City Life – What's The Plan For Melbourne

‘City Life – What’s the Plan for Melbourne’ written by Rod Urban, the senior director of Zenith Construction, is an article published in a weekend lifestyle magazine issued by a large newspaper. It tries to convince the reader that instead of having ‘random’ suburban estates full of excessively large houses we should have a well-planned inner city. The audience for this professional and assertive sounding piece are Melbournians who love their city.

Urban’s assertion that Melbournians must consider what they ‘want to be known for’ encourages his audience to consider their own position on the issue of the ever expanding urban sprawl. The accompanying image of a typical Melbourne café also asks the readers to question whether what they know to be Melbourne will stay the same. Its inquiring caption asking them to ‘consider’ what it is that they wish for Melbourne’s future, it puts a sense

of fear that if the urban sprawl spreads it will affect their lives and may encourage audiences to begin wondering how they can get involved. The author also talks about the urban sprawl as if it is a ‘middle aged spread’ this implies that the suburban areas are the extra unnecessary weight and ugliness of the city. By using this saying with such negative connotations Urban has tried to paint a picture in the readers head so that they see the suburban sprawl as and ‘ugly’ addition to the ‘great’ city of Melbourne. This could position the reader further on his side.
Many people would be drawn into the idea of living in one of the suburban estates because of the ‘fancy things’ that Urban outlines.

By drawing attention to these aspects, such as lakes, that should be a selling point and turning them into ‘mosquito-infested bogs’. By using exaggeration in describing the suburban sprawl Urban urges the reader to rethink the image that has been put into their heads by the building corporations. This may reinforce the author’s position and arouse emotions such as disgust which could grab their attention. Rod Urban uses an example about ‘young people’ dying on unsafe roads in the country to try and critique the use of money on suburban estate. This example is used in such a way to inform city dwellers of something outside of their knowledge. Urban blames the death of young people on the ‘lack of adequate surfaces’ due to the shortage of funding to those areas. This emotional appeal relates to our values and attitudes and is very different to the attacks towards the suburban estate builders, people will usually take notice of something as tragic as

death.
Rod Urban used a multitude of different persuasive techniques to persuade the audience. His assertive and descriptive tone depicted a world that would be better off without unnecessary suburban real estate. After reading his article the audience had a lot of aspects to consider but all of them on Urban's side. Urban's view is very well presented but biased because of his ties to a construction company that will help the city of Melbourne get to its ‘zenith’.