In Australian cities, our 'outdoor lifestyle' is often a lie – but we can make it true
In the Before Times, immediately after a holiday or spell overseas, I’d often find myself walking through the inner suburbs of Sydney thinking: “Where the hell is everybody?”
On sunny days in other places public spaces teem with life in ways Australian cities simply do not. In New York, after a long winter indoors, people burst out of their homes to lounge on stoops; in Hanoi residents fill footpaths to share steaming meals; while in Berlin, where more than a third of the city is green space or water, people cycle to parks to sink beers and sunbathe topless whenever the weather allows. Such fun! Especially to an Australian visitor, accustomed to being castigated for pulling up an extra chair at an outside table.
That feeling of togetherness among strangers in public, the crowdedness and buzz that other cities are good at, is a huge part of what made them so attractive to visit, back when we could.
Australia by comparison, save for the beach or certain public parks, can feel surprisingly cloistered. People often seem hidden in cars, behind suburban fences, in air conditioned malls and cafes that turn their back to the street, rather than opening out to it. Revelry is often curtailed by alcohol-free zones and strict footpath dining and drinking rules. The growth of cycling is sometimes stubbornly resisted. For a country mostly blessed with warm weather and clean air, it’s striking how many aspects of public life take advantage of neither.
Though there has been a growing push for greener cities with more outdoor living in Australia for many years, the pandemic is kicking this movement up a gear.
There is still a lot we don’t know about Covid-19, but most experts agree airborne transmission is a far greater risk in poorly ventilated, indoor spaces where people are forced into close proximity. With this in mind, Australian cities, like cities around the world, are realising outdoor space is one of the most precious commodities they have.
The Victorian premier Dan Andrews has touted alfresco dining and closing streets to help Melbourne open up from its interminable lockdown. Even the New South Wales government, which enforced a stifling pub lockout for much of the last decade, is citing the benefits of “joie de vivre” that can come with drinking outdoors as it moves to further relax drinking rules. In Sydney, six pop-up cycleways have been installed, fees are being waived to encourage footpath dining and, this week, the city council announced the pedestrianisation of another section of George Street to allow social distancing. Read More...
