Feature
Issue No. 12 - August/September 2003
Rust to Riches
by Professor Richard Blandy
Many South Australians’ idea of the City of Salisbury would be gained from the window of a car speeding past on the Main North Road or the Port Wakefield Road—a stretch of flat marshland north of Gepps Cross suitable for stock marshalling yards, an aerodrome, strip shopping barns, market gardening, weapons experiments and ammunition storage, a sewerage treatment facility, mangrove swamps, a drive—in movie theatre, a trotting track and the Central Districts (Bulldogs) Football Club. Salisbury (like Elizabeth to its north) is also perceived as a place of high unemployment, low incomes and welfare dependency.
But over the years—and now with increasing speed—Salisbury is becoming transformed. The story is as much about upgrading Salisbury’s natural environment as it is about its industrial, commercial and residential growth. It is also about the role that local government can play in regional economic development in a free trading, globalising world, where local industry clusters become the foundation of regional economic success.
Surrounded by Port Adelaide Enfield to the South, Tea Tree Gully to the East, Playford to the North, and the Gulf of St Vincent to the West, Salisbury is now home to some of the State’s most important economic enterprises and sectors.
In the northern part of Salisbury are the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), BAE Systems, Vision Systems, Tenix, RAAF Edinburgh and many other defence industry enterprises associated with DSTO. Also located in the northern area of Salisbury at Edinburgh Parks is the automotive parts industry, neighbouring the Holden assembly plant in Elizabeth, including Bridgestone, Woodbridge Hendersons, Air International, Lear Corporation and Dana Corporation.
Towards the south of the City, Parafield Aerodrome provides facilities for private flying and a number of flourishing flying schools. The University of South Australia and Technology Park are located in this so...
