Commenting on the story: Convincing Adelaide that high density housing is good, actually

Great to see advocacy for urban density, it is an inevitable future.

The biggest missing piece of the puzzle, as far as I can see in the articles and proposals made so far, is that none of the developments actually cater to family dwellings.

Affordable houses in high-rise is often relegated to studio apartments or a single bedroom, which service very specific market segments.

If we truly want to update the Australian dream into a cosmopolitan and cultural powerhouse, then we need families and other diverse living arrangements in our centres. With the housing to match. – Callan Fleming

I’d consider moving from the ‘burbs to purchase/rent an apartment style abode in the CBD that followed a more European style/aesthetic.

Something with high ceilings, 3-4 bedrooms, two car parks plus minimum three cubic metres of storage and an environmentally responsible space to live comfortably. Common areas for residents and visitors that make sense, consideration for pets, leverage our sunlight (hello solar/batteries) and nothing like the ugly, crammed dog-boxes developers stuff our poor international students into.

Adelaide’s CBD requires, at a bare minimum, an additional 150K influx of permanent residents, not students or itinerant stays, to bring the city’s economics up to a point where the city pumps year round, as opposed to a few weeks early in the calendar year.

Oh, and worth mentioning, these should be in the $500-750K range, with an even cheaper component being made available for low income folks. Paying over a million for the shoddy workmanship plus body corporate nonsense we see currently is, well, nonsense.

Or keep doing what you do and enjoy the ghost town on evenings and weekends while folks whinge about how boring Adelaide is. – Ben Sweeney

The City of Adelaide and its fringe suburbs, particularly those facing the parklands, have the interesting opportunity to learn from cities that do medium and high density living well, cities like Vienna (often named as the most liveable in the world).

Four to five-storey living is predominant. The notion of adding beauty, art and greening to our approach to medium and high density could create desirable places for living in both the short and long term, and help in changing the narrative. In Vienna, Hundertwasser House is fabulous example of this. – Sandra Vallance

Yes, Adelaide does have a cultural belief in houses with ‘big yards and quarter acre blocks’ – and for good reason.

For more than 100 years (1900 – 2000) the average South Australian family was able to buy its first home on one wage. Even people on the dole were able to buy a home.

The median house price during that time was around three times the median income, allowing young home buyers easy entry into the market. There were no homelessness problems.

Enter the SA government. Seeing an opportunity to make huge profits, the state government stifled the release of land and drip-fed it out at massively inflated prices. As a result, house prices rose to more than six times median income.

As for the cost of infrastructure, it is cheaper to build new infrastructure on the urban fringe than it is to upgrade or retrofit inner suburbs whose infrastructure was designed for 1,000 people per sq km, to now accommodate two and three times that number.

Also, first home buyers on the urban fringe are now subsidising, through their water rates, the massive repair and upgrading of existing, older infrastructure in the inner suburbs in order to accommodate the projects Ms Palumbo is promoting.

What do we want our cities to look like? If you ask me, they’d look a whole lot better without the traffic congestion, air pollution, destruction of biodiversity and high-density infill projects which have destroyed the character of our most beautiful sub­urbs. – Bob Day

Commenting on the story: ‘Set up to fail’: ICAC’s parting shot at law changes

The Attorney-General’s comments mean nothing will happen. Remember that well-used phrase by Sir Humphrey: “In the fullness of time…”

ICAC cannot do its job properly and with proper effect, so why not scrap it altogether? – Geoff Sauer

The dumbing down of ICAC powers is making a mockery of law and justice.

The government demonstrates they have no interest in integrity and public accountability. Not good enough, Premier. – David Furniss