One of the great frustrations of my life is trying to convince people the history of land use planning is a topic of great interest. I’m told I make it sound wilfully boring; that no one wants to hear about Robert Hooke’s regulatory reforms or the origins of the Plumbing Code. By contrast, it’s comparatively… Continue reading American Pentimento by Patricia Seed
Category: Blog
Blog posts
W.E.H Stanner’s ‘The Yirrkala Land Case: A Dress Rehearsal’: Common Law, Terra Nullius and the Gove Land Rights Case
Born in 1905, William Stanner was an anthropologist who spent his career critiquing what he called “the great Australian silence” around Aboriginal culture and land rights. He’s worth reading as one of the first white people who saw the British presence in Australia as invasive rather than civilizing, and this anthology includes most of his… Continue reading W.E.H Stanner’s ‘The Yirrkala Land Case: A Dress Rehearsal’: Common Law, Terra Nullius and the Gove Land Rights Case
Darwin: What Happens When South Australia Starts a Colony
One of the things that marks Australian urban planning is that all the systems that govern it have their history in an entirely different physical landscape. Our cities are, for the most part, modelled on a British tradition, and operate with this logic. Nowhere is this more obvious than Darwin, where building, planning and liquor… Continue reading Darwin: What Happens When South Australia Starts a Colony
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: A Parable for Liquor Licensing Law
Most people know L Frank Baum’s 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in which a small girl and her friends suffer a terrifying encounter with flying monkeys on their way to an Emerald City. Upon arrival, they go to a castle and argue with the city’s ruler, who is invisible and entirely ineffective. Frustrated,… Continue reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: A Parable for Liquor Licensing Law
On the Subconscious City: Top Ten Books on City Regulation
In the last few decades, there’s been a real interest in urban design, yet its ugly cousin, regulation, remains largely unmentioned. To this end, Richard Florida’s Creative City is a best seller, yet the Building Code of Australia is now being given away for free. It’s odd what we value. This isn’t new; people remember… Continue reading On the Subconscious City: Top Ten Books on City Regulation
A Brief Reflection on the 2015 Tour de France
A couple of days ago, there was a great interview with Team Sky boss David Brailsford, done by the sports editor for The Times, Matt Dickinson (which you can read here). It was probably more interesting to me than your average reader, because it starts with Brailsford talking about my book: It made me think,… Continue reading A Brief Reflection on the 2015 Tour de France
The King Arthur Trilogy by Rosemary Sutcliff
The first book I read last year was Rosemary Sutcliff’s Sword at Sunset. From there, I went through the full Eagle of the Ninth and ended with the King Arthur Trilogy. I read a lot of great books last year, and books aimed for my own age group, but rediscovering Sutcliff’s historical fiction was a… Continue reading The King Arthur Trilogy by Rosemary Sutcliff
Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar
Last year my esteemed publisher, John Hunter, recommended Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian. In return, I’ve so far failed to produce a second book and most of my writing is now absorbed into the thrills and spills of local government. Hadrian was, of course, one of the great emperors of Ancient Rome. Today’s he’s most… Continue reading Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar
Between Past and Future by Hannah Arendt
I read Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem right before I stared working in the fast paced world of local government and her analysis of institutionalization was pretty terrifying. There’s a great interview with her here, opening with a particularly stupid question about whether it’s possible to be both a woman and a philosopher. In Between Past… Continue reading Between Past and Future by Hannah Arendt
Under Another Sky by Charlotte Higgins
Just before I flew to London, I read Under Another Sky: Journeys Through Roman Britain, in which Charlotte Higgins documents her Grand Tour of Roman monuments in the UK. When I arrived, I enthusiastically followed in her footsteps, searching a car park for remnants of the Roman wall, visiting the amphitheatre’s ruins underneath the Guildhall,… Continue reading Under Another Sky by Charlotte Higgins