17 August 2005

When and why did Civic become Canberra Central?

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This excerpt from the Shitty News

The street furniture also promotes the new logo for Canberra Central depicting the hexagonal shape of the city centre road patterns, with the three surrounding open crescents representing community, culture and landscape.

and some press releases from ACT Government ministers have me wondering whether the name “Canberra Central” is supposed to be more than the name for some silly taskforce tasked with taring up Civic. Are they actually trying to rename, or rebrand, Civic as “Canberra Central”? If so, what on Earth is the reason behind this? It is unnecessary. The area already has a perfectly functional name. Although it doesn’t appear on any maps, the area is known as Civic to all Canberrans. Civic is a word that has some heritage value and significance for Canberrans, as opposed to the bland sounding “Canberra Central”. The very fact it is a commonly known, yet unofficial, name gives it some ‘cultural value’.

But aside from that, the name “Canberra Central” is remarkably similar to the name “Canberra Centre”, Civic’s major shopping mall. It is so similar as to be indistinguishable.

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Samuel Gordon-Stewart4:53 pm 19 Aug 05

The RiotACT, Canberra’s songwriter central…for the mentally disturbed…

Yay, I just declared myself mentally disturbed!!

I’m fighting back the tears of pride in my fair city. Thank you. Thank you all!

I’ll have a go..

I’m going down to C6TV,
When I get there everything’s gonna be free
Cause I got a gun and I look like a loon
Judge Dredd’s gonna get me, I’ll be in his cartoon.

C6TV, C6TV, C6TV
Can’t think of a rhyme that rhymes with C6TV

It’s a cell block, nothin is free
squeezed into small spaces are us three
I thought my hand was in my pocket
but then I realised it was luke with his hand on my rocket

How did that crazy rhyme get into my song?
who is writing this drivel you long (for)
C6TV, C6TV, C6TV
Can’t think of a rhyme that rhymes with C6TV

Samuel Gordon-Stewart12:47 pm 19 Aug 05

But it is harder to make a decent song for…watch, I can make a nice lame song about it:

In C6TV
where will you all be
when the moon shines in the evening
in the evening
what will you all do
will the cows still say moo
in C6TV
in the evening
in the evening

C6TV for short. From now on I’m calling the area formerly known as Civic – C6TV.

It’s VERY Mega City-1

Samuel Gordon-Stewart10:53 am 18 Aug 05

Actually, Canberra Central would give a new meaning to CCTV.

Now that’s culture!

How else could flipper talk to joey or whatever the little kids name was ?

We call it Civic, Civic better than Woden,
Nobody you see, is better than thee
We call it Civic, Civic, Belconnen sucks,
Because we petitioned, and parking ain’t free

There is shopping, shopping galore,
Garema place is scary, but we said the parking ain’t free
Oh I bet you a million dollars,
He wants to put a shop there does Harvey

Civic, Civic, so far from Tuggeranong
Hyper-the-what? Our name is so easy
Civic, Civic this tune is a rip-off
From that dolphin on drugs.

Oh Civic, Civic benefiting from Corbell,
He hates the airport to hell
Civic, Civic I’ve got wanderlust
I think I’ll go shopping at lunch.

So we can call it Civic…

Civic, read it backwards and it reads the same, Civic.

There’s a 5 second logo.

I’m just remembering that about four years ago they held a competition for a logo that represented Civic. I can’t remember what the winning one looked like, but I wonder if this is it? And if so, why’s it taken them so long to use it?
K

its hard to make a nice logo with ‘civic’ in it though isn’t it?

Lack of sleep, Samuel.

Samuel Gordon-Stewart7:37 pm 17 Aug 05

and my linking was somewhat spectacularly broken because I forgot a tag…and I can’t edit it…I really should take a break, I’m having to re-type most words because I keep pressing the buttons in the wrong order.

Samuel Gordon-Stewart7:33 pm 17 Aug 05

And that also features City News article (or two). Perhaps they are slightly civic city central middle canberra centric with their office being there.

(And no, I am not pretending that my blog is City News…I have just decided to link to my anti-City News blog post every time I mention the stupid thing).

Oh, and RiotACT first became aware of the term on 05-NOV-04.

Interestingly ACTPLA classifies the WHOLE of the Inner North AND South as “Canberra Central”.

You can see it here.

Samuel Gordon-Stewart5:55 pm 17 Aug 05

Always good to send tourists to “Maaneeekaaaa”…they can’t find that on the map either.

They all seem to know where Fyshwick is though.

The only piece of (writing) style I was given at CityNews was that “we call the area Canberra Central not Civic” (Oh and that for the Queensland Retiree, the target audience was “retirees” not “senior citizens” or “elderly”). So that’s why they do it: it’s their style guide. The only thing in it.
K

We all call it Civic, it should bloody well be Civic. At least the bins and stuff only have the logo, so if they wanted to change the name it wouldn’t be hard.

there was a faddish rebranding as ‘city’ some years back. i think it will always be ‘civic’ to caberrans. although it will acuse confusionwhen tourists bail a local up who directs them to civic and they cant find it on a map.

Samuel Gordon-Stewart4:38 pm 17 Aug 05

Ah yes, but the Canberra Centre is owned by QIC…and we all know how much Simon loves QIC.

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