The Redfern I loved has changed beyond recognition
In the 19 years I've lived there, virtually all of old Redfern has succumbed to a tsunami of smashed avocado and man-buns.
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).
In the 19 years I've lived there, virtually all of old Redfern has succumbed to a tsunami of smashed avocado and man-buns.
Even now, despite everything, we consider ourselves the good guys. Perhaps it's a universal human conceit: all of us heroes in our own movie. Yet there is irony here.
Western culture has devoted a lot to abolishing shadow: pain, depth and mystery.
As neo-liberal attacks on civilisation get crazier, as we scrape ever lower in the barrel of saleable public assets, it becomes clear that Bernie Sanders had a point. Socialism, in some form or other, must return. Future generations will be forced to re-nationalise.
It's as though we've forgotten anything matters to us, other than money.
Elizabeth Farrelly: What I envy is cities with imagination and principle at the helm. It's wisdom-envy. Governance envy.
Ted Mack, one of Australia's most revered and beloved politicians, was the real, incorruptible thing.
I've never thought you can half-leave a marriage, although many do. For me, you're in or you're out – and maybe, I'm starting to think, it's the same with Sydney.
When it came to the truth department, Warhol didn't give a hoot.
Ranking education, and ranked education, is rank nonsense.
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