Via the Herald Sun:
A new sports stadium, a second home for the National Gallery of Victoria and extra tram lines are part of former premier Steve Bracks’ vision to transform Melbourne’s inner west.
Mr Bracks is leading the charge to create 50,000 new jobs in Sunshine, which he says should include government services being shifted from the CBD to a new courts and public administration hub.
The West of Melbourne Economic Development Alliance, chaired by the former Labor premier, will today unveil its plan to invigorate the Sunshine area, with Melbourne’s west expected to be home to 1.5 million people by 2036 — making it bigger than Adelaide.
Sunshine will become a key transport hub in the new airport rail link, which Mr Bracks said was a “transformational” opportunity for the suburb, just 10km from the CBD.
WoMEDA’s “Sunshine – Daring to be Great” strategy, to be launched by Public Transport Minister Melissa Horne, says the new “fast train link to the city” must be backed by tram links to Footscray, Deer Park, Altona and Moonee Ponds.
It’s new, it’s daring, it’s the same old stuff in people ’till you spew strategy.
For those that don’t know, Sunshine is the crime hub of Melbourne. A post-industrial wasteland of marauding bogans, empty warehouses and featureless landscapes. So it sure makes sense to move the courts there.
In truth, what Sunshine offers is twofold. It has oodles of land close the CBD. And that is what this is really about. The tourism, infrastructure, courts and other economic development plans are all balderdash. The developers want to get their mits on the land for the obvious latent value uplift that is embeded in a new wave of yuppies shifting west.
Let’s not pretend otherwise.
