u/flashman

I thought these might be useful for people discussing growth, congestion and other population-related topics. This is simply a time series visualisation of the ABS Estimated Resident Population data for 2001-2023.

Population is segmented by Statistical Area Level 3 (SA3) within the SA4 areas 'Newcastle and Lake Macquarie' and 'Hunter Valley exc Newcastle', and broken down to SA2 areas in the later slides, which are useful for seeing exactly where growth has been happening. You can explore these areas and more on maps.abs.gov.au.

The region has grown roughly 28% this century (550,532 + 156,475 = 707,007 residents), but that growth has been unevenly distributed and largely peripheral to the metropolitan area. Maitland, for instance, added 3400 more residents than Newcastle. In context, Blacktown and Parramatta added roughly the same number of residents, but their rate of growth was much higher (62% and 48%).

People's perception of growth is likely heavily influenced by their home and work locations. Broadmeadow grew 5.5% from 2015 to 2023; Fletcher grew 28%. Who is likely to perceive more growth and greater congestion?

These are photos from the Ralph Snowball collection of a golf course somewhere in Newcastle, around the start of the 20th century. I just can't figure out where.

The first photo is available from Newcastle Library in two sizes: the whole thing, large, and an extreme enlargement of the background showing ship masts, warehouses, a Sunlight soap billboard (maybe at the top of a building), a hotel and what look like several gasometers (the big tanks - maybe the former Parry St gasworks?). Photo 2 and Photo 3 are also available but not in high resolution.

There were golf courses at Merewether, at the site of the old Hamilton racecourse (roughly No. 1 & No. 2 sportsgrounds today) and the Steelworks Links near BHP in Mayfield (since moved to Shortland Golf Club). At a guess I'd say we're in Hamilton looking north-east towards Honeysuckle, but I can't place any of the buildings in the background.

For anyone interested in Snowball's photos, the Newcastle Library has recently completed a seven-year project to re-scan all 5,500 of his glass negatives at a significantly higher resolution than previously achieved. Unfortunately due to storage and bandwidth constraints, the high-resolution scans are unavailable to the public except at a $27/image fee set by council, or occasionally on pages such as the ones page.

Found here: https://music.apple.com/nz/album/days/1892515538