Geelong - where next?

The man steering Geelong through its current difficulties is one for thinking outside the box.

The city’s mayor, Darryn Lyons, was once a paparazzo and reality TV star in Britain before being elected as leader of Geelong – his hometown.

Sporting his signature blonde mohawk haircut and fur-lined mayoral robes, Lyons brings more gumption than gravitas to the role.

But he believes his penchant for flair is just what the city needs.

"At the end of the day, if you want to sell Wilson tennis balls, who would you want to have doing it? Roger Federer. If you want to sell a restaurant, you want Gordon Ramsey," he told Reuters.

Initially, business interests opposed Lyons’ candidacy, even taking out advertisements in a local newspaper warning residents against him.

But his media profile and dedication to securing investment in defence contracts and tourism have won him many admirers.

Yet the city’s mayor faces an uphill struggle.

Last month U.S. aluminium producer Alcoa announced that it would close its Point Henry smelter in Geelong (pictured above) putting 600 people out of work.

The hulking plant, located on a desolate promontory crisscrossed by humming high-voltage cables, is not the only one to face such a blow.

Behind the smelter lies the empty Moolap salt works. Across the bay sits Avalon Airport, where national carrier Qantas in November announced the closure of a maintenance facility, shedding 300 jobs.

The decision last year by Ford to cease manufacturing in Australia by 2016 will take 600 jobs from Geelong and, together with similar moves by Toyota and General Motors in other parts of the country, signalled the end of Australia's rich history of car manufacturing.

Forty-two-year-old Adam Oates, who works at the Alcoa Aluminium Smelter, is one of those affected by the cuts.

Oates has been employed at Point Henry for nearly his entire adult life, but will lose his job when the plant shuts. His father and father-in-law worked for Ford, he said in an interview at his home, and he always assumed he would have the sort of job security they enjoyed.

Lately, he said, more and more locals have been comparing Geelong to Detroit, the American city famous for the blight and urban decay brought on by the crisis in its automobile industry.

"The community in Geelong is shattered," Oates said. "Nobody's got an idea where we're going, what we're gonna do next ... the comparison to Detroit has been brought up a lot."

"I reckon it's gonna be a ghost town."

In the image above a worker at Geelong's beachfront attraction, the Giant Sky Wheel, goes on a break at sunset.

With Australia’s manufacturing base grappling with job losses, many are looking for growth opportunities in other industries such as tourism, food and education.

Jane den Hollander, vice rector at Deakin University in Geelong, identified agriculture as a short-term possibility for those without advanced skills in the city.

"The longer term opportunities are these high-tech, IT, light weighting, energy-saving type things that numbers of companies are doing and can be exploited quite significantly," she said.

Touting Geelong's manufacturing background, Mayor Lyons is also lobbying the Australian army to build its next generation combat vehicle in the city.

But competition between Australia's states - especially those such as South Australia and Victoria that have been hit with major cuts in manufacturing - is already fierce.

A suburban street stands empty in Geelong.