Articles | What's on Newcastle

Articles

Thursday, 25 February 2010 17:38

Renew Newcastle - Is it working?

Urban decay has become a universal problem:

vacant shops, falling apart buildings, other time flourishing businesses that are now closed or moved to malls and shopping centers, all these are signs of diseased cities. Newcastle is a typical example. Many of its residents have been saddened by the decline of the city centre in the past decades. Fortunately, someone took the initiative to try and turn things around: writer, broadcaster, and (“Not Quite Art”) festival director Marcus Westbury founded, in 2008, a project called Renew Newcastle (http://renewnewcastle.org/). Its goal is to find short and medium term uses for buildings in Newcastle's CBD that are currently empty, disused, or vandalized while awaiting redevelopment and thus getting the commercial activity back into town. If you live in Newcastle and you haven't heard about the project you must have your head in the sand...

What is the future of Newcastle's Post Office building?

Another historical building with an uncertain future.

Subject to vandalism and graffiti, the once haughty building is now a decaying relic of past glories. Built on the site of the Old Court House, the Post Office was opened in 1903 and closed in 2001. In 2002 the building was sold to a private company, Van New International, owned by Sydney developer Sean Ngu who founded a new project to renovate the building. EJE Architects will provide the architecture and interior design, which includes finishes of marble, sandstone and wrought iron throughout, while the fabric and carpet used on the interior uses the old post office logo and takes inspiration from stamp design.

Which direction should Newcastle take with Public Transport?

Light Rail, Trams, More Buses?

Proposals about tearing down the Newcastle rail line have been met with various tones of anger, bewilderment and outright agreeance. On one hand, residents are aggressively fighting to retain the existing rail services, challenging the government’s policy proposal to close the rail line in favour of a light rail system (or buses) - on the other end of the spectrum, it seems that a majority of residents would be happy to see a re-appropriation of the current Cityrail line (at least within the CBD) in exchange for something like a tram or some form of light rail.

Why are there so many violent f*k heads in Newcastle?

Do you feel safe in Newcastle?

Unprecedented violence including bashing deaths and a rise in knife violence, as well as under-aged (and excessive) drinking on the streets are problems that Newcastle needs to tackle. It's unreasonable that such a small urban center has so many alcohol fueled violent assaults. We'd like to know who is responsible and why these people think it's OK to punch another human being in the face? Can you blame alcohol entirely? – football players? Cover bands? Blow ins from out of town blowing off steam? Meth heads?