Living in Brisbane back in the 80's and early 90's, I always thought of it as a big country town - with all that is good and bad about that. On the plus side was a certain relaxed friendliness to the place. On the other side, there was a slowness that felt like backwardness compared to the liveliness of Sydney or Melbourne.
Certainly there was a coming of age with World Expo 1988 when the city put on an international event that was a huge success by any measure. It also spurred the concept of all-night trading for select retail outlets, emergence of a variety of dining options (leveraging the incredible year-round climate for outdoor dining) and gentrification of the inner city.
This time around, Brisbane feels more grown up. The favorable aspects of being a big country town have been retained by effective use of public space. There seems to be more trees, well kept parks and incredible transformations of public spaces for active enjoyment. As an example, we spent a morning near downtown Brisbane - across at Southbank where Expo '88 was housed for 6 months - to enjoy swimming in a public pool converted into a beach-like setting with sand and lifeguards. Except for parking it was all free to the public. The city has created a wonderful asset. And the overall area has been embellished with a series of walking, jogging and biking paths to enhance accessibility and leverage the incredible outdoor lifestyle that the climate affords Brisbane.
This time around it feels like Brisbane has figured out what it wants to be when it grows up - and is busily creating that unique identity as part of the process while adopting great features of other fine cities.
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