Talk:Canberra/Archive 4

Canberra is not the only planned city

It conveys a wrong impression to write that Canberra is, "unusual amongst Australian capital cities as an entirely purpose-built, planned city" because Adelaide was planned and laid out and to a great extent so was Melbourne.Norm Tered

Yes they were. However, it is unusual to the extent that the majority were not.--cj | talk 00:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

And for that matter, so was Brisbane. The difference I think is that the others were new settlements within new or expanding colonies and in that sense the planning that took place was incidental to colonial settlement. It consisted primarilly of surveying roads and blocks within which development would occur. (Granted, in the case of Adelaide this was done to a greater extent than had been done previously and also included provision for parks). Canberra was different in that no only was it a purposely designed national capital built from scratch, but there was also a master plan which considered the location of government buildings, parks, commercial precincts, housing stock etc. In that sense, it was both a land use plan and a master plan.

Though I do agree with you Norm, Adelaide was definitely planned to a greater degree than most other Australian cities. -- Adz|talk 00:50, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Canberra was probably the only Australian city purpose built for the motor car. --Biatch 05:42, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Being a planned city, Canberra's growth during the 1910-1926 period from a rural landscape to a national capital was remarkable. However when one of the local farmers in the district at the time was asked his thoughts, he responded "A good sheep station ruined!". PAS 03:26, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Burly Griffen designed Griffith also. Was it Griffith? One town down that way.

No, it was Marion Mahony Griffin (Walter's wife) who designed the layouts for Griffith and Leeton. Interestingly, if you look at maps of both these towns, you can clearly see a) the common elements with Canberra's initial layout, and b) where Marion's design ended and the local councils took over as the towns expanded.

Also, it is a common mistake that the Canberra design was Griffin's work only - it was a joint entry from both of them (they met while working together for Frank Lloyd Wright). I have edited the history section and opening paragraph to reflect this.

Re the sheep station comment, this was actually from Lady Gertrude Denman 59.167.59.181 08:18, 9 July 2007 (UTC)Keir.

Missed the vibe

I have to say that this article manages to be informative and well-written while competely missing the vibe of the joint. It doesn't describe the incredible sparseness that Canberra projects, both in the Parliamentary Triangle and the wider city. It completely misses the rather odd road layout (at least to those familiar with other Australian cities). And it manages to completely avoid Canberra's reputation amongst other Australians. --Robert Merkel 03:53, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

You're right, although I think that it would be difficult to describe 'the vibe' in the article because, to a large degree, much of it is subjective. The bit about Canberra's 'reputation among other cities' would be subjective and may be viewed as contentious by many Canberran editors.

The Suburbs of Canberra article describes some of what you describe, albeit admittedly, not very well. It says:

As a result of these commercial and community facilities being located in the centre of suburbs, Canberra lacks strip shopping along major roads and appears to be ‘empty’ to most visitors. In the older areas, major roads are lined with houses, and in the newer areas they are typically landscaped with mounds of earth and vegetation to form ‘parkways’.

Perhaps the 'Urban Structure' section can be tweaked a little bit, but I wouldn't go over board. Given that it is on the front page at the moment, I'd suggest that it might be wise to discuss any suggested changes here first. -- Adz|talk 05:45, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

People from London would think Canberra is grimy??? Kransky

That Canberrans might not like the attitude that many outside their city have to the place is understandable. That they are proud of their city is admirable. That the reputation might be undeserved is debatable. That it exists shouldn't be hard to establish; I'm sure appropriate quotes from newspaper columnists and the like can be found. --08:36, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

This is a very subjective issue, I really think it depends where one comes from. To someone from a newer city I'm sure Canberra would appear perfectly normal and acceptable, whereas an older city such as London would appear ugly, overcrowed and grimy. At least this is how I feel, as someone from a newer settlement of South Africa.

What you may not be appreciating is that Canberra also has a reputation as a) an overgrown country town, b) a cultural desert, and c) a place where nothing of value is actually created and is completely isolated from the actual concerns of "real Australians" whom Canberra leeches off. This perception is eagerly fed by state politicians, particularly in Queensland and Western Australia. --Robert Merkel 11:35, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but is that uninformed reputation something that should be added to an encyclopedia article? Wikipedia is not a rumour mill. --Myk 23:23, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

A balanced view

This is a great page and a lot of work has gone into it, but it reads like a PR firm's brochure of Canberra. A more balanced approach, perhaps some grounded, factual criticisms or fallacies of Canberra would be appreciated. All statistics listed in this page are positive, any negative ones are omitted, especially about crime. There are many reports floating around referencing Canberra's social problems and issues arising out of planned public housing mistakes and so forth. Just a thought. Wampusaust 23:10, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Coordinates don't match

The text in the top right hand corner says 35°16′58″S, which gives 35°17′S if rounded to the nearest minute, whereas the info box says 35°18′S... Which is it?

I would have expected better from a Featured article :-) SteveRwanda 08:04, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh these annoying edit conflicts!!! Steve, I was just making the same point, but you slipped in before me;) Anyway, I was also going to say I realise that a minute of arc on the Earth's surface is less than 2km, but this discrepancy does niggle. --A bit iffy 08:10, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, in that case the putting in of seconds would seem to be rather superfluous. Presumably these coordinate things in the top corner are some new policy? — SteveRwanda 08:17, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you have a point about the seconds as a second of arc is only around 30 metres!! Anyway, I do actually think this new feature (lat & long at top right) is quite a nice touch. Apparently it's been in use on the Portuguese and German Wikipedias for a while - see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Geographical_coordinates#Coordinates_at_the_top_of_the_article. --A bit iffy 08:34, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Demographics

In the section about the origin of non-Australian born residents, the article talks about the United Kingdom and Scotland. Surely Scotland is part of the United Kingdom. --Rich 21:23, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Err, something that you might want to have a look at is the current population of Canberra... According to this article posted by the ABC on the 19th of March this year (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/19/2194429.htm) Canberra's population has in fact reached 340 000, with a population growth of 1.5% over the last year. Cheers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Devanika (talk • contribs) 02:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Categories and Subcategories

Articles should not usually be in both a category and its subcategory.[1]

This article is in categories: Australian capital cities | Canberra | Capitals in Oceania

Both Australian capital cities and Canberra are subcats of Capitals in Oceania

Canberra is an eponymous category here so it should stay. But is there any justification for Australian capital cities to stay as well. Excellent Featured Article though. Well done peeps. Frelke 08:56, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay. I have removed Australian capital cities from Capitals in Oceania category and added it back as an also see. Frelke 06:57, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Main page experience

Our main page experience resulted in excess of 100 edits but little change, and certainly no change of substance. Quite a bit of vandalism and prompt reversions. Now back to the quiet life and the gorgeous weather albeit way too dry.--A Y Arktos 01:27, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Shopping?

I removed the text below which appeared in the 'Culture' section earlier today. I have a few concerns with it. Firstly, I don;t think it belongs in the cultre section. If anything, it could go it the 'Economy' section. Secondly though, I'm not sure that it belongs in the article at all. To my mind, shopping is an activity that is common to any settlement of reasonable size, and I'm not sure that it is notable enough to include a section on in a city article. I realise that there are articles about shopping centres on Wikipedia (and that this in itself is contentious), but I'm not sure that the Canberra ones are notable enough to mention in a section about shopping. Does anybody else have any views on this? -- Adz|talk 06:34, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Canberra has many large shopping centres spread throughout the Australian Capital Territory. CBD shopping is aided by the Canberra Centre, which is currently undergoing an upgrade that will dramatically improve CBD shopping. The other significant centres include Westfield Belconnen in Belconnen, Westfield Woden in Phillip, Tuggeranong Hyperdome in Greenway, Gungahlin Marketplace in Gungahlin and Riverside Plaza in Queanbeyan. Smaller shopping centres are located throughout the Canberra area.

It does some entirely superfluous given the shopping centres get coverage in the district and suburb articles and not sure why Riverside Plaza is in there. Garglebutt / (talk) 08:07, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Economy

Yes, in a shortfall, there is technically nobody employed, but this is usually consistent with low unemployment (generally) rather than low employment; therefore, the word "although" is not needed. Drdr1989 20:10, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Road Funding difficulties

I restored the paragraph about the problems with funding Canberra's extensive road network. This information has been drawn from three sources - Cwlth Grants Commission reports, Annual Reports of ACT Dept of Urban Services and DOTARS's annual report on local government. Incidentally the average life expectancy of a major urban road is between 15 and 20 years. Many of Canberra's roads are well past that age now and if you look at them, you'll see they're quite degraded.Paddington62 11:11, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

• There are a few problems with this section (1) It violates WP:NOT, we are not really supposed to write about things that could happen in the future in an encyclopedia article, x could happen if y happens is not very encyclopedic. (2) This long theory about the roads degrading beyond repair due to lack of funding increases the size and decreases relvance of the section so that transport is disporportionately long compared to other sections of the article (which are potentially more interesting to someone that isn't from Canberra). I wouldn't object to a concise, sourced, unqualified statement on road funding being added to the first paragraph in the transport section - but this is not it.--nixie 13:15, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Canberra's so called "notorious" climate

The person who describes Canberra's climate as "notorious" obviously has not been to such cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg, Montréal, İstanbul, Ankara, Chicago, Teheran, Yerevan, Baghdad, New Delhi and others with a real notorious climate.

Of course, a "notorious" climate is subjective... I prefer the cold, for example. - The Smiley Faced man who is Happy.

It does have an ugly habit of changing with amazing swiftness, as I found out today. Spark 09:47, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

But far less so than Melbourne, for example. People often compare Canberra with the state capitals, all of which happen to be on the coast, whereas Canberra is inland. The fact is that Canberra's climate is not significantly different from that of many other inland cities such as Wagga Wagga, Bathurst, Bendigo, Ballarat, or Toowoomba. People from the state capitals invariably refer to the Canberra winter cold - but rarely refer to its fearsome summer heat. In this regard, it is no different from almost any other inland area in south-east Australia. Its legendary cold, in popular mythology, applies all year round - which is absolutely untrue. JackofOz 00:04, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Y Plan

I think the Canberra "Y Plan" didn't end with Belconnen and Gunghalin, as the article states -- it actually extended into New South Wales, and for quite a time the ACT was trying to get land from NSW for that purpose. A small point, but perhaps it should be in there?

see [2] for a bad diagram. I happened to be reading a book on Australian urban design today, and it had a more detailed map with names for all the areas etc, extending quite a way into NSW.

Most commonly used pronounciation

Hello, I would like to ask which pronounciation is most commonly used throughout Australia. Is it /ˈkæn.bɹə/ ('Can-bra') or /ˈkæm.bɹə/ ('Cam-bra')? Thank you in advance for you help. Best regards --Marbot 13:16, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Colloquially, it is most often pronounced Cam-bra, which I would say is used more commonly. Although, a slightly more definite pronounciation would be Can-bra, as I believe the 'er' in the word is semi-silent, but for normal conversation speaking, it would be Cam-bra. 60.229.179.39 00:00, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Surely the pronunciation is too varied to give any definite guide..? Personally I pronounce it as can-BER-uh or CAN-ber-uh; for me the middle syllable is always pronounced. The middle syllable is pronounced on the ABC news although others do not pronounce the middle syllable, who is to say which is correct or common? Are we going to say that Melbourne is pronounced as Mew-ben (L pronounced as W), which is how I often hear it pronounced by Melbournians.Mdgr 08:38, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

who is to say which is correct or common? Us (Canberrans), I guess. It took a while, though, the 3-syllable version kept being re-inserted for a time. The Cam-bra & Can-bra pronunciations are very similar I might add, almost an amalgam of the two, if that's possible (I'm in the Can camp). Can't say I've ever heard a Melburnian (or anyone else) say mew-bin, the Melb. article gives it as I've always heard it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.161.11.199 (talk) 06:27, 3 January 2007 (UTC).

Cats

Can anyone work out why this article is appearing in the empty (and rightfully so) category Cities in the ACT? --Peta 04:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

It seems to be a function of the Template:Infobox Australian Place. The category appeared when the template was added on 20 November. I don't pretend to fully understand the syntax, but the culprit seems to be this line in the template: act = [[Category: Cities in the Australian Capital Territory|{{{name}}}]] . Since it's never likely to be a useful category I suggest posting something on the template's talk page requesting the line be removed. Gimboid13 09:48, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Timezone - AEST vs AEDT

Is the timezone AEDT during daylight saving? (as AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time, so cannot change from +10 to +11)?

--203.52.176.26 03:18, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Towards 2020

The education section of this page needs to take into account the latest happenings of the ACT Government's 'Towards 2020' plan. Perhaps a list is needed of which schools are closing and when would be useful. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lefty272 (talk • contribs) 05:45, 13 January 2007 (UTC).

I think that level of detail would be better placed at Education in the Australian Capital Territory rather than this article. This article should just contain a summary oroverview of education in the city. -- Adz|talk 12:35, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

But it could be just mentioned with a link to the Education in the Australian Capital Territory page. Jaa? Rory for suomi 11:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I have listed most of the changes in List of schools in the ACT sss333 06:39, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation

How can be the pronunciation end in a schwa? Is that even possible? Surely the pronunciation should end in [a] or [ɑ] or something. Stevage 13:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It's quite possible for words in English to end in schwa, think of 'panda' or 'shelter' (unstressed vowels in English tend towards schwa whatever their position in the word). Dougg

In my experience of having lived there for over 25 years, it's much more common to hear the schwa ending than the [a] ending. In fact, the most common pronunciation is "kambrə". JackofOz 03:40, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

"Successful" sporting teams

This is not a nitpick, but a serious question regarding this paragraph (highlighting mine):

• In addition to local sporting leagues, Canberra has a number of sporting teams that compete in national and international leagues. The best known teams are the Canberra Raiders and the Brumbies who play rugby league and rugby union respectively, and who have both been champions of their leagues. Both teams play their home games at Canberra Stadium, which is Canberra's largest stadium and was used to hold preliminary soccer matches for the 2000 Summer Olympics and matches for the 2003 Rugby World Cup. Canberra also has a successful basketball team, the Canberra Capitals. The Canberra Capitals won the 2006 and 2007 women's basketball Grand Final.

Fair enough, the Capitals have won the past 2 years, so they're currently successful. Is this all this word is meant to indicate? It could also mean "has achieved success at some time in the past". What happens if they don't make the Grand Finals for the next 10 years - would it still be correct to call them "successful", then? And is this why the Raiders and the Brumbies are not so described, having been out of the winners' circle since 2004 (Brumbies) and 1990 (Raiders)? However, the Brumbies are the only Australian Super 14s team to win 2 finals, so doesn't this count as far as being called a "successful" team? JackofOz 07:22, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I suggest successful means winning their Championship at some point, the Raiders and Brumbies successes having already been noted. Incidentally the Raiders last won in 1994, and given their current playing style, another barren 13 wouldn't surprise.

Surface Area

In this article the area of Canberra is given as 2396 square kilometres. This is actually larger than the land area of the ACT given on the ACT page! Does anyone have a better figure the area for metropolitan Canberra? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 150.203.48.28 (talk • contribs).

Note that I cannot find area for canberra, but 910square miles (that given for the ACT as whole on the ACT page) appears to be correct. (basis: http://www.nationalcapital.gov.au/downloads/education_and_understanding/factsheets/4Federation.pdf) --Nemo 05:17, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

update: I have reverted the given sq-km area to match the sq miles figure (converted using google calculator). This was accurate to an earlier revision in 2006, but I cannot verify if it is accurate to reality. All can be said is that [a] sq mi and sq km are now self consistent with each other, and [b] the given area is correctly smaller than that of the surrounding ACT. :) --Nemo 05:27, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Street name origin

I believe the following act government site would be a usefull link in the page - it allows searches for the origins of individual street names. Given that canberra's street naming convention has mention in the page already (and also has mention in the Street name page), this seems a usefull external link.

If agreed, someone with more experience perhaps can drop it into the page?

http://apps.actpla.act.gov.au/actlic/places/search/originsSearch_new.htm

--Nemo 04:48, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Quick Correction.

Just made a quick grammar correction. Never edited Wikipedia before so didn't know whether to leave a not on here or not. Feel free to delete this if it's not necessary.

Alex. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.173.138.92 (talk) 04:32, 2 September 2007 (UTC)