This article discusses how the railway has influenced geography and human development. The railway is a form of transport using wheeled vehicles running on tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road transport. Today, it is used for about 8% of passenger and freight transport globally, mostly as a result of it's higher energy efficiency compared to road transport. The steam locomotive was invented in the United Kingdom in the early 19th century. The Stockton to Darlington railway was the first pub ..read more

This article discusses how rivers have influenced human development and civilisation. Shifts from hunter-gatherer society (the vast majority of human history) to agricultural society tended to occur in river valleys. The most clear reason for this is access to a usually reliable source of water for agriculture and other needs. Plentiful water and the enrichment of the soil due to annual floods made it possible to grow excess crops beyond what was needed to sustain subsistence populations. This allowed some of the people to engage in non-agricultural activities, such as the construction of ..read more

The image above shows a fountain in Campbelltown. It was installed as a bequest from a controversial former local solicitor, who bequeathed $450,000 to Campbelltown City Council, for the construction of a fountain, to be located in a prominent position in Campbelltown and would reflect the ‘two great cities of the world, Rome and Campbelltown’. Subsequently, the lake within Marsden Park in Park Central was identified as an ideal location for the fountain. The fountain was commissioned on October 2009. A plaque acknowledging the bequest and naming the fountain is located on the banks of the la ..read more

This article discusses the main factors behind the growth of our cities and how energy has driven the growth of and layout of our built environment. I discussed in a previous post that Sydney's main sources of energy are coal, oil and natural gas (92% of Australian energy consumption at 2021, with other sources being little more than a rounding error). Before we had sources of energy such as this, ancient cities were MUCH more constrained in terms of size and population. For example, it is estimated that the size of the city of Ancient Rome (the world's largest city at the time) reached as hig ..read more

The last post in this blog discussed state government led changes to introduce more medium density housing across the state. While arguably, many of these changes make sense from an environmental, social, economic and town planning perspective, they represent the continuation of a long term trend that has been occurring for 50 years or more, where the ability of local Councils to plan for and control development in their areas has been greatly diminished. As a substitute for the above, many elements of town planning have been privatised and power has also become more centralised at a state go ..read more

The NSW Government has released further details of a policy intended to create low and mid-rise housing. The link can be found here. The explanation of intended effect outlines the following proposed changes: Residential flat buildings are proposed to be permitted on all medium density residential zoned land within the six cities region and within 800m walking distance of a heavy rail, metro or light rail station, or 800m walking distance of land zoned E2 Commercial Centre or SP5 Metropolitan Centre or land within 800m walking distance of land zoned E1 Local Centre or MU1 Mixed Use, but only ..read more

The NSW Government has announced an intention to a facilitate greater diversity of homes like residential flat buildings of 3-6 storeys, terraces, townhouses, duplexes and smaller 1-2 storey apartment blocks in suburbs where they are not currently allowed. A formal draft of the State Environmental Planning Policy that will facilitate these changes has not yet been released, although according to the government's statement, it will include the following: dual occupancies (two separate homes on a single lot), such as duplexes, to be permitted in all R2 low density residential zones across all o ..read more

The idea of banning gas connections as part of new development has gained traction recently, with the City of Sydney Council voting to adopt such a policy recently for Development Applications within their local government area. It has also become adopted policy in Victoria. This article provides a discussion of this issue. In line with demand, almost all reporting on this issue tends to be framed around black-and-white notions such as “fossil fuels good”, “fossil fuels bad”, “renewables” “good” or “bad” etc. This article nevertheless seeks to provide a detailed discussion that is probably of ..read more

The NSW Government announced it's intention to abolish the Greater Cities Commission earlier this year. It is understood that staff will be absorbed into the Department of Planning under direct control of the Minister for Planning and Public Spaces. Some of the responsibilities of the Greater Cities Commission under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 are as follows: Section 2.4 of the Act provides as follows: (1) The Minister, the Planning Ministerial Corporation or the Planning Secretary may delegate any of their functions under this Act to— (b) the Greater Cities Commission ..read more

This blog post looks at how three modes of government might operate. The first is government run in the interests of it's rulers, the second is government run in the interests of it's own employees and third is government run in the interests of the people of the country as a whole. While we would all probably like to be idealistic and think that the third category is how governments always have and always will operate, the reality is that all governments probably share some overlap between the three categories. Let's look at them below: Government run in the interests of it's rulers Features ..read more