Our fight to the death with nature is not one we can win
The tussle between "I" and "we" underpins everything humans do on Earth.
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Elizabeth Farrelly
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).
Is it the time of the warm, feminist city?
Cities, feminism and the 5 million. Last week's anti-Trump Women's Marches drew over a million marchers in the US and almost 5 million worldwide; 750,000 in LA; 10,000 in Sydney; 673 cities globally; no arrests. The monstrous regiment made itself serenely, urbanely felt. What, if anything, does this mean for our first conservative female Premier?
If you're thinking of living in a container, you're not
So we're at this soiree and yet another rich young bloke is telling me how he wants to build a container house in the country. I make an emergency bathroom dash to poke my eyes out in private. Should I tell him how much I would never, not ever, live in a container?
Call me a cynic, but this plan for Sydney won't work
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.
Sydney isn't a big retirement village. It can't be perfectly safe
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.
Seven reasons for optimism after a bleak year
Elizabeth Farrelly manages to find some flowers among the rubble.
Why you will benefit from prayer, even if you don't believe
Holes, gratitude, prayer; together, these apparently unrelated ideas cast a revealing light on the spiritual inflection point we call Christmas.
Our bright future can't have black heart of coal
How do we help lift India's poor from the dust without worsening the grey scrabble of their lives?
Fear rules in Sydney, but we can learn a lesson from India
Proximity generates care, but in Sydney fear rules.
Beauty should be a necessity, not an afterthought
We cannot have a conversation on design's core deliverable, because we no longer command the language in which to conduct it.
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