port operations to Port Botany (beside Sydney Airport) in 2003.
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government → move → 2003
Barangaroo is now a six-hectare headland park, sprawling underground cultural venue, waterfront promenade, netted swimming area, and extensive dining and entertainment precinct, which includes Crown Sydney.
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which → sprawl → Sydney
“It’s spectacular,” Miller says.
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Miller → ’ → ?
“You’ve got no shortage of places with grass and trees and a view on any given day in Sydney, whereas, in Melbourne, I’d be hard-pressed [to find the same].
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I → get → same
“I’d go to the Botanic Gardens, or I’d go to Birrarung Marr, or I’d probably just go inside.”
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I → go → Marr
Miller will share her ideas for the future of the city at The Age’s Melbourne Assembly conference in October, presented in partnership with the University of Melbourne.
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Miller → share → Melbourne
By the year 2050, Miller would love to see a reimagined and “re-naturalised” dock in Melbourne.
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Miller → love → Melbourne
The organisation Regen Melbourne is on the right track in championing a revived (and swimmable) Yarra River, she says.
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she → champion → River
“You could extend that idea to go, what would it be like if we reintroduced mangroves and seagrass into the city?” Miller says.
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Miller → extend → city
“I don’t know that we’ll need all that docking.
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we → know → docking
“Technology could offer some opportunity for land to be given back to nature.”
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land → offer → nature
The Port of Melbourne says it has no plans to reduce its footprint as the city’s population grows.
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population → say → footprint
The port handles more than one-third of Australia’s container trade, about 20 per cent more than Sydney’s Port Botany.
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port → handle → Botany
“The current port footprint, even with technology and innovation, is needed to keep goods moving to and from Victorian consumers and businesses as demand grows,” Port of Melbourne chief executive Saul Cannon says.
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Cannon → need → Melbourne
Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece shares Miller’s vision for wilder waterways.
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Reece → share → waterways
His council – a supporting event partner of the Melbourne Assembly forum, where Reece will be a speaker – pieced together grass pontoons in the shallows of the Yarra, before floating them onto the river for perching birds and other animals.
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Reece → support → birds
Reece imagines swimming pools dotted along the river; the first of which could be in Victoria Harbour, Docklands, in a couple of years, akin to the floating “drop-in” pool that just opened in east London’s Canary Wharf.
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that → imagine → Wharf
“In the case of developing our ports and making them areas that are suited for living and nature, Melbourne has really led the way,” Reece says.
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Reece → develop → way
“Think about the Docklands development around Victoria Harbour and up the Yarra River – that was an initiative in Melbourne that began almost 30 years ago.”
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that → think → Melbourne
Miller’s former fellow councillor at the City of Sydney, architect Philip Thalis, takes a dimmer view than Miller of Melbourne’s southern end, describing Southbank as “the most dismal place in urban Australia”.
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councillor → take → Australia
(Reece describes it as a lively suburb, albeit difficult and expensive to retrofit.)
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Reece → describe → suburb
Thalis’ firm, Hill Thalis Architecture + Urban Projects, co-designed the original winning plan for the Barangaroo foreshore – a project he later said evolved into the antithesis of the firm’s vision, and a squandered opportunity to make a better Sydney (including by virtue of the “shiny 75-storey casino hotel plonked on the foreshore”).
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he → co → foreshore
“Southbank unsuccessfully combines the highest of densities, overlaid on the most miserable mishmash of public spaces,” Thalis says.
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Thalis → combine → spaces
“It’s so hostile to walk around, it’s roads dominated and deformed to cater to too much traffic.
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it → ’ → traffic
…and 57 more, not listed.
The Aporia
