Brisbane's challenges and opportunities

Now and into the future

Brisbane has consistently struggled with infrastructure, congestion, and movement around the city. Kevin Rudd dealt with this issue by building underground tunnels and pathways to avoid clogged artilleries above-ground but only caused mayhem in the ‘rabbit warrens’ and chaos below the city.

Brisbane has become a popular destination for interstate relocators, adding to housing pressures for both renters and homeowners. Pressure on schools is palpable, living in an area of opportunity and desirability drives a competitive market which creates cost of living crisis and mini-ghettos if we can’t find a balance of employment and security. School numbers in inner-city locales are at bursting point, close to 3000 is common in schools such as Indooroopilly State High, Brisbane State High, Fortitude Valley Secondary College, Kelvin Grove College and many others. Primary schools are equally as squeezed and finding land that is not grid-locked or flood-locked is proving harder to do in the inner-city space. The trick is to make the outer suburbs appealing to trickle the economy outwards, but crime, high density living and lack of building integrity has made these areas high commodity with limited potential. Location is key, but how can we make it more sustainable?

This summer has proven to be hot, wet and tropical, not the sub-tropics as we’ve come to love, so climate change makes our living conditions, at times, unbearable. We need to take this into consideration when planning the city with adequate green space and water catchment areas, we need to foster wildlife, so we in turn have a sense of wellness. Brisbane is a floodplain, always was, always will be. And this means that Brisbane will flood again leading to high insurance costs, homelessness, high rentals and holiday homes/Air BnB's being used at extraordinary cost to those desperate, vulnerable and in need. This will add to the discrepancies between the rich and poor and marginalised. The famous middle class that Brisbane, and indeed, Australia is renowned for, will get even more polarised in the future, which will then lead to more crime. Youth crime, currently popular in the media, is a ‘canary in the mine’ of society. If we can work out a way to lead, to give more hope and opportunity to all people with equal opportunities available then some of the angst will be dispersed. But authentic leadership is an anomaly if not conscientiously encouraged.

With the Olympics and Para Olympics on the horizon, Brisbane needs to be at the forefront of innovation, design, architecture, opportunity to employ the youth and to show the world that we are not the 'country city' as we've been referred to in the past. We have to lift our mentality by being culturally innovative with foresight. We need to lead by example, not by strangling the potential of our greatest assets: our people. To make positive societal changes we need to ask the people what they want, not just presume that we, the media and governing powers knows best.