Some fresh young migrants to Canberra complain about the
city. It doesn’t have any graffiti lined alleyways, enough cafes, any swank
bars or funky places to eat, much live music or a cool post-communist chic a la
Berlin. Apparently, there also isn’t anything to do. But it does have some
perks.
For starters, it has the national gallery and the
national portrait gallery, among others, which feature works from artists who
are a touch more talented than your average graffitist. It hosts the Groove in
the Moove music festival annually (Dizzee Rascal headlining this year) and a
live music scene that is easy to plug into (try listening to ‘Local & Live’
on 2XX for info). There are at least 11 cafes on campus and another 8 between
us and the city. There’s also parliament and Australia’s only policy school
(Crawford at the ANU). If you give two stuffs about what’s going on with public
affairs in this nation you might want to familiarise yourself with them.
Next up is the environment—you’re living in the Bush
Capital. There are deciduous European trees on the streets and native
wildflowers in the yards that make the city an ocular feast in autumn and
spring. You can reach a nature reserve in 10 minutes by bike from just about
anywhere. You can drive to a national park in fifteen. If you live in the suburbs you’ll occasionally
find a Kangaroo mowing the grass in your backyard. But sure, if you prefer
concrete, bad air, living in a shoebox and exercising in a gym where everyone’s
body odour is recycled through the air conditioning maybe you’d be better off
in New York.
Then there’s the community. This isn’t hugely important
to most students who can socialise on campus, but it should be noted that
several ACT sports competitions are larger per capita than their Sydney
equivalents, and you don’t need to travel for 90 minutes to get to a game. The
ACT also has small but dedicated groups for just about any hobby, from war
gaming to orienteering through to Baha’i.
Yet people still say there isn’t anything to do. Perhaps
they mean there isn’t much nightlife. But if your idea of ‘something to do’ is
going to a dark room full strangers to pay overprice to drink poison and talk
about the same shit you always talk about then I’m suspicious you’re boring, not Canberra.
Allow me an academic explanation; we’re at a university
after all. There is a great paper by Canberra MP Professor Andrew Leigh and UQ
Professor Paul Frijters called ‘Materialism on the March’. It discusses the
difference between conspicuous consumption—buying things for their signalling
abilities, like tennis attire or a delightfully indie bag—and conspicuous
leisure—being really good at actually playing tennis, or having a solid grasp
of modern art, for example. One could simplistically
say that investing a lot of time in conspicuous leisure leads to having a
personality while conspicuous consumption merely suggests you have one.
The paper conjectures that investing in conspicuous
leisure is a poor decision in circumstances where you won’t form long term,
deep relationships with people, because in such circumstances people can’t get
to know you enough to be exposed to your leisure investments. Such conditions
tend to prevail in places with high migrations flows and large populations—places
like Sydney. In such places people are incentivised to invest in outward signs
of personality rather than actual personality.
This phenomenon plays out in Canberra. In part because of
the limited nightlife people instead engage in activities, like clubs and
coffee dates, that require getting to know people. As a result, many Canberrans
need to be interesting if they want to have friends, so they have hobbies and
opinions, read books and generally develop interests.
A virtuous cycle forms that encourages less and less investment
in the things required for nightlife signalling—manipulative flirting skills,
expensive clothes and a kitty for taxis and cover charges—and more and more in
conversation topics. In Sydney you might ask someone what they do for a living.
They tell you they are a banker. An hour later and you still don’t know whether
they are a stockbroker or the receptionist, whether they have any hobbies or
who they vote for. But hey, at least you’ve learnt about all the neighbourhood
bars where you enter through a crawlspace and drink out of a jam jar—how
fascinating.
Sydney and other cities where there are ‘lots of things
to do’ are founded on three dynamics—trends, the Rat Race and The Game—none of
which are wholesome or meaningful. In contrast, being happy in Canberra is more
dependent on interpersonal skills, honesty and character. In Sydney you might
be judged by what shoes you’re wearing (because what else can people know about
you?). In Canberra you’re more likely to be judged by whether you are boring or
not. I know where I would rather live.
This article was originally published in Woroni, the ANU student newspaper. You can read an electronic version here.
Comments
Post a Comment