Mayor MacTiernan no doubt has her own personal recollections of the City of Perth, having been a Councillor there before being elected to the WA Parliament. These might have coloured her current perception.
She raises the issues of place-making and 'lively street cultures', without, apparently, realising that these are very different beasts in Vincent and Perth. Place-making in a capital city with a daytime transient population of over 100,000 (workers plus visitors) every day is different from placemaking in a smaller centre in close proximity to residents where activity is smaller-scale and more likely to be evenings and weekends
It was Vincent (at the instigation of myself and Vincent's Executive Director of Planning), along with Fremantle, Claremont, Cockburn, Gosnells, Kwinana, Subiaco and Victoria Park that sponsored the 2009 Mainstreet Conference. There was no interest in doing so from the City of Perth.
City of Perth does some good things, no doubt, but the skills and attitudes required to do these things in a CBD are not the same as those required for an inner-urban mixed residential area with urban villages.
I also hope that City of Perth, should Vincent be absorbed by it, becomes a bit more efficient and expeditious in carrying out infrastructure projects. How many years, now, has Wellington Street been a disaster area? And the changes to William Street and St George's Terrace seemed to go on for ever, too.
And, please, no more green worms - as one who fought against the pink milk crates that David Bromfield would have inflicted on the residents of Vincent, I've had more than my fill of garbage masquerading as art.
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