In an age where we work across cities, shop online, order food to the door, socialise through digital networks and maintain friendships across suburbs, states and even continents, what does community mean in a city as large as Sydney?
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Do we still have distinct geographical communities of interest or have we reached the point where neighbourhood identity is increasingly shaped by social media algorithms rather than shared experience?
Was Margaret Thatcher right when she argued that there are individual men and women, there are families, but no abstract entity called “society”?
If community still matters, as many of us reminded ourselves during the Covid pandemic, and if place continues to shape our sense of identity and belonging, then a fundamental question arises whenever a neighbourhood faces significant change.
What makes this place more than a collection of buildings? What relationships, traditions and shared history have shaped its identity, and what might be lost, preserved or transformed through redevelopment? It is a question that should be asked in every large scale planning proposal through the social impact assessment process.
I came across a publication many years ago called Everyone Knew Everyone: Histories and Memories of Green Square (2001). It captured something often missing from the thousands of pages associated with planning proposals and development applications: the history of a place told through the experiences and memories of the people who gave it character.
Written and edited by historian Margo Beasley, Everyone Knew Everyone was commissioned as an oral history project at a time when Green Square was beginning its transformation from an industrial and working class district into one of Sydney’s largest urban renewal areas.
Rather than focusing on planning, land use or redevelopment, the publication records the memories of residents from suburbs such as Zetland, Beaconsfield, Rosebery and Alexandria.
Its central theme is contained in its title: a community where social networks were dense, neighbours knew one another, local businesses were familiar gathering places, and everyday life was shaped by strong connections to place.
The publication documents:
- working-class and industrial histories
- family and migrant experiences
- local businesses and institutions
- social relationships and neighbourhood identity
- the sense of belonging that existed before large scale redevelopment
In essence, it sought to preserve community memory at a moment when the physical and social landscape was beginning to change.
The questions raised by Green Square remain highly relevant today. The redevelopment of the Waterloo public housing estate has generated extensive discussion about displacement, community identity and the social consequences of urban renewal.
While planning documents and social impact assessments examined housing, demographics and service provision, many residents and community advocates argued that the deeper social fabric of Waterloo – the relationships built over decades, informal support networks, local knowledge and collective memory of the estate was far more difficult to document and value.
The challenge for planners is not simply how to replace buildings, but how to understand and respond to the social connections that give a place meaning.
Throughout history, cities have often been transformed from above, as governments and powerful interests pursue wholesale change, frequently displacing existing communities in the process.
Whether in Haussmann’s reconstruction of Paris, the remaking of medieval Dublin into a Georgian city, the redevelopment battles of The Rocks and Woolloomooloo, or the neighbourhood struggles documented by Jane Jacobs in New York, urban transformation has often been brutal and uncompromising – coming at the expense of memory, continuity and a sense of belonging.
Today, urban renewal projects are accompanied by extensive economic and physical environmental analysis, yet social impacts can remain poorly understood. The experience of Waterloo illustrates how difficult it can be to quantify attachment to place, neighbourly relationships and community memory within conventional planning frameworks.
Social impact assessments often focus on demographics and infrastructure needs but rarely ask deeper questions about what is lost when long established communities are dispersed. Cities should be documenting and valuing social memory before transformation occurs.
The growing emphasis on Designing with Country has been a welcome development, helping to recognise the pre-colonial history of places and the enduring connection of First Nations peoples to Country.
What publications such as Everyone Knew Everyone remind us, however, is that places accumulate many layers of history. Alongside understanding Country, we should also seek to understand the communities that exist today – the relationships, institutions, traditions and memories that future generations may one day regard as part of the history of a place.
How do we recognise and measure the value of places that people have a strong connection with, or the informal networks that hold communities together? Many people mourn the loss of milk bars, cinemas and pubs not simply because of the buildings themselves, but because they are intertwined with memories and shared experiences.
Communities are often treated as if they can simply be relocated, replaced or recreated elsewhere. Existing social connections, local knowledge and community histories are overlooked in favour of what comes next. From redevelopment emerge new apartments, new cafés and new branding. We celebrate the “next cool neighbourhood”, but what happens to the stories, relationships and sense of place that existed before?
Too often, memory is only acknowledged after it has been lost. A mural appears. A plaque is installed. A public artwork commemorates what once stood there. Preservation gives way to remembrance. In some respects, it can feel as though it is a contemporary form of terra nullius. Robert Hughes famously described Sydney as a city with a tendency to erase its past.
As Australia continues to grapple with housing supply, urban renewal and population growth, perhaps we could spend a little more time understanding the collective memory and human connections that have shaped the places we are transforming. The question is whether we still care enough to remember what was there before.
Perhaps that is why Everyone Knew Everyone remains such an important piece of work. In Histories of Green Square (2004), edited by Grace Karskens and Melita Rogowsky, it singled out Everyone Knew Everyone as one of the few substantial historical studies undertaken in relation to Green Square. Its authors noted that despite the enormous scale of planning, environmental assessment and urban design associated with Green Square, relatively little effort had been devoted to understanding the area’s history.
It is a reminder that before the masterplans, the rezoning reports and the major development proposals, there was already a community there. And that the community’s story deserves to be part of the future, not just assigned to an unmarked grave.
