[talk-au] Suburbs in Australia

[mick]

On Thu, 20 Dec 2012 21:29:47 +1100
Darren Burt <burt.darren at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi
> 
> I wrote a long question at OSm help and they referred me to you guys. 
> Hope you can help me help OSM.
> -------
> Hi
> 
> a) Cities. There are few 'cities' in comparison, to , eg California, 
> where I would have compared many cities to be 'suburbs'. It's probably a 
> population thing. There seems to be a trend towards more cities, (eg 
> Sydney, Parramatta, Bankstown, Penrith etc) but in general usage, most 
> places are referred to principally as 'suburbs'.

Parramatta, Bankstown, Penrith, etc retained their political status of city long after Sydney swallowed them mostly due to powerful councils clinging to their status for good or ill.

In Brisbane up to perhaps a dozen Town Councils were merged (swallowed whole) with Brisbane City Council to become the Greater Brisbane City Council in the second half of the 20th century but it has been many years since 'Greater' has been used in the name.
> 
> b) Towns in general are referring to country centres. If I 'went to 
> town' in Sydney, I would be going to Sydney City centre, eg Town Hall 
> station. This is in contrast, eg to the UK, where many of the places I 
> would have referred to as suburbs were referred to as towns.
> 
> These are probably a historical growth thing. Sydney has generally 
> expanded organically from a central point.
> 
> c) As a general definition, if somebody referred to just the suburb, 
> they would refer to the principal activity centre of that area. In most 
> cases that is the main shopping or commercial area. Sometimes it might 
> be a train station. Sometimes something else. But if you drive to the 
> West Pymble located above, you are in the middle of a residential area. 
> And here's where things extrapolate.

The suburbs of cities started as outlying farming or industrial (mining, timber getting, etc.) settlements that surrounded the cities and their map placement was based on a vague 'centre' of the built-up area. As they developed, along with transport and communications services their centre was fixed on the Post Office and/or Staging Inn. In time they became the seat of the local government area (shire).

With the growth of the near-by city they gradually became swallowed by the city, losing their political status and were left as suburbs.

In the case of recently created suburbs, they arise where ever the developers can obtain large parcels of farmland to bury under houses and roads and have no political history.

> 
> **IMPORTANT**
> Please refer to this recent article about [Apple Maps in Australia][3]. 
> My West Pymble example is trivial. However, in Australia is not just a 
> matter of inconvenience.
> 
The Apple Maps fiasco occurred due to a failure to clarify weather they were marking a town or a shire, a dumb mistake that in Britain would be minor but in an Australian context, when combined with the absolute faith people place in computers, leads them to ignore obvious valid indicators and turn off major highways on to tracks leading nowhere. The Australian bush is unforgiving and will soon take the life of the unprepared.

mick