DeadVim

Why, do you come from Scunthorpe?

aussietobe

"Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.6 million.[2] It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the cities of Manchester and Salford. Greater Manchester was created on 1 April 1974 as a result of the Local Government Act 1972."

Thats a COUNTY not a CITY. Kind of like including the entire S-W of Australia's population and saying they all live in perth!!!

Geography is CLEARLY not your strong point!!!!

aussietobe

Perth is developing in its own sweet time.
Remember it was only founded in 1829, centuries after most European cities.
Some people like the fact it is not a mega, jam-packed metropolis.
Developing slowly means better planning and overall Perth is a well-planned city, if not a little coast-centric but that's where people want to live.
Australia does not have "totally incompetent politicians." In fact I reckon they are highly competent and John Howard's mob was probably the best government in the Western World at the time. They certainly were a dfamn sight better than Blair and Co.
Australia consistantly ranks high on practically every quality index there is.
Perth is ranked high in the top cities for quality of life in the world.
I agree that there is a bit of an anti-development group of smug West Aussies here, which is a shame but not all "progress" is good. It's better to take the times to get things right.

Amazulu

I took a flight once from London to Edinburgh. It was a rare crystal clear day with not a cloud in sight. It was so clear that you could just about see from coast to coast, east to west - a spectacular day. As we flew over, and by, the cities of the midlands and the north - Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle etc - it struck me how small they are, how they have clearly defined city limits, how much countryside there is.

geordiebloke

Greater Manchester, Tyneside, Greater Glasgow etc are all continuous urban areas, made up of a city and a number of smaller towns.
Is that any different from Perth, which is made up with the city of Perth, cities of Stirling, Wanneroo etc????

iamthecreaturefromuranus

You can drive from the center of Manchester, to the center of all those boroughs listed, and never leave a built up area. Most of them are no more than suburbs of Manchester.... despite what the people who live there may claim.

iamthecreaturefromuranus

Snap.

BadgeIsBack

Those cities being more northerly and very close to countryside, yes.

(With Manchester and Brummie being larger, of course).

HelenTD

Of course, there's no countryside anywhere else in the UK.

HelenTD

There may have been a few competent politicians, but there have been, and still are, hundreds of totally incompetent ones.

Can you give us some examples of what you mean when you said "Developing slowly means better planning and overall Perth is a well-planned city"?

the troubadour

Some real shockers in the way of planning and development has been allowed to go ahead over the decades.
Perth was a rather distingished city of sorts until a period in the sixties when a lot was levelled in the name of progress and the rot continued into the eighties when some common sense begain to prevail.

Not a particually well planned city by most accounts. There is little of note with the recent building construction going on in the centre that warrants much interest from what I can see.

Lot looks rather ordinary, if ok, but nothing of note that will stand out from a million other places.

Wonder why they insist on compacting the centre in such a small area.
I would like to see some innovative design with extending the centre area further east,west and north.

BadgeIsBack

There's countryside everywhere as Zulu was saying. But naturally, in the big ***** off metropoitan areas you do have to drive further...as others were saying.

Zulu's comments resonated with me as I always recall looking at a map of the UK - there are huge tracts of real estate unspoilt really.

aussietobe

Totally different. Perth has a CBD and is surrounded by suburbs.
When someone from Balcatta went overseas and was asked where they came from they wouldn't say "Balcatta" they would say "Perth."

aussietobe

Perth doesn't have major "planning issues." Unlike Sydney which basically sprung up really fast in the early days without town planners. Planning issues mainly relate to traffic, not the style of the architecture.

If there have been so many incompetent polioticians why is Australia a first-rate country with one of the strongest economies in the world?

Australia \

renth

Because it's made of iron ore and coal. Australia is a great country despite its politicians, not because of them.