Guest Speaker:
Paul Ashton
at 2 pm on Saturday 20 May 2023
when Paul Ashton presents...
On Saturday 20 May 2023 our guest speaker will be distinguished academic and public historian, Professor Paul Ashton PHA FRSN, author of The Accidental City: Planning Sydney Since 1788.
Paul will present Sydney's Planning History: from Go to Woe?
Sydney has been described as an 'accidental city', one with a planning history characterised by opportunistic development and disjointed or abortive attempts at holistic planning.
At the first Australian Town Planning Conference and Exhibition held in Adelaide in 1917, J.D. Fitzgerald – politician and leading town planning advocate – lamented that Sydney was 'a city without a plan, save whatever planning was due to the errant goat. Wherever this animal made a track through the bush', he observed, 'there are the streets of today'. Despite attempts by colonial governors back to Arthur Phillip to regulate urban growth, Sydney grew 'like Topsy'.
About Paul Ashton
Professor Paul Ashton PHA FRSN is an adjunct at the University of Technology Sydney, where he co-established the Australian Centre for Public History in 1999; at Macquarie University; and at the University of Canberra.
Co-founder and editor of the journal Public History Review, he has authored, co-authored and edited over forty books. These include a history of town planning in Sydney – The Accidental City: Planning Sydney Since 1788 (Hale & Iremonger); Once Upon a Time: Australian Writers on Using the Past (Australian Scholarly Publishing); and What is Public History Globally? Working with the Past in the Present (Bloomsbury).
As always, please keep an eye on our website in case of any last-minute changes.
The venue is Gordon Library Meeting Room No. 1, in the Old Gordon Public School, which adjoins the Gordon Library, 799 Pacific Highway, Gordon (corner Pacific Highway and Park Avenue).
It’s just a 5-minute walk from Gordon Station.
For a map and parking information, see our Contact page.
