I’ve spent the week in Bathurst – using the days to study, and the evenings to catch up with my family. It’s a funny place, and while I am here I feel all twisted in differing ways about it.
On the one hand, it is the place I grew up. I love bringing friends here, and showing them my old haunts. I love hanging out with my family, and seeing what they are up to. I love the air up here, and the sunsets, the views out to the mountains, and the biting cold mornings. If you look carefully, there are very nice, secluded coffee shops. Sitting at one this afternoon, I daydreamed of secretly coming to Bathurst without seeing my family, just to walk around and observe things as a stranger, rather than a local.
On the other hand however, so many things in Bathurst seem to me to be crazy. The insane amount of retail outlets, the constant new housing developments, the new suburbs planned sans nearby shopping facilities, footpaths, even parks. The enormous double and triple garages on display as the most prominent feature of all the new houses. The cronic shortage of footpaths in all the new suburbs. The massive shopping developments all situated on the edge of town. All symptoms of car culture. And all of this development alongside a seeming lack of solid industry. Where does all the money come from? Are they all living on borrowed capital?
Given the current news – is Sydney in that different a position?
Filed under: experiences , Bathurst, Family, Local economies, Sydney
it scares me to think of the places we grew up changing so dramatically. I often wonder about the different places I grew up, and picture them as vividly as I can with happy nostalgia. I’m sure I’d get a rude shock to return to those places today..