The news that a popular fast food chain will be the latest addition to the so-called infrastructure in Ballarat’s newest suburb at Lucas will no doubt be greeted with mixed reactions by the community.
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There will be many who welcome the added facility of an eatery in close proximity, and a corporation as successful as McDonald’s would never contemplate putting up a new restaurant without doing thorough research into just what the demand for its product is.
At the same time, as a fast food outlet McDonald’s has over the years come under considerable criticism for the contribution it allegedly makes to wider health problems and bad nutritional habits.
The company has been at pains to adapt to this criticism and sell the message it is both a responsible community and nutritional corporation.
The rage in small established communities like Tecoma or Torquay however, is indicative of broader antipathy.
This may not necessarily be aimed at a single corporation but is symbolic of a fear that one new business is the vanguard of the whole gamut of suffocating, multi-national chains.
To established communities, this can be seen as the slow creeping of bland homogeneity and the end of cherished individualism so key to their identity.
In a new suburb, the historical and emotional attachment may not be so strong, and many will herald a new business as simply an added service.
Few people would reasonably demand the exclusion of a fast food store, supermarket or any other outlet that provides such a service, but equally many would not want to see it to the exclusion or serious detriment of other choices.
Planning regulations do not allow for commercial competition as grounds for exclusion – and nor should they.
However, the issue of choice even in things as basic as food services is all the more critical in new suburbs because the issues of infrastructure or lack of it is instrumental in how a community develops.
Ultimately it will be the community that decides, because no commercial entity can exist without it.
The significance of that community’s decision is that it is one thread which will make up the fabric of its future.