Brisbane City Council's answer in its Kurilpa Renewal Plan is to propose skyscraper infrastructure which would see a whopping 11,000 new residents and 8000 dayworkers jammed on to the peninsula along the river bank, on the 2011 flood-plain between GOMA and Davies Park.

Green space and parks will be largely replaced by concrete piazzas with precious little room for leisure, apart from one designated "Eat Street". And the current traffic, infrastructure and school overcrowding issues will magnify.

A more imaginative and visionary alternative would be to build on what we already have on the South Bank, which is Brisbane's heart of leisure, culture and tourism. That means looking at the whole district in context, from the Maritime Museum right along the river bank, including Musgrave Park and Boundary Street up to Highgate Hill.

Here already are our beloved Southbank parklands and our wonderful galleries, museums, performance spaces, library and heritage buildings.

Here is the hub of our arts, cultural education and creative industries, with Griffith's Conservatorium, Art College and Film School, South Bank TAFE and arts-rich schools.

Southbank, along with the Convention Centre, Boundary Street and Musgrave Park, is also our centre for festivals, from Out of the Box to RiverFire, Paniyiri, NAIDOC Week and Buddha's Birthday.

With West End Village and its restaurants, it's our multicultural heart too.

What we don't have is scale and vision.

We do need new residents, hotels and visitors, to give life to the riverbank when the factories have gone.

New ferries, better transport and access to the renewed district will also be needed.

For visitors too, we have limited leisure facilities - no funfair, no area of artists and craftworkers, no sculpture park. All will need more grass, flowers and trees, not less.

What we don't need is a characterless, overpopulated vertical suburb, a gridlocked concrete jungle of towers and hot concrete.

Instead, we could have a 21^st century Creative River City, our own inner-city resort, bustling with residents, artists, visitors from greater Brisbane and a vastly expanded tourist industry - a place for everybody, not just the rich, relaxing in a still-green city heart.

John O'Toole AM is a former Foundation Chair of Arts Education at the University of Melbourne, who is also a resident of South Brisbane.