Location, location

All my regular readers will know that I live in the Adelaide suburb of Norwood. I've lived here for about three years now. I've been in Adelaide for about six years, so I guess Norwood is about as close to the idea of 'home' as I've felt since I moved to Adelaide. Now, as Norwoods go, I quite like this one. There are no fast food franchises littering the streets, many of the residential streets are tree-lined and beatuifully shady this time of year, there are mostly local businesses, a supermarket, and a great strip of cafés and restaurants that give the place a great feel in the evening. The one concession to progress is the a cinema complex, which was built on the site of a Bi-Lo supermarket about five years ago. There was the whole pie-cart debacle that happened when that was built but although it looks tacky and garish from the outside, it is nice sometimes having a cinema just down the road. The problem at the moment is that so much of the suburb is being redeveloped all at once. Gone are the Norwood arcade, which was probably due an overhaul but had a great 60s charm about it, and the Orange Lane Markets. This was a community. Now, the Orange Lane Markets have been demolished, as has the arcade so the whole suburb feels as if it's had an arm and a leg amputated. No doubt their replacements will, at least at first, feel as lifeless and plastic as most prosthetic limbs.