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The Multifunction Polis (MFP) was a controversial scheme for a planned community in Australia proposed in 1987 and abandoned in 1998. From the Greek word "polis", meaning "city", it was imagined as a place where work and leisure, lifetime education and intercultural exchange, research and manufacturing would be uniquely integrated.〔Hamilton, Walter. "Serendipity City: Australia, Japan and the Multifunction Polis". Sydney: ABC Books, 1991.〕 The MFP was intended to have an initial population of 100,000, though some modelling was done on the assumption of a population up to 250,000. Futuristic infrastructure and modern communications were expected to help attract high-tech industries. 〔 〕 Asian investors were targeted as an important source of funds, with an emphasis on Japanese investors. Several possible locations were put forward and in 1990 a site at Gillman, north of Adelaide, was selected. The proposal generated noisy opposition in Australia, with some critics claiming it would open the way for a Japanese settlement on Australian soil. The MFP, at least as originally envisaged, never eventuated. ==History== The Multifunction Polis was first proposed at the ninth Australia-Japan Ministerial Committee meeting in Canberra in January 1987 by the Japanese Minister for International Trade and Industry (MITI) Hajime Tamura.〔Hamilton, "Serendipity City", pp. 8-10.〕 A concept paper produced by MITI a month later said the Multifunction Polis would "become a forum for international exchange in the region and a model for new industries and new lifestyles looking ahead to the twenty-first century." More than 100 Australian and Japanese companies signed up to the MFP Joint Feasibility Study. 〔Hamilton, "Serendipity City", p. 30, 56-61.〕 Site proposals were received from New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and the A.C.T. In 1990 the MFP Joint Steering Committee (whose co-chairman was ANZ Bank chief executive Will Bailey) initially awarded the project to the Gold Coast in Queensland, but after the state's premier Wayne Goss declined to consolidate the land under a public corporation the Joint Steering Committee switched its choice to Gillman, near Adelaide in South Australia.〔Hamilton, "Serendipity City", pp. 193-204.〕 By this time, however, some potential Japanese investors had lost interest because of the negative publicity in Australia and repeated delays with the feasibility study. The choice of little-known Gillman for the site, rather than a location with strong appeal as a resort, discouraged others.〔Hamilton, "Serendipity City", pp. 170-74, 192-93〕 The Multifunction Polis project failed to attract the required investment, particularly after the bursting of the Japanese economic bubble in the early 1990s, and Australia's Federal Government withdrew funding in 1996. In 1998, the Premier of South Australia, John Olsen, officially announced the MFP's demise.〔 The cost of the failed project to the Australian taxpayer was said to be $150 million.〔Hills, Ben "The city that never was", The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 August 1997.〕 Denis Gastin, chief executive of the MFP Joint Secretariat, said the loss of the project was an embarrassment to the nation: "It's an international embarrassment that we deliberately sought and captured international attention for a project that we did not deliver. South Australia had a chance to do something that would make the nation take it more seriously but what history shows is it bit off more than it could chew."〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Multifunction Polis」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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