Mr Andrew Wisdom

Cities are vehicles for generating, focussing and channelling energy. Some cities are really good at this – New York comes to mind – and others aren’t so good. Size is a factor – even the most shambolic of cities, such as Cairo, can have an amazing energy – but civic aspiration and history also play significant parts. A city that has been or is the centre of an empire – London, Rome, say – will tend to have oversized institutions and aspirations, which continue to have an influence as the city evolves. The drama created by urban form and topography is also very important: San Francisco has an energy that Los Angeles does not.

Of course, all of this concentrated energy must be managed. Walking the streets of Manhattan, I marvel at how people cope with the chaos – with roads that seem to be perpetually dug up, with venting steam in winter and with hellish heat in summer. The edge that this creates is part of New York’s charm – it feels to me like a city that is just a little bit out of control.

I have mentioned aspirations, and with this comes attitude. The long-term success of a city depends on an outward-facing attitude. Some cities are large enough and successful enough to survive while remaining inward-looking – again, New York comes to mind – but unless a city is pre-eminent on a global scale, success depends on the accumulation and assimilation of ideas from other places. In this sense, a successful city must act as a magnet for innovation, creativity and foresight.

I think that Melbourne is an excellent magnet. It is big enough to achieve critical mass but not so big as to be overwhelming. Its inner-city area is compact enough to be vibrant but not so dense as to be an extension of the CBD. Its wealthy past has given us oversized institutions and aspirations. There is an energy to the place that I have encountered very rarely in other cities.

Importantly, despite its success, Melbourne is not complacent. It is outward-looking and future-facing. And it needs to be. Like other cities, Melbourne faces challenges to ensure equitable access to services and amenities, to ensure that it achieves goals for environmental sustainability, to preserve all that is good about the city without cloistering it from the outside world and from progress.

Arup is working with Melbourne to achieve these objectives, to make things better.

I am proud to be part of this. And I like the weather!