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(translation of article in Io Donna 21.11.09 on Alice Springs as part of Cities of the Future series)
Alice Springs. The heart of Australia is a melting pot of skills and culture. Where wealth grows – despite the crisis.
The motto: Touch this land lightly
A century ago it was a tiny telegraph station in the heart of the red Australian desert, surrounded by Aboriginal communities. Alice Springs, the ninth stopover in our journey, has managed to transform its geographical isolation into an economic driver, becoming a logistical and commercial hub for the endless and fascinating hinterland. And its owes everything to its immigrants who have come from every corner of the globe looking for the atmosphere and opportunities that only a frontier post can offer. Today it has the lowest unemployment rate in the country and the town council invites out of towners to move there with the slogan: “No recession here”.
Low and long, the McDonnell mountains protect Alice Springs from the mysteries of the red desert: in Aboriginal myths they are the forms of huge caterpillars which created the countryside of the “dreamtime”, the start of the world. In its history the city is the result of the imagination and risk-taking of people who have arrived from all over Australia and the rest of the world looking for opportunities which only frontier towns can provide. A century ago the town, Alice for whitefellas, Mparntwe for Aborigines, was the telegraph station in the heart of the outback. In 1921 there were 27 white people, 300 Aborigines and it was a stopping off point for Afghan camel drivers and gold diggers. In the Sixties there were 5,000 inhabitants: the government put the land up for auction and trips started to Uluru-Ayers Rock, the incredible sacred monolith 450 kilometres from here. In 1970 Pine Gap opened, an American satellite base whose purpose is mysterious but which makes a solid contribution to the local coffers: 55 million dollars per annum. In short, today steamy Alice Springs has 30 thousand inhabitants and in the Northern Territory is second only to the capital Darwin.
In the centre, the “grid of scorching streets” of Chatwin’s Songlines, the Arrendte Aborigines bivouac. You take them for beggars, and then you find that they are artists worth thousands of dollars: this is the national centre for indigenous art, worth 400 million dollars a year. Among the galleries and bistrots on Todd Street are the meeting points of Sudanese, Indian, Sikh and Vietnamese refugees. The Thai Room restaurant has soft Asian melodies and the only theatre emits the guttural notes of the didgeridoo. A Dutchman runs a travel agency, an Englishman has opened the Haven resort, and a Swiss, Beat Keller, offers deluxe Indian cuisine at Gregory Terrace. Ferdinando Ozimo emigrated in 1974 from Gioia Tauro and in his busy grillhouse La Casalinga admitted: “You can make money here”. You go to Alice Springs for a day and you stay forever, but you can only say you’re a local if you’ve seen the river Todd flow three times, which takes twenty years because the riverbed is always dry. You can tell a lot about the spirit of the place from the July regatta on non-existent water: they cut out the bottom of the boats and run. A funny metaphor for a community which faces its isolation with the irony of bushmen. The nearest towns are 1,500 kilometres away: Darwin to the north and Adelaide to the south. Alice is the heart of Australia, which focuses and emphasises certain national characteristics: the well-known melting pot (a quarter of Australians were born abroad; 70% of inhabitants in Alice were born outside of the Northern Territory), the tricky integration with the Aborigines (2.3% of the Australian population, a third of that in Alice), the economy which is meeting the challenge of the global crisis. Here income per head is among the highest in the country (41,594 dollars p.a.) and the unemployment rate is the lowest (2.7% compared to 5.7% nationally). The economy, supported by the public sector, by trade, by the mining and construction sectors, makes it the centre for services for the whole hinterland. Its wealth has grown by 35% in 10 years and promises even better returns thanks to the projects in the pipeline: the enlargement of the airport, the power station at Owen Springs, the modernisation of two disconnected and fascinating roads, the Red Centre Way and the Tanami Road. “We’re a creative community, which responds to challenges” says the British economist Joy Taylor of Desert Knowledge, a company which is introducing IT to remote areas to launch a commercial network. And the city council invites people to move there with the slogan: “No recession in Alice Springs”. “We’re looking for architects, doctors, nurses, estate agents, and builders,” says the Deputy Mayor John Rawnsley. “Life’s easy here. We play sport, there are cultural events (such as the hypnotic Desert Festival in September) and all the conveniences of a major centre, without having to commute.” How true: “Here you can drive for 15 minutes or 15 hours,” smiles the Pole Nick Prus, director of the Golf Club in the rich borough on the other side of the Todd with three storey houses, garages for Land Cruisers, and gardens for the sacred rite of the barbecue. The steamy evenings pass easily at Lasseters casino (that of the drag queens in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) or in the rivers of Tooheys New beer at Bojanlges, the disco-pub-saloon which acts as a meeting point for French, Irish and German youngsters who are travelling the world and stop off for a few months to work in the cafes and restaurants in Alice. “Our isolation attracts those who are willing to take a risk to prove themselves” is the readout offered by Margaret Friedel, an environmental scientist who had no regrets in leaving Melbourne and in Alice married Dick Kimber, a famous historian, a wellspring of anecdotes on the pioneers, He compares the urban mix to an elastic band: “It vibrates under tension”. The tension continues with the Aborigines: for Kimber, among the few outsiders initiated into their ceremonies, they enrich the harsh agglomeration with their millenary harmony with the eco-system. For the Viennese Erwin Chlanda, the editor of Alice Springs News, on the other hand, the policy of reparatory state aid produces loads of layabouts. “Here social security spending is four and a half times the average for the country. Among the Aborigines there is alcoholism and violence: they hold back development.” But when he invites us onto his veranda for a drink as the sun goes down on the bush, the hard-headed Erwin changes tack to the magical sky above Alice – and to the refreshing silence which no other city can give you.
Accompanying short features:
In figures:
327 square kilometres: area of city.
30% Aborigines, compared to 2.3% nationally
2.7% unemployment (Australia wide 5.7%)
28% increase in homeowners in 10 years
26 private and public schools.
400 million dollars: indigenous art market of which Alice Springs is the epicentre.
87% forecast increase in population in Northern Territory by 2050
Thumbs down
Eco-disaster for the desert or economic springboard? A great dilemma for Alice Springs, the Canadian giant Cameco and the Australian Paladin Energy are exploring the site of Angela Pamela, 25 kilometres to the south of the city. Objective: find uranium. Environmentalists are fearful of pollution of the watertable. The Aboriginal institutions are biding their time, as is the Mayor of Alice who is waiting for a dossier with the costs and benefits of the operation. Undoubtedly appetising for the local economy.
Local character
Kangaroo fillet, bush tomatoes, ant honey: for Athol Wark the flavours of the outback are endless. An internationally famous chef (he has cooked for George W. Bush and for the Emperor of Japan), he was born in Zimbabwe 44 years ago, he studied in England, and learnt his craft in the kitchens of the finest French hotels. In 2001 he moved to Alice Springs of which he is now honorary ambassador. “I came here for a convention: they wanted bush dishes and I had no idea.” So he sought the help of Rayleen Brown, a sweet Aboriginal cook who knows all the secrets of wild food and the ancestral legends behind every recipe. She is still his teacher today when Athol often flies to Fiji where he runs the kitchen of a resort, and is about to represent Australian cuisine at Expo 2010 in Shanghai.
Getting there
Alice Springs can be reached from Rome with stops at Hong Kong and Melbourne, with Cathay Pacific (just crowned the best airline company in the world for 2009) and Qantas (fares from 1,270 euro, cathaypacific.com). For fascinating trips into the red desert, in the city you can find Central Aboriginal Experiences (caent.com.au). For a taste of the landscapes and atmosphere of the Australian Red Centre visit australiasoutback.com
The artist
He invented indigenous art: Geoffrey Brandon, a (white) teacher who in 1971 convinced the young people of the remote community of Papunya to put their “dreams” down on canvas, i.e. the creation myths, which until then had only been pictured on the human body with lines and points. A flourishing artistic movement arose, which is based at the Papunya Tula gallery in Alice Springs: the only showroom which reinvests its earnings in development projects for Aborigines. “We represent 150 artists” explains the manager Sarita Quinlivan “with paintings from 300 to 80 thousand dollars”. Here many artists meet, such as Doreen Reid Nunamara who is famous also in New York and Moscow (papunyatula.com.au)
A story
It’s the biggest classroom in the world: on 1.3 million kilometres square. When Miss Adelaide Miethke set it up in 1951, the “School of the Airwaves” broadcast lessons via radio for children in the most isolated communities in the desert. Now they use computers, webcam and satellite, provided free by the school. Teachers are public employees. There 200 pupils: the closest live 80 kilometres from Alice Springs (assoa.nt.edu.au).
Eco-frontier
Alice is one of 7 “solar cities” chosen by the Australian government to disseminate clean energy. By 2013 one thousand homes will be have solar heated water and another 300 electricity. Thanks to incentives, a plant will cost just 8,500 dollars (5,300 euro). It is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by 13 thousand tons per year: as if a fifth of the Land Cruisers disappeared from the city.
Alice Springs. The heart of Australia is a melting pot of skills and culture. Where wealth grows – despite the crisis.
The motto: Touch this land lightly
A century ago it was a tiny telegraph station in the heart of the red Australian desert, surrounded by Aboriginal communities. Alice Springs, the ninth stopover in our journey, has managed to transform its geographical isolation into an economic driver, becoming a logistical and commercial hub for the endless and fascinating hinterland. And its owes everything to its immigrants who have come from every corner of the globe looking for the atmosphere and opportunities that only a frontier post can offer. Today it has the lowest unemployment rate in the country and the town council invites out of towners to move there with the slogan: “No recession here”.
Low and long, the McDonnell mountains protect Alice Springs from the mysteries of the red desert: in Aboriginal myths they are the forms of huge caterpillars which created the countryside of the “dreamtime”, the start of the world. In its history the city is the result of the imagination and risk-taking of people who have arrived from all over Australia and the rest of the world looking for opportunities which only frontier towns can provide. A century ago the town, Alice for whitefellas, Mparntwe for Aborigines, was the telegraph station in the heart of the outback. In 1921 there were 27 white people, 300 Aborigines and it was a stopping off point for Afghan camel drivers and gold diggers. In the Sixties there were 5,000 inhabitants: the government put the land up for auction and trips started to Uluru-Ayers Rock, the incredible sacred monolith 450 kilometres from here. In 1970 Pine Gap opened, an American satellite base whose purpose is mysterious but which makes a solid contribution to the local coffers: 55 million dollars per annum. In short, today steamy Alice Springs has 30 thousand inhabitants and in the Northern Territory is second only to the capital Darwin.
In the centre, the “grid of scorching streets” of Chatwin’s Songlines, the Arrendte Aborigines bivouac. You take them for beggars, and then you find that they are artists worth thousands of dollars: this is the national centre for indigenous art, worth 400 million dollars a year. Among the galleries and bistrots on Todd Street are the meeting points of Sudanese, Indian, Sikh and Vietnamese refugees. The Thai Room restaurant has soft Asian melodies and the only theatre emits the guttural notes of the didgeridoo. A Dutchman runs a travel agency, an Englishman has opened the Haven resort, and a Swiss, Beat Keller, offers deluxe Indian cuisine at Gregory Terrace. Ferdinando Ozimo emigrated in 1974 from Gioia Tauro and in his busy grillhouse La Casalinga admitted: “You can make money here”. You go to Alice Springs for a day and you stay forever, but you can only say you’re a local if you’ve seen the river Todd flow three times, which takes twenty years because the riverbed is always dry. You can tell a lot about the spirit of the place from the July regatta on non-existent water: they cut out the bottom of the boats and run. A funny metaphor for a community which faces its isolation with the irony of bushmen. The nearest towns are 1,500 kilometres away: Darwin to the north and Adelaide to the south. Alice is the heart of Australia, which focuses and emphasises certain national characteristics: the well-known melting pot (a quarter of Australians were born abroad; 70% of inhabitants in Alice were born outside of the Northern Territory), the tricky integration with the Aborigines (2.3% of the Australian population, a third of that in Alice), the economy which is meeting the challenge of the global crisis. Here income per head is among the highest in the country (41,594 dollars p.a.) and the unemployment rate is the lowest (2.7% compared to 5.7% nationally). The economy, supported by the public sector, by trade, by the mining and construction sectors, makes it the centre for services for the whole hinterland. Its wealth has grown by 35% in 10 years and promises even better returns thanks to the projects in the pipeline: the enlargement of the airport, the power station at Owen Springs, the modernisation of two disconnected and fascinating roads, the Red Centre Way and the Tanami Road. “We’re a creative community, which responds to challenges” says the British economist Joy Taylor of Desert Knowledge, a company which is introducing IT to remote areas to launch a commercial network. And the city council invites people to move there with the slogan: “No recession in Alice Springs”. “We’re looking for architects, doctors, nurses, estate agents, and builders,” says the Deputy Mayor John Rawnsley. “Life’s easy here. We play sport, there are cultural events (such as the hypnotic Desert Festival in September) and all the conveniences of a major centre, without having to commute.” How true: “Here you can drive for 15 minutes or 15 hours,” smiles the Pole Nick Prus, director of the Golf Club in the rich borough on the other side of the Todd with three storey houses, garages for Land Cruisers, and gardens for the sacred rite of the barbecue. The steamy evenings pass easily at Lasseters casino (that of the drag queens in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) or in the rivers of Tooheys New beer at Bojanlges, the disco-pub-saloon which acts as a meeting point for French, Irish and German youngsters who are travelling the world and stop off for a few months to work in the cafes and restaurants in Alice. “Our isolation attracts those who are willing to take a risk to prove themselves” is the readout offered by Margaret Friedel, an environmental scientist who had no regrets in leaving Melbourne and in Alice married Dick Kimber, a famous historian, a wellspring of anecdotes on the pioneers, He compares the urban mix to an elastic band: “It vibrates under tension”. The tension continues with the Aborigines: for Kimber, among the few outsiders initiated into their ceremonies, they enrich the harsh agglomeration with their millenary harmony with the eco-system. For the Viennese Erwin Chlanda, the editor of Alice Springs News, on the other hand, the policy of reparatory state aid produces loads of layabouts. “Here social security spending is four and a half times the average for the country. Among the Aborigines there is alcoholism and violence: they hold back development.” But when he invites us onto his veranda for a drink as the sun goes down on the bush, the hard-headed Erwin changes tack to the magical sky above Alice – and to the refreshing silence which no other city can give you.
Accompanying short features:
In figures:
327 square kilometres: area of city.
30% Aborigines, compared to 2.3% nationally
2.7% unemployment (Australia wide 5.7%)
28% increase in homeowners in 10 years
26 private and public schools.
400 million dollars: indigenous art market of which Alice Springs is the epicentre.
87% forecast increase in population in Northern Territory by 2050
Thumbs down
Eco-disaster for the desert or economic springboard? A great dilemma for Alice Springs, the Canadian giant Cameco and the Australian Paladin Energy are exploring the site of Angela Pamela, 25 kilometres to the south of the city. Objective: find uranium. Environmentalists are fearful of pollution of the watertable. The Aboriginal institutions are biding their time, as is the Mayor of Alice who is waiting for a dossier with the costs and benefits of the operation. Undoubtedly appetising for the local economy.
Local character
Kangaroo fillet, bush tomatoes, ant honey: for Athol Wark the flavours of the outback are endless. An internationally famous chef (he has cooked for George W. Bush and for the Emperor of Japan), he was born in Zimbabwe 44 years ago, he studied in England, and learnt his craft in the kitchens of the finest French hotels. In 2001 he moved to Alice Springs of which he is now honorary ambassador. “I came here for a convention: they wanted bush dishes and I had no idea.” So he sought the help of Rayleen Brown, a sweet Aboriginal cook who knows all the secrets of wild food and the ancestral legends behind every recipe. She is still his teacher today when Athol often flies to Fiji where he runs the kitchen of a resort, and is about to represent Australian cuisine at Expo 2010 in Shanghai.
Getting there
Alice Springs can be reached from Rome with stops at Hong Kong and Melbourne, with Cathay Pacific (just crowned the best airline company in the world for 2009) and Qantas (fares from 1,270 euro, cathaypacific.com). For fascinating trips into the red desert, in the city you can find Central Aboriginal Experiences (caent.com.au). For a taste of the landscapes and atmosphere of the Australian Red Centre visit australiasoutback.com
The artist
He invented indigenous art: Geoffrey Brandon, a (white) teacher who in 1971 convinced the young people of the remote community of Papunya to put their “dreams” down on canvas, i.e. the creation myths, which until then had only been pictured on the human body with lines and points. A flourishing artistic movement arose, which is based at the Papunya Tula gallery in Alice Springs: the only showroom which reinvests its earnings in development projects for Aborigines. “We represent 150 artists” explains the manager Sarita Quinlivan “with paintings from 300 to 80 thousand dollars”. Here many artists meet, such as Doreen Reid Nunamara who is famous also in New York and Moscow (papunyatula.com.au)
A story
It’s the biggest classroom in the world: on 1.3 million kilometres square. When Miss Adelaide Miethke set it up in 1951, the “School of the Airwaves” broadcast lessons via radio for children in the most isolated communities in the desert. Now they use computers, webcam and satellite, provided free by the school. Teachers are public employees. There 200 pupils: the closest live 80 kilometres from Alice Springs (assoa.nt.edu.au).
Eco-frontier
Alice is one of 7 “solar cities” chosen by the Australian government to disseminate clean energy. By 2013 one thousand homes will be have solar heated water and another 300 electricity. Thanks to incentives, a plant will cost just 8,500 dollars (5,300 euro). It is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by 13 thousand tons per year: as if a fifth of the Land Cruisers disappeared from the city.