This awesome image was created by Steve Hughes in Photoshop. This is how he did it. He went in search of a 14-storey building and found the perspective he needed for Terralong Street then superimposed the two images It shows why transparency matters. Our community cannot weigh up the future of Kiama without seeing what that future might become.
If you were handed a magic wand and told to fix Kiama Council’s parking crisis, what would you do?
I pondered that very question after raising concerns in a recent blog post that was debated on Facebook about what will happen once the Akuna Street construction begins and our main car park disappears. The former mayor jumped into the conversation, not to answer the questions I then asked him, but to challenge me to stand for mayor. Part of the Facebook exchange is below and you can join the conversation here
So here is what I think.
I would look beyond Kiama’s borders and learn from places that have done it properly.
An example we could do what Singapore does. Visit the website – its extraordinary
FYI I’m not suggesting Kiama should look anything like Singapore. Our landscapes, our scale and our community expectations are entirely different. I’ve referred to Singapore because I’ve seen firsthand how they communicate with residents, how they plan years ahead, and how they make complex information accessible. It’s an example of best practice in community engagement, not a blueprint for how Kiama should be built. What matters is the principle: people deserve to understand what is coming, how it will affect them, and how decisions are made in their name.
We would look outward.
We would study cities that have solved the problems we are now facing.
We would bring home the ideas that are proven to work.
And we would start planning for the Kiama that will exist in twenty years, not the Kiama that existed twenty years ago.
The images in the slideshow in this post were taken at the Singapore City Gallery, located at The URA Centre. See footnote below
Kiama does not need leaders who claim to know everything. Kiama needs leaders who know how to learn. Leaders who read widely, ask questions, answer questions test assumptions and welcome new thinking. Leaders who see beyond the next news cycle and prepare for the people who will live here long after we are gone.
Our community deserves vision.
It deserves honesty.
It deserves leadership that looks forward, not inward.
Kiama is worth that level of care.
Footnote: About the Singapore City Gallery
The images in the slideshow in this post were taken at the Singapore City Gallery, located at The URA Centre at 45 Maxwell Road. The Gallery is created and run by Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), the national planning agency responsible for the long term physical development of the country.
The Gallery is one of the world’s most sophisticated urban planning exhibitions. It explains how Singapore plans for its future in a clear, structured and community focused way. Displays walk visitors through fifty years of transformation and map out the next decades of planning, covering housing, transport, green space, industrial development, heritage conservation and coastal resilience.
#KiamaFuture #LeadershipMatters #CommunityFirst #SingaporeModel #PlanningAhead #PublicTrust #CivicCourage #SmartCities #AkunaStreet #KiamaLeadership
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