Tech Won't Save Us - How to Defeat an Apple Store w/ Tania Davidge

Episode Date: August 6, 2020

Paris Marx is joined by Tania Davidge to discuss the campaign to stop Apple from building a store in the middle of Melbourne’s Federation Square and how the company’s vision of a town square differs from what a true public space should be.Tania Davidge is architect, artist, educator, writer, and researcher. She is the president of Citizens for Melbourne, a public space advocacy group, and the co-founder of the architectural research practice OoPLA. She recently wrote about the need to preserve Melbourne’s Federation Square as a key public gathering space. Follow Tania on Twitter as @taniadavidge.Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter.Support the show

You know, as an architect, I didn't quite realize I was going to chase somebody around Fed Square who was dressed up in an Apple costume shouting, juice the apple, juice, juice the apple. Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us, a podcast that is increasingly worried about how tech companies are moving into public space and our cities and are trying to capture those and make profit from them. I'm your host, Paris Marks, and today I'm speaking with Tanya Davic. She's an architect, activist and researcher who serves as the president of Citizens for Melbourne, a public space advocacy group, and is a director of OOPLA, an architecture firm based in Melbourne. We have a fantastic conversation today where we talk about the campaign that Tanya was involved in to stop the Apple store that was planned for a central

public space in Melbourne, how it was ultimately stopped, and how these plans for town squares, as Apple calls them, do not align with what a public space should really be. If you like our conversation, please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and share it with any friends or colleagues that you think would find it interesting. And if you want to support the work that I put into making this podcast, you can go to patreon.com slash techwontsaveus and become a supporter. Thanks so much and enjoy our conversation. Tanya, welcome to Tech Won't Save Us. Thanks for having me.

I wanted to talk to you because you were involved in this campaign that took place a few years ago, but it's still going on in some way to oppose this Apple store that was proposed for a key public space in Melbourne called Federation Square, and also sort of building a vision for what the future of this public space could be. So I wanted to start by asking you when this Apple Store was proposed for Federation Square in December 2017, just a few days before Christmas. What was your reaction to that when it was announced? Well, I was absolutely devastated by the announcement. Fed Square is such an important public space in our city. And it had kind of been flagged in the media a couple of years before. And everybody had just gone, oh, that's

such a silly idea that nobody really took it seriously. I think maybe one or two articles came out. I know somebody who wrote an article on it at the time, and he ended up as part of our group, the Citizens for Melbourne. But we all just thought, no, that's not right. That's just daft. And then it happened. And I was so upset. And I was so angry. And I was so angry because the government made the announcement without any public consultation. And for me, that was just such a misstep. Because obviously, public space needs to be worked through with the people that it's for, the public. And that's not what happened. So it was announced about three working days, I think, before Christmas. And I was having everybody over for

Christmas. And I was just like, oh my God, this is so awful. And a friend of mine, an editor at Architecture AU, which is a digital publication, architectural publication here, said, oh, you've written before on Fed Square. Would you write something for us? And I was, my head was, oh, I don't have the space. I slept on it and I woke up the next morning and I was still so angry. I said, you'll have it by the end of the day. And so I just banged out this piece. So yes, very, very upset. Yeah, definitely. So, you know, you have this public square that has a lot of really important pieces in it. And all of a sudden, this massive store is planning to plank itself down right in

the middle and make that space centered around its commercial business, right? And so just give us an idea for people who are not so familiar with Melbourne, what is Federation Square? What role does it play in Melbourne? And what are kind of the cultural institutions and public spaces and public institutions that are in that square that are really important to people in the city? Fed Square is essentially part of our cultural and civic precinct, but it acts as Melbourne's town square. So it's that kind of singular, important public space. But it was designed in the late 90s and opened, I think, in 2002.

So it's quite young. And if we think about a typical kind of Western European model, a town square is typically built around a town hall, the cathedral or the church and the marketplace so governance, religion and a little bit of commerce you know and then people coming together. Fed Square wasn't built around that model, it was envisaged to be a really contemporary town square. So it's not anchored by the church or by a town hall or governance, but it is anchored by cultural programming. So it's kind of a set of buildings, a series or an assembly of buildings, which contain part of the National Gallery of Victoria, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, which is

ACMI, the Curie Heritage Trust, which is an Indigenous public group, SBS, which is our multicultural television service. It has the offices of the Melbourne Festival in it and assorted kind of food and beverage offerings, but it's really anchored around kind of Melbourne and Australian culture, I think. So it was built to commemorate our federation. We were federated in 1901, so it opened slightly late in 2002, as all good architectural projects do, they run over slightly. And what it does is its aesthetics draw from the Melburnian and the Australian landscape. So the facades are these kind of quite understated zinc and sandstone facades that are a pinwheel in pattern so they draw from fractal geometry and the buildings themselves and the square itself is shaped by I suppose an interest

in landscape forms and the actual square which is framed by the buildings is made of the cobblestones are a red kimberley sandstone so it's got this kind of beautiful texture to it and for Edds Square since it opened it's it's an internationally recognized benchmark for public space so it's got this kind of beautiful texture to it. And Fed Square, since it opened, it's an internationally recognised benchmark for public space. So it's really, really important in terms of, you know, a precedent for a contemporary public space. And I would say that in Melbourne, it kind of sits at the hinge of our sporting district, the CBD and the arts precinct. So it's a really kind of important point of reference to all of these different parts of the city. And no other public space in Melbourne works like Fed Square does. So it's part of a network of public parks and public buildings and public institutions,

but it's the only one that kind of does what it does. So it's beautiful. It is an incredibly beautiful space and there's nowhere else quite like it in the city. You know, I didn't really know about all of the specific materials that are used in it and how it comes from the Australian landscape. But the architecture is really stunning, right? These buildings look very different than kind of the skyscrapers and the church and stuff that are nearby. And they really stand out.

And it just makes you kind of want to approach them want to go to that space and as you say fed square since it opened has become a place where people go for a lot of different events right for protests for sporting events and all these different things i mean one of my favorite events to go to every year and it's only recently happened again is the tanderem ceremony ceremony. So the Tanderem opens the Melbourne Festival every year and it's been run since 2013 to do that but it hadn't been performed in Melbourne for over 100 years publicly and what it is is it's a meeting of the five tribes of the Kulin Nation. So the Kulin Nation is the land upon which Melbourne sits, the country on which Melbourne sits and it's a welcome to country by those five tribes.

So there's singing and dancing and it's performed in the square in the kind of early evening and people ring the edges of the square and there's a big fire for the smoking ceremony in the centre of all that Kimberley sandstone and there's sand laid out and the backdrop to it are the buildings of the square and they have very little advertising on them. So the square actually frames the ceremony beautifully because it's about the people who are occupying the square when it happens. And it's such a powerful event if you're ever in Melbourne for it. I think it's usually happens

around October. It's amazing. It's such an important ceremony and it's such a beautiful ceremony. It sounds very beautiful. Now, I wanted to move on because you talked about how in the immediate aftermath of this, people were angry, you were angry, other people within the city were not happy about this decision, the way it was made and the fact that it was happening in the first place, right? So there was this new organization that I believe was formed as a result of this called Citizens for Melbourne. How did that organization come together? I guess we kind of already have a bit of a picture of that. And what was the initial goal of the organization? What sort of things did you start to do to try to

push back against this Apple store and this decision? An architect and a historian got us all together, a guy called Rowan Story. And if you follow his Instagram, he's actually quite fantastic on Melbourne historical buildings. I love him. But he's also a bit of an activist. And so he got some of us together. He got some people who'd written articles. So as I mentioned, I wrote an article. We've got an urban historian, James Lash. He also had written something in The Age. Michael Smith, who's an architect, had written something. We had two of the petition holders. There were three petitions which garnered over 100,000 signatures opposing the Apple Store. And we have two of the petition holders as part of our group, Melinda Ovens and Brett DeHoot.

And we have a few more architects as well. Shelley Freeman, Anthony DiMasi, and Karen Jeffries kind of form the core of who we are. And what we were really interested in is not just coming together around opposing the apple store in federation square but really with a broader mission around advocating for and fostering conversation about public space in the city of melbourne because we can see that with say the rise of the kind of privatization of public space and the corporatization of public space there really needs to be groups with a voice in this area to kind of speak and to kind of draw community together and talk about why public space is important, because it's quite a nuanced issue and it's

abstract for many, many people. So we came together with that broader mission, but our first campaign was the Our City, Our Square campaign to oppose the Apple Store and we wanted to act as a voice for and give voice to the people who had been, I suppose, silenced by the way the decision was announced. So what happened was that when the decision was announced, the planning minister invoked their authority, which meant that the project was of state significance and it didn't need to go to public exhibition and public comment. So basically the people were left out of that process completely and we felt that we had potentially the capacity to amplify the community voice. That makes sense and it seems like it's a really important mission for the city,

right? In order to empower the people who care about the square and who want it to remain a really important public space and a place for public gatherings. And so as this developed, what were the kind of actions that were taken in order to challenge this decision? I can honestly say we tried pretty much everything. I'd never run an activist campaign before, so I was willing to give most things a crack. But we also had to be strategic because all of our group were volunteers. I mean, it actually took a huge amount of time. I didn't really realise what I was getting myself in for initially, but I felt strongly enough that it was an important enough issue to really focus on. We did everything from social media to the

kind of typical rally to a flash mob in Fed Square run by a performance art group that came down from Queensland, from Brisbane, which was actually fantastic. You know, as an architect, I didn't quite realise I was going to chase somebody around Fed Square who was dressed up in an apple costume shouting, juice the apple, juice, juice the apple. Yeah, no, that was weird. But I think one of the most important things we realised over the course of the campaign is that you really have to find your allies. Now, your because Fed Square is part of the City of Melbourne council area, but it's run by the state government. So the City of Melbourne doesn't have any jurisdiction over it. The City of Melbourne councillors were also mostly blindsided by the announcement.

And the CBD of Melbourne, the actual grid of Melbourne, doesn't have a huge amount of public open space in it. So Fed Square is immediately adjacent to that. And what happens in Fed Square sets a precedent for what would happen across public space in the city of Melbourne and beyond. Fed Square is seen as a precedent for a lot of new public spaces actually all around Australia. So the way Fed Square is run and the types of programs that it allows then set a precedent for what happens elsewhere. So it was really important for us to kind of make allies and align ourselves with the people we could see also cared. The Australian Institute

of Architects, the Planning Institute of Australia and the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects were really interesting. They thought that the process should have been run more publicly with open comment and they organised a debate in the Deakin Edge Theatre at Fed Square of which we took part and I'd like to think that we won that argument very early on but it took us a while to really win the argument a bit longer. We met with concerned community members, we met with any politician who would meet with us and I have to say the National Trust of Australia, the Victorian chapter was absolutely integral, I think, in getting it across the line because we worked quite closely with them. They nominated Federation Square for a

heritage estate heritage listing and we worked quite closely with them and we took part in those heritage hearings and Fed Square was eventually listed on the state heritage register. And it's one of the youngest buildings, I think, in the world to gain heritage status, and it's absolutely well-deserved. One of the really interesting things that we did was a poster campaign. Our last Lord Mayor had to resign under rather not-so-fantastic circumstances. And so we had a Lord Mayoral by-election, and we plastered Fed Fed Square not Apple Square posters all over the city of Melbourne and got some of the people who were candidates for Lord Mayor to come and speak. So that was pretty interesting and those posters actually made news worldwide. We got international

press coverage of the posters which was hilarious. We handed out how to vote cards at the state election. I mentioned the flash mob and I think one of the interesting things we did on social media was that if you had a comment or you felt strongly about saving Fed Square, we would put out your position on our social media. And so we had lots of beautiful comments about why we should save Fed Square and not knock down the Yarra building and all these other things that went out on the social media. So it was great. I thought it was really beautiful following along and keeping up with what was happening and the things that you guys were doing to try to draw attention to it. Like it was really nice. And now you said that FedSquare got the heritage designation. And so what does that really mean? And how did that impact the process?

And how did that really materially change what could happen in the square? It's actually really interesting because it's quite complicated. And in some ways, it was the kind of little turning point that the whole issue pivoted on. So what happens is you nominate something for heritage listing, and then the nomination gets accepted. And once the nomination is accepted, there is a hearing date set, which anybody can make submissions to around the kind of heritage status of the square. But in the time between the nomination being accepted and the hearings, Fed Square has an interim heritage protection order placed over it, which means that to do any major

work at the square, you have to apply for a heritage permit. So what happens is that re-kicks in the planning process. So the planning process that had been kind of taken away when it was declared a project of state significance and the planning authority was invoked kind of re-kicked in in this small way because a permit was still required to do any work. So in that period between the announcement and the heritage hearings or the announcement that it was accepted to be looked at for heritage, Federation Square lodged an application for a heritage permit to do the work. So to knock down the Yarra building and replace it with the Apple store. And what happened then was we had this two week window where we

could object. So all of a sudden the public had a voice again in terms of a really structural process. It wasn't just the kind of shouty stuff in the media anymore. It was actually a way to impact the process. And so by this time, we had actually built up our list to be quite significant. And we managed to facilitate over 2,300 submissions objecting to that heritage permit. And then through our broader network we managed to help other people facilitate more and the heritage permit got over 3,400 I think objections which was really interesting because it was the most I think they've ever got by a huge like a vast margin and Heritage Victoria denied the permit so they weren't going to allow them to knock down the Yarra building. And that's when

Apple pulled out. You can start to see how important community voice is and also having a little bit of expertise and understanding the process so that we could help facilitate that community voice. It was such a wonderful moment. We were all super excited. I can't even describe how good it felt. But you could kind of see Apple's thinking in that moment. Fed Square is this really quirky set of buildings. It doesn't look like architecture anywhere else. It's a very Melbourne thing. Melbourne's very, very idiosyncratic. And the Yarra building is quirky, like the rest of that. And if you think about Apple and its design aesthetic, and its kind of understanding of global branding and it brands spatially as well as its products it's not a very Melbourne thing it's a very global

international aesthetic and so to see that they didn't want to be in the Yarra building as it was I think was quite an interesting thing and it made me really quite love the Melbourne community who wanted that kind of local quirkiness kept. So that was fantastic. And then I suppose we can move on a little bit to the actual heritage hearings themselves and what Fed Square was listed for. So there are criteria which you get listed under. I think there's about eight criteria, but Fed Square was listed for its architectural qualities, so its aesthetic qualities. It's quite interesting. It was designed and built kind of in a global recession, which is quite interesting. So that's one of the reasons that there aren't many buildings or sites that look like Fed Square in the world, because not many people had that kind of money or vision to

be able to build those kinds of sites at that time. We had a particularly gung-ho state government, which was interesting, but was listed for its technical innovation. So to design it, they used some very early forms of computer 3D modelling, and it also has passive cooling capacity. Under the actual square itself, there's a cooling labyrinth that sucks in air from the south side, the cold side for you guys who are in the northern hemisphere, and then redistributes that around the building. Fed Square was also listed for its importance to the pattern of Melbourne's urban history. So there's been a really, really long fight for a town square in the city of

Melbourne. When Melbourne was laid out, a surveyor called Hoddle laid it out. It's often termed the Hoddle Grid, and it was laid out with no public open gathering space and that was because the government was very conscious of that when people gathered they might rise up. Melbourne had another site set aside for a town square. There's a hotel on half of it but that didn't work out either because that was designed also with protest in mind or mitigating protest in mind because that was built around the time of Vietnam protests. So that was also not a big public gathering space. That was designed to kind of only allow for smaller gathering. So Melbourne never really had this town square that it wanted. So finally, with Fed Square, we got this town square. So there's this

beautiful kind of whole story that is embedded with the history of Melbourne that goes to the building of Fed Square. But I think the two most important criteria at the time to me that it got listed under was because it's socially significant to the people of Victoria. So when we think about heritage, we usually think about bricks and mortar, but it's really important to Victoria. It's where we kind of collectively celebrate our cultural identity. As you said, it's where we protest, it's where we commemorate and do all these other things in public and together. So it was listed for that. And finally, it was listed as a significant example of its type. So it was listed as a significant example of a public square. And so now its public nature is absolutely embedded in what it is and it's in its heritage significance. And the word heritage

sounds funny when you talk about Fed Square, because it's only about 17 or 18 years old, but it absolutely deserved its listing. All the things that you describe there are so important. And it's so nice to see those things recognized and to know that this space is now designated as a public space, and it has to kind of serve that public function because it has been given this really important designation. And now, I do want to ask you about the future of Fed Square and where it goes from here. But before I do that, at the time that your campaign was happening, there were campaigns against Apple stores in other parts of the world, in the United States, and one in Stockholm really stood

out because that was another one that successfully defeated the Apple store. And it was supposed to also go in a really important public space, right? Like the story seemed very similar to what happened in Melbourne. But as you say, the process was different. So when you were carrying out this campaign against the proposed Apple store in Fed Square. Did you learn anything from those campaigns that were happening elsewhere in the world? Very early on, we tried to get in touch with some of the other campaigns. It didn't really go that far. And I think the reason was because, you know, while Apple is this big global corporation that can kind of go anywhere or go in lots of places, because this town square model was meant to be rolled out

over numerous sites. When you fight these things, you have to fight from a local perspective and you have to draw on local concerns and you have to draw on local planning regulations and all of those kind of things. So, you know, in some ways you fight very individual fights, which I think is interesting because all of the fights have a different character. And what you can see is that also we all have very different conceptualizations and

understandings of public space, what public space is. So I'm a firm believer in the fact that public space is socially created. We create public space through social interaction. Buildings can form a backdrop to that. They can frame that interaction. But but the reality is is it's the people in those public spaces that make those public spaces public and what then happens is that public space is very different in different places in different parts of the world i lived in new york for quite a while and people talk about times square as a public space and for me that's not a public space that's a spectacle so it's very very different coming from my framework and if public space is socially produced then what we need to do is we need to take part in that conversation to define what its meaning is so if there was an apple store for example at fed square right now if the yarra building had been knocked down the

definition of public space what we think of as public space in australia would be very. So it would have had this huge impact on how we feel about public space. Public space in Australia, I think is very important, even though we don't always consider it like consciously, but I live fairly close to the beach, for example. And in Australia, the beach is the ultimate public space. Everybody has access to it. If anybody tries to kind of own part of it, there is just outcry. Like it's outrageous. But when I lived in the US, every now and then we'd go down to the Jersey Shore, which was actually quite horrifying in hindsight, and people own swathes of that beach. And we just couldn't, like, I could not believe that. So sorry, I've gone quite tangentially from your initial question. I suppose my point is that, you know, it's very

contextual, it's very local, but at the same time, broader conversations, international conversations around what it means to be a good corporate citizen, what it means to contribute to community, and, you know, what it means to be responsible on the level of community, but on the level of government and on the level of, you know, a corporation. I appreciate your tangent on public space. It's a little bit different. But I remember the first time I was in New Zealand, and they were explaining to me about how like, this person owns this mountain, and this person owns that mountain. And like, just the idea of someone owning a mountain seemed like absolutely crazy to me. But that's just the way that things develop because of colonialism there. But yeah,

so it's interesting to see how things work in different parts of the world. So I think that's a really good observation. And as you started to discuss there, like public space is different in different places, but there are different ideas of, you know, what a town square should be, right? And you touched on this a little bit earlier. Apple was trying to put its idea of what a town square should be in cities all over the world. And this is a town square that is centered around the Apple brand. So how does that differ from what a town square should really be if it's considered a public space and a place that is directed more toward the public than toward this international brand? I mean, I think it's really interesting. I think

public space is defined by access in lots of ways because ownership is a really muddy way to look at it. But, you know, so who has access? How do we have access? If we have certain programs in certain spaces, who does that exclude? Who does it include? Part of Apple's pitch was that they were going to provide educational and cultural programming to the public. You know, I know that if I go and I want to do a course and like an Apple thing, I need an Apple ID, you know, I need an Apple phone. So it's not inclusive. It excludes a whole lot of people. So how do we start to deal with that? And I think the town square model was a little bit cynical. It was very commercial. I mean, it was very clever

in some ways, but in other ways, it was a bit parasitical. The brand that Fed Square and these other town squares have already built up, I don't even want to use the brand, but what they are, their identity, it was trying to capitalize on these existing spaces. And there's one that they actually built in Milan. I don't know if you've seen that. I've been there, yeah. Oh, really? There's photos on this architectural website called D-Zine. And in the 90s when I was studying architecture, there was a lot of talk about kind of coercive architecture

and Bentham's Panopticon and, you know, this idea of surveillance and things like that. And that is one of the most coercive pieces of architecture aimed at a brand that I have ever seen pictures of in my life. I think they weren't allowed to build it above the town square. It wasn't their central square, it wasn't at the Duomo, but it was a lovely piazza in Milan. So there's this big kind of glass-encased waterfall, and then there's a series of amphitheater-like steps they've dug into this square. And then there's this huge wall, glass wall,

glowing glass wall that just has the Apple logo on it. So when you sit there, you're just looking straight at the Apple logo the whole time. This square was just very simple. You could cross it before the Apple store was put there. So you start to see, you know, the huge difference that these kind of interventions into public space can have. And I think that's probably why our group was so filled with architects in some ways is because we're trained to see the effects that different things can have on spaces. And we knew that an Apple store there and it's such a large Apple store as well would fundamentally change the nature of the square. I remember being in Milan and seeing that one. And I guess it was nice for Apple, you know, like it completely centered this square around them and their brand. But like, is this really what a public space should be? No. I mean, it's interesting because it is beautifully

designed. I mean, you know, Apple is beautifully designed. It's so well thought out on every level. But then I think in that broader picture, that's where we need to question what's going on. And as you say, I feel like that town square concept really kind of took advantage of how public space had been kind of decimated and slowly privatized in at least a lot of Western countries. I'm not sure elsewhere, but it kind of created that opening for Apple to then create its own public spaces because there were fewer actual public spaces that were designed and owned by the public. And now, as we think about what a public space should be, your group is now also engaged in what the future of Fed Square should be in Melbourne. So what are the thinkings about that now? And kind of what is the vision for

the future of Fed Square? As a result of the campaign and the Apple Store and et cetera, et cetera, the state government has been reviewing FedSquare, its kind of built form, its funding models, et cetera, et cetera. And we participated in that process, which was really interesting because you start to realize that so many people are just on the same page, but how do you actually then execute that vision? There's been a library thrown up as a potential proposal and I think that's wonderful and our list has emailed me and said we think that's wonderful I love that too because the library that you know is kind of

nearby it's on like a side street and it's a fair size but it's still rather small for what you really need in the space so it seems like a new library there would just be so beautiful and so necessary. Yeah. And I think it's really interesting because it's kind of, that's a very everyday public program. And FedSquare has a lot of the kind of more celebratory public programming, but I do think, you know, a little more of the everyday would work really beautifully there. I'm really hoping that they'll get funding. So when FedSquare was set up, it was set up like a private corporation. So it's got a company that runs it, but I think it has a single share or something. It's owned fully by the state government. So this is where I'm saying that public and private, public space gets very, very complicated. But for me, the state government

own it. It's a state government asset.'s for the people you know so that's that line of reasoning there and one of the problems with that is when it was set up it was set up to kind of self-fund and it was set up with a charter so the charter is really interesting the charter is fantastic it lays out a vision for fed square but the chart you know charter also has a little bit of flexibility in it so in the lead up to the kind of Apple Store proposal, what was happening is that there were more paid programming events at Fed Square. That's kind of the outcome of this idea that public space should pay for itself, or this public space in particular should pay for itself. But the reality is, is that the state government funds, you know, the National Gallery of

Victoria, it funds the Botanic Gardens, it funds all these different things. And so our argument was always, and in the community consultation as well, our argument was always that the state government needed to fund Fed Square like it funds these other public institutions, because it's just as important as these public institutions. So we're really hoping that Fed Square will get enough funding to really run more community programming. And we know that with community programming, there's also a certain level of expertise that needs to be there to help people put on community programming because people in the community don't always throw big festivals. They need help doing that. So some funding there would be fantastic. And then also some of my most memorable moments at Fed Square have been the art installations or

performances that have happened actually in the square outdoors. So it would be lovely to see more community funding for that kind of stuff as well. At the moment, as you know, we're in the middle of our second lockdown. So we don't really know what the outcome of the review will be yet. The Victorian state government typically value culture and the arts. And so we're really hoping that there'll be a positive outcome for FedSquare. I certainly think so as well. And, you know, as you say, with Melbourne back in a second lockdown, it would really be nice to see FedSquare kind of given that funding and that really public-oriented

future vision that could really be a place to bring people back together once this pandemic is dealt with and people can mingle and chat and, you know, enjoy those collective experiences again in the way that we really want them to. I think it's really hit home how important our public spaces are and our arts and our culture is. I mean, I think everywhere, but particularly in Melbourne, we've all been really missing it here in Melbourne. But we like the idea of banding together and hopefully getting through it and getting back out to Fed Square and all the other wonderful things that Melbourne has to offer. Well, Tanya, I certainly hope that you can get back out there soon and that this is taken care of soon and that you're out of lockdown soon.

It's been fantastic to speak with you and to hear your perspective and how this campaign played out. I really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you. Tanya Davic is the president of Citizens for Melbourne and an architect and director at OOPLA. You can follow her on Twitter at at Tanya Davic. You can also follow the show at at Tech Won't Save Us. And you can follow me, Paris Marks, at At Paris Marks. If you like the show, please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Tech Won't Save Us is part of the Ricochet Podcast Network, which is a group of left-wing podcasts that are made in Canada. Thanks for listening. Thank you.