Elizabeth Farrelly is a Sydney-based columnist and author who holds a PhD in architecture and several international writing awards. A former editor and Sydney City Councilor, she is also Associate Professor (Practice) at the Australian Graduate School of Urbanism at UNSW. Her books include 'Glenn Murcutt: Three Houses’, 'Blubberland; the dangers of happiness’ and ‘Caro Was Here’, crime fiction for children (2014).
When the Property Council, the Urban Task Force and the Planning Minister agree that something is in the public interest it's time to get suspicious. When the Daily Telegraph wheels out first-homers Emma and Jeremy from Kellyville as if it's they, the little guys, who'll benefit from ripping away planning red-tape, suspicion should sharpen into scorn.
Fence the harbour? Are they mad? The story on the proposal to ring-fence Darling Harbour sat beside one on the NSW road toll. The scale is different. In five years we've had two drowning deaths at Darling Harbour; 1741 on the roads. But both issues go directly to the heart of nanny-statism.
Elizabeth Farrelly manages to find some flowers among the rubble.
Holes, gratitude, prayer; together, these apparently unrelated ideas cast a revealing light on the spiritual inflection point we call Christmas.
How do we help lift India's poor from the dust without worsening the grey scrabble of their lives?
Proximity generates care, but in Sydney fear rules.
We cannot have a conversation on design's core deliverable, because we no longer command the language in which to conduct it.
How can our city make every human a blessing, not a curse?
Wherever people have money and choice, grace gives way to ostentation.
Our yearning for the imperfect may be a sign that we are growing up.
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