Alice Springs
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Alice Springs is a small town close to the exact centre of Australia. Its population has been estimated at anywhere between 18,000 and 39,000. Because Alice Springs's economy is largely driven by tourism, they want to officially remain a town, and the qualification to become a city is 20,000, hence they like to lower their official statistics to reflect this. As at 2002, Alice Springs had an official population of 22,000 people. This did not include tourists, non-Australian citizens (e.g. people who work at Pine Gap), or any of the people who officially live in any of the nearby Aboriginal communities. If those numbers were included, the population would be at least 33,000 people. Alice Springs, like Mount Isa, is over the qualification to become a city, yet is not officially a city, by their own choice.
Alice Springs was originally discovered as an oasis in the middle of the desert and soon became a thriving town through both the telegraph station that determined phone lines as well as its use in delivering packages. Because Alice Springs was so central, it was halfway between Adelaide to the south and Darwin to the north, as well as also being halfway between Perth to the west and Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne to the east. Alice Springs was also for many years used as a halfway spot for airlines, although this changed in 2000 with many planes now travelling direct from one destination to another.
Alice Springs's economy is driven by 4 means:
- The US military base Pine Gap, which is approximately 90 km away, and has 5,000 people who are all apparently very well paid.
- Tourism, especially in relation to its proximity to Ayer's Rock, which is approximately 450 km away, but Alice Springs is the closest town to it.
- Aboriginal related benefits - relating to the approximately 50% of the population (officially only 10%) that are aboriginal and the large benefits that they get, plus the side effects including more health, more education etc.
- Mining - as with most rural areas of Australia, there is a lot of money in mining in the nearby areas, although not in Alice Springs itself.
Tourism is such that at any point in time there will be between 5,000 - 10,000 tourists in the town at the same time. Considering the official figures of 22,000 people for the total population, this makes Alice Springs a very major tourist town. According to official figures, Alice Springs is the 9th most popular tourist destination in Australia for the combination of Australian and overseas tourists. Nearby Ayer's Rock is the 4th most popular destination (some tourists do not visit Alice Springs and go straight to Ayer's Rock). Most of the shops, bars and other forms of entertainment are tourist based. As such, when going there, there will be tourist prices (i.e. very expensive) and regular prices for everyday things. Alice Springs also has an out of proportion amount of entertainment, far more than you would expect of a town of that size.
Officially, Alice Springs has the worst crime rate in Australia, shared with Darwin, who also shares the worst level of alcohol abuse. Alice Springs does not, however, have any known organised crime, other than in relation to drug running, and hence when that is taken into account, it is not considered to be a major crime area in Australia. Nonetheless, news reports suggest that it is.
Alice Springs is a very racist town, where people either support aboriginals or hate them. Similarly, aboriginals either hate whites or like them. The divisions are roughly 50/50 in both cases, and racist abuse is common as you walk around the town. In spite of this obvious hostility, race based crimes are rare and almost unheard of.
Most criminals, per official statistics, are aboriginal people. Over 90% of all arrests and over 95% of all imprisonments are aboriginals, who, per official statistics only make up 10% of the population, but per more realistic estimations make up 40-50% of the population. This is regarded nationwide as evidence of racism in action. Some excuses for this have been that aboriginals tend to drink more, or secondly that they try to live by their own laws rather than by official Australian laws.