The Null Device

A mini-Melbourne for China

The next miniaturised replica of a foreign city to be built in China could be based on Melbourne. Well, not an entire mini-Melbourne, but a residential development near Tianjin, about a square kilometre in size, whose centrepiece will be a "Melbourne-style shopping and cafés hub based on Acland, Brunswick and Lygon Street", with a tramway network running through it. So no live rock venues then; they could probably throw in a wan, censored replica of PolyEster Books for local colour. I wonder if they'll put in laneways full of authentically Melburnian (albeit, of course, apolitical) stencil art.

There are 5 comments on "A mini-Melbourne for China":

Posted by: Cos

Thu May 20 23:31:16 2010

Well, Tianjin is our sister city, but...

there was a series on ABC a few months back about some English guy travelling around China, and somewhere near Shanghai he went to an English replica village. It looked great, except that it turned out hardly anybody lived there because nobody wants to actually live in the houses, lest they ruin their investment.

Posted by: Greg

Sun May 23 11:27:17 2010

didn't they do this in Northcote?

Posted by: acb
http://dev.null.org/acb/
Sun May 23 12:33:18 2010

What, build a sanitised, deracinated replica of Brunswick St.?

Posted by: ty scott

Tue May 25 01:27:38 2010

This is pointless making a mini Melbourne, it makes no sense.

Posted by: ianw
http://www.tblspn.net
Tue May 25 23:00:49 2010

I've been thinking for a few decades now outer-suburban new estates should be based on Fitzroy. Berlin (ie. 2-3 stories higher) would be nice but with that kind of population density might need a Venice-style carpark at the gates.

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