'Sophistication' spat over foot traffic decline in Adelaide CBD

A sharp decline in foot traffic in Adelaide's CBD has prompted a prominent property industry lobbyist to take a swipe at the city council, which he has accused of lacking "sophistication".

But the lord mayor has staunchly defended the council's approach to CBD visits, and hit back at those she said "don't understand the city is a complex beast".

According to Adelaide City Council documents citing Kepler Analytics data, there were 138.8 million foot traffic visitors in 2023, before the figure dropped to 130.6 million in 2024 and 122 million in 2025.

A month-by-month dashboard, published by the Adelaide Economic Development Agency, shows 13.9 million visits were recorded citywide in the month of July 2023, before the figure fell to 10.9 million in July 2024.

In July 2025, there were 10.2 million visits and, in July of this year, 9.6 million visits.

Executive director of the state's Property Council, Bruce Djite, blamed factors including car parking, which he said was having a deterrent effect on visitors.

"This is what happens when you have — with all due respect — Adelaide city councillors who are very nice people but unfortunately lack the sophistication required to attract people into the city on a regular basis," he told 891 ABC Adelaide.

"We have a council that is at war with car parking without an alternative solution.

"When you're ripping out car parks and putting in bike lanes, you make it increasingly difficult for anyone who needs to travel into the CBD to get there, do their shopping and get home. It's too inconvenient."

Mr Djite said a more significant factor than parking was housing, and he accused the council of failing to make best use of its building stock, more of which, he said, should be converted for residential use.

"What they need to do is have more residential in the city," he said.

"They could put some of their underutilised buildings to the development sector, so they could have professionals come in and deliver the residential supply that's required in the CBD."

Adelaide Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith rejected Mr Djite's criticisms, but said she did not wish to "have a discussion about people's character".

"I'm not into criticising him for his sophistication — that's not my style," she said.

Cr Lomax-Smith said foot traffic figures were partly reflective of demographic changes.

"More people are working from home now than there were five years ago, and it's taken a while for the foot traffic to recover after COVID. There's been a bounce back," she said.

"Clearly people don't understand the city is a complex beast — we have retail, we have nightlife, we have all sorts of professional services and we've had a growth in business activity in the city. [There are] more businesses now than ever before."

Cr Lomax-Smith said CBD parking in Adelaide compared favourably with other Australian capital cities, and added that the council's housing strategy was paying dividends.

"We've had an increase of 3.5 per cent in our residential population in the last year, and that's the largest increase of any council area in South Australia," she said.

Rundle Mall tailor Joseph Uzumcu said he had not noticed a decline in passers-by, and said his business was "doing incredibly well".

"People point fingers at other outside effects of why people are not coming into the city," he said.

"We've got to realise the population of Adelaide is [smaller than elsewhere].