"Backwater" is a highly emotive term used by person/s with an "agenda" - usually to spend other people's money on benefitting themselves.
SA is different to the more populous states. It has different climate, different geography, different ways of doing things, different population pressures, different building materials. Most importantly, it is located at a different place on the planet & some things must necessarily happen differently.
However....Adelaide has the same lack of water (& breast-beating about lack of fore-thought on water infrastructure), the same pressure groups crying for preservation of some old stuff, or changing of other old stuff. The whingers use exactly the same phrases to compare Melb/Syd/Bris/Perth with each other & overseas capitals.
The whole argument is therefore built on the falsehood that city "A" should somehow being bigger (more expensive) stuff than city "B". I think it is a load of bollocks. If someone really thinks Sydney / Melbourne / Brisbane / etc does things so much better, they should put their feet where their mouth is & move there.
And quit their belly-aching.
cheers
AJ
(former resident of Qld, Vic & Tas)