How ‘Little old Adelaide’s’ rate of transformation is approaching incredible | UniSA vice chancellor David Lloyd

Ours is a city undergoing transformation, but some are possibly unaware of just how much and how quickly – or how bloody good, writes UniSA vice chancellor David Lloyd.

Let me start by saying I’m really not a fan of futurology. Albert Einstein once famously quipped that research wouldn’t be called research if we knew what was going to happen.

I view predicting the future through a similarly sceptical lens. That’s not to say that we can’t use the past as a proxy predictor for what might come next – or indeed learn from the context and experiences of others.

In the case of Adelaide, I’m tempted to look through my own experience of a city that I believe is undergoing transformation.

I arrived in South Australia on New Year’s Eve 2012. New job, new home. Big life decision.

More than 10 years later, I’m an Australian citizen and wondering where the last decade went and who the old bloke in the mirror is.

Back in 2013, I remember standing at Light’s Vision as various landmarks were pointed out to me: “the Oval is behind that great big pile of dirt”.

“We’re a Goldilocks city,” writes David Lloyd. It’s not hard to see why! Picture: Michael Waterhouse / Tourism SA

If I look back across that decade, and take a metaphorical walk in my mind’s eye along the south bank of the Torrens, I can now see the Festival Plaza with the Lang Walker Building coming out of the ground, Eos and Sky City glistening in the sunshine, and the new entrance to the train station.

I can see the footbridge and Adelaide Oval, the Convention Centre extension, the tallest LED screens in the southern hemisphere aside the Bradley Building, the Adelaide Health and Medical Sciences Building, the topping out of the Australian Bragg Centre – which will house the nation’s only proton therapy facility for the treatment of rare cancers – SAHMRI, and the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.

All of which arrived in the last decade in a concerted Riverbank development that was derided in many quarters when originally proposed. That’s a rate of change approaching incredible. And it doesn’t stop there.

A couple of blocks back from the river, the arrival of the Jeffrey Smart Building and Pridham Hall has injected new life into the city’s West End, transforming a once-tired neighbourhood into a vibrant campus. The opening, this March, of UniSA’s new Enterprise Hub in the area – located in what was once Le Rox nightclub and Night Train restaurant – is set to add to that vibrancy.

EOS by Sky City Adelaide, railway station. Picture: Tourism SA

Then look to the other end of town, where the new Adelaide Botanic High School sits, another high-end addition to Adelaide’s education ecosystem.

And just down the road, the old hospital site has morphed into a state-of-the-art technology hub, home to a reborn Australian space industry – including the Australian Space Agency and SmartSat CRC, the largest space research effort ever undertaken in this country, as well as a host of other innovative, forward-thinking businesses.

This hub has links to the north, to Mawson Lakes Technology Park and Australia’s largest naval shipbuilding hub in Osborne, and south, to the Tonsley Innovation District.

Then there’s myriad commercial development across the entire CBD, changing the skyline, boasting brilliant hospitality offerings, a spectacularly re-imagined Her Majesty’s Theatre, the inspired urban renewal of Plant 4 and Plant 3, a world-first social initiative in U-City – all building capacity for vibrancy and positioned to capture the potential that yearly spills out of our universities into a wonderfully multicultural society.

A society that is not only openly embracing technological opportunities in energy, space, defence, advanced manufacturing and health services, but also celebrating and fostering creative industries and cultural institutions.

Cultural institutions like the multi-award-winning MOD, the Museum of Discovery, which nestles beneath the aforementioned giant LED screen beside Morphett St Bridge, and which is like no other museum experience in Australia.

It brings together researchers, industries, and students to push boundaries, explore, and be inspired. And that’s somewhere you can visit for free.

Adelaide skyline – we’re no Melbourne or Sydney, and that’s a good thing. Picture: Joseph Nes / Tourism SA

UniSA vice chancellor, Professor David Lloyd.

And I haven’t even touched on the stalwarts of our arts and culture scene – the Fringe, the other festivals – or on our incredible liveability. Our beautiful parklands. The magnificent Botanic Garden that frames Lot Fourteen, a tranquil juxtaposition to the hub’s innovative hum.

Nor can I overlook us being recognised as one of the great wine capitals of the world – the world, mind you, not just Australia or the southern hemisphere, the world.

Travel in almost any direction from Adelaide and in no time, you are among beautiful vineyards, cellar doors, restaurants and cafes.

Considered as a whole, that’s pretty big on any scale.

All right here in little old Adelaide.

Ours is a city undergoing transformation, but some are possibly unaware of just how much and how quickly – or how good.

Just don’t get me started on the “little”. Adelaide’s got a larger population than Dublin.

We do, apparently, suffer from some insecurity in the “size matters” department. We do suffer from comparative anxiety in general.

Adelaide isn’t Sydney. We aren’t Melbourne, or Canberra or insert-name-of-somewhere-else-where-an-uninformed-mouthpiece-has-made-a-derogatory-comment-about-Adelaide here.

Let’s get over that. Get off our knees, stop wringing our hands about what’s elsewhere and appreciate how bloody good we are.

We’re a Goldilocks city – and that’s just right. Let’s keep up the pace of transformation and set our own agenda.

Professor David Lloyd is UniSA vice chancellor.