THE CITY OF ADELAIDE AND THE STATE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

In Scene I of Act III of William Shakespeare's play Coriolanus, Sicinius asks:

‘What is the City but the people?’

and the citizens reply:

‘True, the people are the City.’

I come from a long line of Welsh Methodist Ministers, which meant going to Chapel in the valleys twice every Sunday for services. At the beginning of his sermon my father would provide a text for the congregation to focus on while he was preaching. But before starting his sermon he would repeat the text for emphasis. Thus, ‘What is the City but the people?’ ‘True, the people are the City.’

In this book I argue that there was a particular relationship and balance of power between the Council of the City of Adelaide (ACC) and the State government of South Australia (State), mainly because of the influence of key individuals. I focus on the interplay between personalities and the politics behind the scenes of strategic and statutory planning in the City during the 21-year period from October 1972 until December 1993. During this time the City had its own planning and development control system separate from the rest of the State. But I ground my analysis of this period in an historical perspective of the founding of the City of Adelaide and the Province of South Australia in 1836 and their development until 1972.