CRACKS IN THE MASTERPLAN

摘要

To the uninitiated,canberra can appear a pale imitation of the country's larger, older cities. The surface is one of a toy town, a textbook diagram, a town planner's plaything. Everything seems in its place -neat, clean, sealed, sensible; concrete huddle and manicured lawns beside a man-made lake; sexless, earnest and impenetrable. This impression, often the first for travellers streaming up Northbourne Avenue or bussing around Parliamentary Triangle, is hard to sidestep. Even the CBD is dominated by homogeny, in the creeping clutch of a mall, turning its back on the arcades and shopping strips of "old" Canberra, and directing and losing pedestrians within its cavernous comfort.