Place and Futures (1) – place and context

Writing about place – evoking a vision of contemporary Newcastle/Muloobinba/Mulubinba and some potential futures

These pieces were written on the unceded lands of the Awabakal people, in the western parts of Muloobinba (Newcastle, NSW, Australia), mid-2021 to mid-2022. These very much represent early draft attempts to engage ethnographically with the city I live in and potential future trajectories for it. Apologies for these being a bit of a long read, hopefully interesting though.

1. Present-day Newcastle

A very brief history

Newcastle is a coastal harbor city built on the mouth of the Hunter River, as well as the hills stretching south along the coast between the Hunter River and Lake Macquarie, and the flatter inland area immediately to the west of the coastal hills between river and lake. It is Australia’s 7^th largest city, with a population of approximately 460,000 people. It is located roughly 160km north of Sydney, the capital city of New South Wales. The densest parts of the city are on the southern banks of the river and the hills immediately next to this. The area was ‘settled’ by colonial authorities (in so doing forcibly displacing the Awabakal people) in 1804 following the discovery of exploitable coal deposits and timber as a result of escaped convicts landing and living in the area in the 1790’s before being picked up again by colonial authorities. The next twenty years kicked off a period of massacres and forced assimilation of Awabakal people while extracting coal and timber using convict labour. In 1823 the settlement transitioned from penal military rule to civilian government, opening up the region for farming and the beginnings of various forms of industry alongside expanding coal mining throughout the subsequent decades. In 1915 the BHP steelworks opened on the southern bank of the river. This heavy industry site becoming the region’s biggest employer over the 80 years it was in operation, outstripping even coal mining and other manufacturing companies in the area. During this same time harbour operations were continually expanded, with the primary export being coal.

Newcastle to this day is the largest coal export port in world. This speaks to the massive scale of coal mining in the Hunter Valley and surrounding regions and the key role that Newcastle has played in the economic and industrial development of the region following colonisation and forced displacement of the Indigenous custodians (who, despite the best efforts of the colonial administration and prevailing narratives, maintain their links to the land in this region as Traditional custodians whose sovereignty – while ignored by the official government of Australia – has never been ceded). The city expanded substantially in the two centuries since the original township was established: steadily absorbing satellite towns and transforming them into suburbs, increasing building and industry density, the wave of concrete and steel construction subsuming arable land along the riverbanks and pushing the boundary between city and surrounding farmland further west and upriver. At the same time the mining industry continually expanded the scale of its operations. Old underground mineworks form an unpredictable maze under much of the city itself, necessitating height limits on building construction in many areas and substantially increasing the cost and complexity of larger building projects.

With changing technologies mining in the hunter region has shifted to larger and larger scale open-cut mines which threaten remnant forests, biodiversity, and agriculture in the upper Hunter Valley. During recent decades the mining industry has also been incorporating more and more technology to automate mine operations, reducing the overall number of workers needed while increasing mine outputs. This has contributed to ongoing tensions between the apparent employment and other economic benefits of coal mining versus agriculture, regional air quality, varying global demand, and fossil fuel emissions in a world that needs a drastic shift away from coal to limit climate destabilisation. During all of this the shipping port in Newcastle has continually expanded the scale of its operations: deepening the harbor and river mouth to accommodate ever larger bulk transport ships, while also taking advantage of technological developments to increasingly automate and reduce the need for a large workforce.

The city has been shaped by several industrial booms and busts in its roughly 200-year history. Early on sail ships dominated, with their attendant support industries. This shifted to steam ships, and then later to diesel (heavy shipping fuel oil) driven tankers. There was associated ship-building and maintenance industry, which has been in decline since the 1970’s. Heavy manufacturing had a substantial boom from the 1910’s to 1990’s, but it suffered a large crash with the closing of the BHP steelworks in 1999. Other areas of manufacturing industry still operate, but which have broadly been in decline since the turn of the millennium with shifting economic and legislative priorities in successive governments and the global economy driving much manufacturing activity offshore to locales with cheaper labour costs. I myself was briefly employed in the manufacturing sector, gaining my sheet-metal trade qualifications at a specialised vehicle manufacturing company that has operated at various sites around the Newcastle area since 1886, and I witnessed another round of the ongoing industry contraction and job losses in the year that I became fully trade qualified which indirectly led to me making the shift to social science.

Getting a feel for the city

These shifting periods of city expansion and industrial boom-and-bust have left clear marks on the landscape. The river mouth has been transformed with break walls. The harbour bears markers of successive generations of shipping infrastructure such as old piers, vast concrete slabs, impressions of now-demolished warehouses, and the vast contemporary ship-loading machinery and bulk good stockpiles. Kooragang, a large island sitting between the two arms of the lower Hunter river and filling one end of Newcastle harbour, was once predominantly wetlands and forest but now hosts massive stockpiles of coal, gas, and manufactured fertiliser along with their associated loading and sorting machinery. A strip of rail lines snakes in from the upper hunter and inland NSW to provide bulk goods (mostly coal, but also other mixed cargo) to the harbour. This freight rail corridor and the passenger rail line alongside it used to connect all the way to Newcastle East but has since been truncated at various points at the western end of the harbour to free up real estate for developers that has been less honeycombed by old mineworks. The remaining distance into the eastern end of the city is now serviced by a short length of light rail along Hunter street, the width of which allowing retrofitted light rail is a legacy of formerly accommodating bullock teams in the early decades of Newcastle’s history.

Many property sites in the industrial areas of the city now stand all but abandoned since the closure of various businesses and factories, a notable example being the large former BHP site that periodically gets suggested as a location for further port infrastructure but has remained effectively unused since 1999. The air, waters, and soil in and around the city are heavily polluted by current and former industry – although the air quality in parts of the city has improved massively since BHP closed. Coal dust is a massive atmosphere pollutant resulting from uncovered coal wagons and large coal stockpiles in the harbour. Diesel particulate from trains and trucks is another air pollution issue. Much of the soil is polluted with heavy metals and other contaminants from various industry, which makes growing food in backyards complicated and risky affair even with soil sample testing. And there are various news scandals every time another leak from industrial polluters is made public. Large proportions of the inner-city district as well as suburbs that formerly were primarily working-class housing are experiencing successive waves of gentrification making even the polluted and run-down parts of the city increasingly expensive. This is particularly an issue in the eastern parts of the city near the beaches between Newcastle East and Glenrock reserve are inaccessible as places to live for most of those below the upper-middle class.

The western suburbs host a large hospital, as well as the main campus of the University of Newcastle on a section of reclaimed swamp (the university also has some new buildings in the inner city next to the harbour), and there are a few shopping centres and sports fields (including a large football stadium) scattered through the city. There are a couple of remnant nature reserves, as well as a few areas that have not yet been fully transformed by property developers. Public transport between the different sections of the city is quite fragmented, and often unreliable. Alongside heavy shipping industry, the harbour hosts a marina and recreational sailing club and a small fishing industry. The main river channels and some of their tributaries are somewhat polluted but still host a range of struggling biodiversity, while the majority of the tidal and rain-fed creeks that drain into the river have been concreted throughout the development of the city – which often increases flooding under heavy rainstorm conditions. The eastern edge of the city has several beaches, sandstone cliffs bearing markers of the coal that first drew colonisation to the area, and remnants of a series of coastal defence installations built in the 1880’s – notably Fort Scratchley. This fort dominates the Newcastle East built landscape along with Nobby’s Lighthouse at the harbour entrance, the Christ Church Cathedral, Newcastle Ocean Baths, and several heritage-listed buildings dating from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s.

Like many cities, even small ones, Newcastle is a place of contrasts. Heritage buildings stand alongside brand-new steel-and-glass constructions as well as semi-abandoned late 20^th century buildings. ‘Natural’ ecosystems, abandoned industrial sites, still-active businesses, and residential housing are all jumbled together. Run-down hundred-year-old working-class housing sporadically displaced by the processes of gentrification. High-gloss commercial spaces stand not very far from community gardens and decaying bowling clubs. The few remaining dingy affordable pubs compete with venues reimagined into trendy nightclubs. The Awabakal Indigenous people, migrants from various areas, refugees, formerly employed working class people left behind by the withdrawal of heavy industry, unemployed and underemployed students, a steady trickle of those looking for work no longer to be found in rural areas, and others still employed in the service industries and the remaining trades all share the same landmarks and infrastructure with university-educated professionals, moneyed landowners, CEO’s, ambitious entrepreneurs, and people trying to escape the even more vicious gentrification and rising living expenses in Sydney. Newcastle is one of the country’s most historically safe electorate for the Australian Labor Party, but at the same time it has been at the mercy of privatisation over many decades and the slow decline of the union movement under successive primarily Liberal National Coalition governments. It is a city with a proud working-class history and a major export port and at the same time is a university town. It is a city whose history is explicitly tied to coal mining, with fossil fuel and other industry money a key source of funding in several areas including the university. It is also a city directly threatened by climate change and the global turn away from burning coal, and the home to a staunch subculture of environmental activists campaigning for a rapid transition away from coal without simply abandoning those relying on the industry in the process (a point of tension and division between activists and coal workers as much as it is a point of solidarity – legacy of decades of political messaging).

This is the city in which I have lived for the last decade and a half. A city where I have been a university student, unemployed, a labourer, a tradesperson, a university student again, another short period of unemployed, and now a PhD candidate. A city where I have developed a sense of connection to place after a childhood moving between various rural and regional towns. A city where I have grown in many substantial ways as a person. A city where I became involved in social justice and environmental activism, where I was arrested once for protesting with comrades against fossil fuel expansion (there was some light trespass and ignoring police orders, no conviction recorded). A city with a substantial marginalised and houseless population that gets more support from other marginalised community members engaging in direct mutual aid like that of Food Not Bombs than they often receive from the government. A city with small community gardens run by passionate people who also try to build wider community and remediate ecosystems. A city with powerful corporate interests who make decisions that benefit themselves and only occasionally, often as an afterthought or accident if not directly as a form of advertising benefit the local community. A place where people with probably more money than I will ever see come for holidays or to speculate in the property market. A place where I have experienced relative privilege at the same time as disadvantage, where I have spent several thankfully short periods houseless and relying on community for shelter and food while still being much better off than those living on the streets at the mercy of the weather and the authorities. A place where at the same time, as a result of my experiences and identity, I often also feel very isolated and disconnected from much of the wider Newcastle community barring a very small handful of people.

Here, from the study I have set up in my share-house – between two noisy schools and only one suburb away from the main university campus – is where I think and worry about the present and future. Here is where I try and connect with small bits of the overlapping communities I am part of. Here is where I try to grow plants in pots under a makeshift shade-house, where I share anxieties and dreams with friends and housemates. Here is where I connect through the internet on various social media platforms (and through the small handful of published fiction stories) with other people in the world who care about the state of the planet, the likely trajectory of climate collapse we are on, and the possible hopeful futures we can try and imagine and work towards. Here is where I undertake the always embodied (hello aches and pains from too many hours at the computer) practice of engaging with the online spaces of Solarpunk both as someone who has been following and participating in the movement for several years, and as a researcher currently undertaking an ethnographic study of it for my PhD thesis.

What comes after the past and present?

In the preceding sections I have painted a partial but hopefully evocative picture of Newcastle and its surrounds as I know it. In what follows I shall try to sketch out some possible futures for this city its inhabitants (both human and non-human) informed by its history, my synthesis of current modelling of the changing environment, and my competing hopes and anxieties about the future.

One future path continues the dystopian trajectory from our uninspiring cyberpunk present into environmental devastation and massive inequality. Another path may limit the worst potentialities of climate change and authoritarianism to find some equilibrium point between current conditions and climate ‘apocalypse’ without drastically changing the logics of the status quo. A third path may embrace massive structural change of our energy systems, the economy, and society as a whole to bring about a future that would fit within the hopeful imaginaries of Solarpunk.