Conference speaker urges caution to city planners
Jun 22, 2007
One of the main speakers at a history conference at the University of Wollongong this week has urged Wollongong City Council's decision-makers to be cautious in their pursuit of the city's transformation.
Liz Fox, a Senior Policy Advisor to Thurrock City Council on London's eastern outskirts, said the British experience showed the potential danger of physical transformation without genuine regeneration of communities.
She pointed to the "soulless" London Docklands development, where the former residents had been displaced to create a new financial and residential centre.
Speaking at the first biennial Wollongong History Conference that started on Thursday (21 June), Ms Fox, who studied at UOW from 1998-2001, said Wollongong was changing but needed to give greater consideration to the opinions of residents.
"I would urge Wollongong's decision-makers to be cautious, and to slow the pace of processing development applications," she said. "They need to engage local people in decision-making.
"Residents can lose their sense of identity and the area its heritage because a new image is being imposed on them by decision-makers. However, communities can be strengthened through engaging residents and public service partners in town planning and decision-making."
Ms Fox also urged planners to make public transport a priority in building communities that would have a sustainable future.
The theme for the conference was Memory, Heritage and Place: Wollongong's Changing History.
Organised by Dr Glenn Mitchell from UOW's School of History and Politics and Henry Lee from Wollongong College Australia, the conference covered the city's social and industrial history ranging from the post-war migrant hostels to the impact of the downturn in the steel and coal industries in the 1980s and major unemployment that followed, the "jobs for women" campaign, and issues surrounding the changing face and image of Wollongong in the 21st century.
Keynote speaker launching the conference was Julianne Schultz, author of Steel City Blues, a chronicle of the impact of the downturn of the steel industry on the region in the 1980s. Associate Professor Schultz has had a distinguished career as a journalist, editor, academic and media manager. She is now a professor in the Centre for Public Culture and Ideas at Griffith University in Brisbane, where she is the founding editor of the Griffith Review.
Professor Schultz's fascinating presentation covered the industrial upheavals of the 1980s, as Wollongong's traditional industries of steel-making and coal-mining underwent massive restructuring and job losses.
"Around 15,000 people lost their jobs in 18 months," Professor Schultz said. "But you can multiply that by four for the number of people who were directly affected because of all the families that suffered when people went from thinking they had a job for life to being told they no longer had a job. . .not now, not in the future. The impact on a large number of families was quite profound."
Professor Schultz said the trade union-led mass protests to Canberra in 1982 where Parliament House was stormed - "unimaginable in the context of today's industrial situation" - was a hugely symbolic moment that had forced politicians to take notice.
"It was the turning point for the government of Malcolm Fraser," she said. "His government was never able to re-capture the imagination of the Australian people (Fraser lost the 1983 federal election to Bob Hawke)."
Wollongong-based speakers include BluesScope Steel's Director of Public Affairs Mike Archer, Wollongong City Council heritage officer Joel Thompson, town planner David Winterbottom, former Greens federal MP Michael Organ and a number of UOW researchers and local historians.
Dr Mitchell said with more than 25 speakers, the conference was designed to provide an important historical perspective of some of Wollongong's biggest community and economic issues, particularly over the past 30 years.
He plans to make the conference a biennial event.
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