[LINK] NSW to build smart city fit for 22nd century

[David]

On 9/12/22 22:40, Malcolm Miles wrote:
>> Technology innovators are being invited to offer suggestions about how Sydney's emerging 'third city', Bradfield, can tap smart city technologies to help the "city for the future" meet its goals around clean energy, digital connectivity, circular economy, and other areas.
> See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multifunction_Polis
>
> "The Multifunction Polis (MFP) was a controversial scheme for a planned community in Australia proposed in 1987 and abandoned in 1998. .... Futuristic infrastructure and modern communications were expected to help attract high-tech industries."
These announcements sound like "visionary" plans for a wonderful future while being sufficiently far off to get the incumbent government past the next election.  I'm very much in favour of planning, but there's more to it than fast internet and tax breaks; to some extent they just happen naturally, which is probably why Universities work so well when funded properly.

A few years ago the local Council created a visionary plan for Berrima in the NSW Highlands.  As I understand it, they planned to divert container ships which would normally berth in Port Botany to somewhere on the south coast (Wollongong?) where containers would be unloaded from ships and transferred to trains.

These trains would then haul the containers up an upgraded single track (with passing bays) to Berrima, altitude ~680 metres, where they would be unloaded to a "container interchange" centre.  In due course they'd then be reloaded onto heavy road-haulage for transport back to Sydney, Canberra, or wherever, where they'd be unloaded again......

The Council claimed it would create jobs, the usual slogan these days, but I suspect they'd be the sort of jobs which have been around for centuries.

That's visionary!

 I understand Council confidently upgraded roads connecting Berrima to the Hume Highway and planned big roundabouts for B-doubles before someone, presumably at State Government level, sensibly canned the whole project.

Cheers,
_David Lochrin_