The Shepparton of the mid-21st century will be so different that the changes almost exceed our comprehension.
Rohan Gosstray, the then advertising manager at The News, sided with me when we talked about the internet and virtual newspapers early in the 1990s, and most people—though not all—questioned our sanity.
It was in about 1995 that McPherson Media created The News’ online newspaper.
Consider for a moment that the iPhone didn’t exist prior to 2007, and already such devices hold more computing power than what was available when man went to the moon in 1969 —that’s just over 50 years ago.
And it was just in 1995 that the internet began to make inroads — that’s less than 30 years ago — and the Shepparton we know today would not function without that technology.
Forget about what you know — it’s irrelevant and will not be applicable to a Shepparton in 20, 50 or 100 years.
This is a new era, and the gentility of the past has surrendered, given way, been brushed aside by Moore’s Law.
(Moore’s Law, from 1965, refers to Moore’s perception that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles every two years, though the cost of computers is halved, and that same equation is now being applied to quantum computers.)
Like you, I live without a crystal ball, but I do know that the city will be a drastically different place, in every respect, from what it is today.
I do know that it will be hotter, wetter and drier, and so we need to be planning a city that has generous cool places — well-treed and -grassed public parks — to which people can retreat when daily temperatures reach into the high 40s and even the low 50s.
I do know that a sophisticated and frequent public transport infrastructure will be essential.
Such things as small commuter trains (electric trains recharged using renewable energy) need to run between Shepparton and Mooroopna (wonderful for students travelling to Greater Shepparton Secondary College); we will need autonomous buses linking up all parts of the city, including surrounding small towns; and, critically, vastly improved facilities for both pedestrians and cyclists, taking them throughout the city.
Greater Shepparton City Council is presently calling for comments on its rating system and, interestingly, I sat on a council-assembled community committee several years ago and suggested an idea to limit — or slow — the geographic spread of the urban areas.
My suggestion was that we reverse the rating structure (we weren’t allowed to suggest anything that might reduce the overall rate intake) — that is, make it cheapest in the middle of our urban areas, where the infrastructure has been paid for many times over, and increasingly expensive the further the property was from the determined centre of town, where infrastructure is frighteningly expensive.
Few people were able to get their heads around that idea, but that is what the 21st century demands — radically different thinking and behaviour, and decision-makers who are bold and courageous.
Sit back, tighten your seatbelts — this is going to be a wild ride!
Robert McLean is a former editor of The News.
14°C