One of the interesting aspects of the New South City Series is that the authors vary in their approach to the task. David Whish-Wilson has surveyed Perth by using the landscape as a catalyst for his observations and memories from the landscape, covered in four long chapters:

• The River


• The Limestone Coast


• The Plain, and


• The City of Light.

The book is also influenced by the author's current preoccupation with his family:

Because my three children are relatively young, and because I spend so much time with them, it's natural that my experience of the city often revisits my experiences as a child. Down on the beach after sunset, I watch them settle as the colours on the horizon fade and they begin to sense the night's quiet ghosting, inhabiting the darkness in a way that's really only possible in a city like Perth, It's a city with presence, but balanced with an expansiveness that is perfectly suited to dreamers... (p.121)

That expansiveness is in part due to Perth being 'one of the most sprawled (120km long) cities on earth.' It's a city very dependent on cars, and it's a bit startling to read that

... to sustain an individual in Perth's current housing stock 'tales 14.5 hectares of land, seven times the world average. Western Australians, Saudi Arabians and Singaporeans share the increasingly dishonourable status of being the most unsustainable people on the planet. (p. 213)

It's disconcerting to read about their rates of homelessness too, not that Melbourne has anything to be proud of on that issue either...

Another issue that would be interesting to contrast with Melbourne has to do with the obsession with sport:

Perth's obsession with sport has literally shaped the character of the city. Some eighty percent of all open spaces within the city limits are sporting grounds, which are in turn used by only five percent of the population on very rare occasions. (p.250)

I wonder if that's true of Melbourne too? The area where I live has countless sporting grounds, and our local council (like most others, probably) spends a vast amount of ratepayers' money maintaining them and building infrastructure like stadiums, changing rooms, watering-systems and carparks, and as far as I can tell, there are never any complaints about this expenditure. Indeed, when it comes to voting for community grants, sporting projects win every time over anything else. As in Perth (with the exception of the golf courses because the wealthy play golf whenever they like) the majority of these sportsgrounds are play places for dogs during the week. But they are certainly used at weekends. Woe betide any pooch that strays onto a match in progress!

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/07/19/perth-new-south-city-series-8-by-david-whish... ( )

"The most substantial difference between the newer suburbs and the old is due to the fact that when the older suburbs were conceived there wasn't the machinery to grade the individual blocks, or to infill each subdivision to make sure that it rose above the water table. As a result, what is appealing about the older suburbs isn't that they are leafier, and therefore cooler in summer, but that the blocks rise and fall upon the rests and swales of the hardened limestone dunes that roll inland across the the plain. Each house and street conforms to its original and cambered landscape, and often some of the original flora remains. Newer suburbs are generally bulldozed and re-contoured with powerful machinery according to a design predicated upon the level, taking out all of the native bush in one sweep." —p.180 ( )