25 March 2008

What is Canberra?

| papadoc
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A friend of mine is thinking of moving here from overseas and asked me to describe Canberra. After umming and ahhing for a few minutes, all I could say what that “it’s home”.

How would you guys describe this place?

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Canberra is a city built especially to house the Temple built for the worship of the god Mediocrity (favourite deity of the Australian people).

Accordingly, it is ornamented with (amongst other things):
a) miles of roads leading nowhere (and no alternative but to use them),
b) buildings housing thousands of people who are very busy doing a lot of meaningless and ultimately unproductive work.
c) many institutions designed to support the various sects who worship in the Temple

The people of Canberra are almost all members of the various sects. They are a contradiction, as most of them a highly trained and could be considered among the elite, but none of them wish to be recognized in this way as it would be considered blasphemy against the deity. The high-priests who serve the deity in the holy-of-holies (also known as the “House” in the local dialect) are mercanaries who are contracted from the subordinate provinces in order to bring offerings to the ever-hungry deity. The main offerings consist of endless heated discussions (called “Hot Air” or “debates”) and pieces of paper. The adjudicating high-priest (called the “Speaker”) will often be heard exclaiming the word “Order!” (a term of religious ecstasy) during particularly intense sessions of worship.

The citizens of the city are forbidden from owning land due as it is against the spirit of Mediocritanism, which broadly seems to share much in common with communism. Team sport is encouraged due to its imperfectly egalitarian nature. Other religions are officially tolerated, but are subversively discouraged, as they distract from Mediocritanism and often a based on ideals (ideals are discouraged by Mediocritan theology).

Canberra has an artificial lake, a national carillion, several museums and galleries, all of which are described as “Ok, but nothing special”. Allegedly there are shops selling goods, but so far there is no way of ascertaining where they are exactly and it is widely held that they are mythical.

One form of traditional Canberran greeting is “How are you going, mate?” to which the response is invariably “I’m going ok? You?”, “yeah, I’m ok too”.

Is anybody else having problems with the visiting Portugese Millipedes?

trilobite said :

Somewhere I can’t afford to buy a house.

Haha! Damn straight! Nobody can tell me why we have to pay so uch for housing here! I love the place but that is one thing that definately sucks about Canberra!

Somewhere I can’t afford to buy a house.

Jill – it was a remembered quote, and I expect it depends upon those bits of Canberra and bits of Pymble with which one is most acquainted. Yes – for I have been lost in the streets of the leafy north of Sydney, armed only with a GPS having a hissy fit, and been perplexed at the serious ordinariness of many of the dwellings.

The prevalence of the giant portico in Canberra is, I think, a reaction to the sunshine and heat, and the blessed capacity of shade to restore the stricken. For those of us turned pale over hundreds of generations who knew only the feeble sun of the northern bits of Europe, this is needed. (Speaking of which, wasn’t it lovely and brisk this morning)?

It’s a place where developers get paid to make appalling planning decisions. But it’s home.

Pymble #15 ? More like home of the giant portico!

Canberra is whatever you make it, just like anywhere else you choose to live.

Funny how a lot of the so-called “Canberra bashing” seems to come from within. Is that so we don’t appear pompous or arrogant to others?

I think people make a city or a town, not the buildings or the surrounds.

So I guess my conclusion is…

Canberran’s can be self-deprecating but the town itself is yours to make whatever you want out of it…

Bush capital – Where you can be in the middle of sprawling urban nature parks like Mt Majura, listening only to the sounds of nature whilst being totally encircled by suburbia.

Canberra is where I hang my hat.

Freezing for 3 month, boiling hot for 3 months and pleasant for 6 months.

Sunny nearly all the time.

Great if you like bushwalking, bird watching, bike or horse riding or culture like art galleries, and eating out.

No good if you like a thriving city centre and lots of urban street life.

Very expensive for food, housing, bills and medical.

Filled with public servants and academics.

Headbonius said :

The very special home of some very special people lik Nyssa, Ingeegoodbee and Maelinar. Very special people indeed.

– who the hell is headbonius ?

Since provoked, my advice is to tell them to get off their lazy asses and google it for themselves. Everybody has different interests, even between close friends. It’s really not that hard to insert the word ‘canberra’ to a search and click the show only responses from Australia button on google.

A true friend teaches a person to fish, rather than keeps on giving a dumbass more fish.

Absent Diane8:51 am 26 Mar 08

ok second attempt. human constructions where a swamp and some trees used to be.

But to be honest local pride, just like patriotism is very silly and a trait innate to those we would call lessor species.

neanderthalsis8:46 am 26 Mar 08

The ultimate in Post-Modernism: a city created purely to serve the functions of Government.

Half of our working population works for the federal or territory government, the majority of the remainder work in industries supporting or servicing them.

Australias most educated and highest earning populace yet is still the countries home of chardonnay socialism.

Personally I liked post # 16 but obviously it takes someone from outside the ACT to provide the answer:

Its a waste of a good sheep paddock.

Its well known as this, as I read the comment many, many years ago when I was a child.

oh calm down hoolahawk

in all honesty nowhere has felt like home for the best part of a decade. I wouldn’t live in Bris, Syd or Melb because they in my view are all overly large shitholes. I came here because I was sick of where I was, there’s plenty of jobs which is always a good thing, some good pubs, and as someone else pointed out not too far from the coast and the snow.

I could never run for parliament here because I just don’t like minorities THAT much and that seems to be all they care about (and I like motorsport which also precludes me)

jase! said :

it’s not home, its a place where I live for now

have enjoyed it for the most part however

Way to take a stand there jase! You seem so full of praise for your temporary residence (or for you should I call it your temporary prison?) it really gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Maybe you should stay and run for parliament, you sound like you have the qualities.

We have the highest volunteer rate in the country. Surprised me, then I remembered that I said I volunteered because my sports club volunteers me – take turns so everyone gets to compete. The club is also why I know tradies, background doesn’t matter if you have a shared obsession.

Seeing a dead roo between parliament house and the lodge – that was a defining moment.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned our biggest differentiators from the rest of the country – porn and fireworks!

Traffic is nothing here – I drove home from Melbourne last night and there was a line of cars crawling along into Melbourne backed up along the Hume for over 20km.

I used to feel happy aobut the lack of traffic too, but the rush hour thing in the inner south and eastern approaches is becoming gridlock…. .from queanbeyan!

Canberra gets kicked because it’s not Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane. I reckon it’s great because it’s not those places. It’s a city gently grown in a place where normally, a city would never grow. The soil’s ordinary, the rainfall’s ordinary, the rivers are OK but not huge, generally you’d get towns like Cooma or Queanbeyan in this spot. So we’re bigger than we would be if we were “natural”, and there’s some interesting things springing from that. We’re a largely middle-class city, because our primary industry is white-collar. A weird offshoot of that is that we tend to worship Blue Collar-ys. Watching a soft-handed office worker trying to make friends with a tradie is priceless. So we’re a tad insecure too, and still let other parts of Oz put the boot in too much. Many of us realise that Canberra is a well-kept secret, and so don’t fight back too stridently. We don’t have local icons like the Opera House or the MCG, so we tend to cleve more to ideas and feelings. We love our local sporting teams and love it when they do well (and expect them to, too). We often punch above our weight there.

Canberra is an introvert.

The ‘bush capital’. A place where artists can thrive, thanks to a history of enlightened housing policy. More like Melbourne than Sydney, even though it’s closer to Sydney. More musicians per head than anywhere else in Australia. A city of institutions, installations and views. The most beautiful setting, ringed by blue hills, and with the most consistently amazing sunsets anywhere. It’s very egalitarian – no-one dresses up in Canberra after they’ve been here a year or so – no point. There’s no very big commerce money in Canberra. The best thing about Canberra is being able to get around freely and not being hemmed in by traffic. The sort of daily life hassles and frustrations you experience in the big city don’t exist here. It’s a wonderful town.

Canberra – A bunch of suburbs in search of a city?

That’s something I recall hearing in a sociology lecture some years ago.

It’s the city for people who hate cities.

Canberra, a planned city once run by bureaucrats for the benefit of the inhabitance, now run by politicians for the benefit of themselves.

A visiting politician once described Canberra as looking like Pymble and voting like Cessnock. There is, as there usually is, some truth to the cliches about small, mono-industry towns, about obsessions with gardening and about the appalling quality of local politics and the media. But there’s more – decent cinemas, some ok drinking holes, some better than country town restaurants, some good coffee. And then add in the cultural bits and the sporting stuff.

Think as well of the proxy measures that may say something. A mostly adequate bus service no-one uses, despite a government policy of making carparks disappear. Highish use of private health insurance and a near absence of bulk billing. Despite their cost, the highest rate of people avoiding the government school system.

As a guess, three degrees of separation within one’s gene pool but a lot more when one has to leap between worlds – say from upper/middle public sector, academic, professional to trades, service and retail. Meeting points across the barrier are few, and RiotACT is one of them.

I describe Canberra as Australia’s best kept secret!

Whenever inter-stater’s complain of there being nothing to do in Canberra, I just tell them there’s loads to do as long as you know where to look.

Lets face it, we’re close to both the beach and the snow. How good is that.

I think there are more CAVE People in Canberra than NIMBYs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAVE_People

Don’t forget the NIMBYs, skaboy.

mmmmmm…NIMBYs.

It is the land of pointless protests and no motorsport. Stupid car laws and modification restrictions. It is where kangaroo loving hippies reside who refuse to look at the big picture and only care about spreading disinformation. The community is made up of whingers and old people, who want to destroy everything that is fun.

We have no real print media and the television media is even worse. Our principal source of information is RiotACT, and there is no real government, only a glorified local council. Our road planning is controlled by corporations who pull Stanhopes strings and the Airport area is a joke. We claim to be a city but we a big town.

But despite all the negatives, I love this city, and its surrounds. Even if the people annoyed me so much I moved to Queanbeyan where people are friendlier.

it’s not home, its a place where I live for now

have enjoyed it for the most part however

The very special home of some very special people lik Nyssa, Ingeegoodbee and Maelinar. Very special people indeed.

CanberraResident5:33 pm 25 Mar 08

I’d describe Canberra as “a number of satellite cities”, spread across the ACT region. They are City (or Civic), Tuggeranong, Weston Creek, Belconnen, Woden, Gungahlin, and you could even throw in “Inner South” to include Kingston etc, or do those residents have another name they’d prefer?

Each satellite city is comprised of suburbs.

The satellite cities are separated by either trees, roads, and mountains, plus a generous supply of dead kangaroos.

Contrary to popular belief, Canberra has a soul.

Canberra has a stigma attached to it; apparently we are all public servants and there is no night life. Completely false.

Canberra is an ‘acquired taste’.

It takes a special kind of person to live in Canberra.

Mungo McCallum once described Canberra as “a nice place to live but I wouldn’t want to visit it”. That was before the National Gallery, National Museum, Questacon, etc. opened so it is no longer as true as it once was.

However, there is a germ of truth in it: namely, that – like a five star hotel – it is a very comfortable and enjoyable place to live, but it doesn’t have a great deal of atmosphere or much of a distinctive culture or society and is in an important sense an unreal sort of a place.

Absent Diane5:22 pm 25 Mar 08

Canberra is nothing. That is if you want to take the nihilist line.

PP McGuinness described it as a “Dysfunctional Socialist Utopia”… I always liked that.

Joe Canberran5:01 pm 25 Mar 08

It’s hard not to describe a place by it’s climate, location, monuments, cultural make up or main types of employment, which I suppose is what your friend was asking but the answer for me is probably similar to yours papadoc; it’s where i feel at home, where my friends and family are, where I feel comfortable and can be myself. A bit of that is what it isn’t. It isn’t crowded, polluted, bigoted (although you’d never know from reading the-riot).

It’s also where there is a drought all the time except on the days i need to do laundry and right now I need to get my clothes out of the dryer and fold/iron as needed before the creases settle in 😉

Growling Ferret4:59 pm 25 Mar 08

Clean air, open space, 4 seasons.

The Soviet utopia the Russians could not create.

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