Grendel wrote on Jul 17
th, 2018 at 9:10pm:
Quote:Yet it’s being shaped by global megatrends – migration, the economic rise of Asia and the digital revolution – as much as parish vendettas and opportunism. Amid all this hyperactivity are three levels of government trying to plan, act, delay or stitch up someone else for the growing pains: traffic congestion, queues for public transport, less open space, overcrowded schools and hospitals, more crime and a simmering backlash against migrants.
Quote:Occupational therapist Kate Priddle, a mother of two, has lived in Eastwood for eight years. She likes its vibrancy and multiculturalism, but to her mind population, traffic and aggravation have suddenly grown “exponentially”. “Being in the car is always stressful,” she says of the slow local journey times that cut cruelly into family life. “I feel as if I’m always rushing, chasing my tail.” Sick of battling the traffic, she changed jobs to be at a hospital closer to home but getting her son and daughter to activities is a constant battle. “When is the pace going to slow down?” Priddle says, exasperated. “Are proper plans being put into place to deal with all these growth issues? It seems developers have all the political sway.”
I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the ‘buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.