Sydney to the southern highlands

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Tom Chancellor        Year 9 Ge2        Geography set: 2

Introduction

Rural communities of Australia have experienced a significant change in the last 50 years. This is mainly because of the change in land use. This has resulted in a large number of social economic and environmental implications for the different communities. The social impact has been the way in which individuals live there personal lives, this has developed dramatically over time. The economic changes have been mainly the communities going through periods of growth and decline. These communities have also changed environmentally with drought and also climate change influencing these communities and forcing them to live in ways that had not done before.

However, rural towns have most severely been impacted by the influence Sydney has had on them. This report explores the impact that the inner Sydney region has had on the nature of rural communities.  

An urban transect across Sydney

As you leave Sydney and the Central Business District (CBD) and head towards the Sydney urban fringe land use changes dramatically. As you make this journey it is obvious how there is a slow change from mainly commercial buildings, to industrial factories and residential areas and then finally to rural housing and farmland. This can be obviously seen from figure 2 which is an urban transect from Sydney to Moss Vale.  

Figure 2. Urban Transect from Sydney to Moss Vale.

There are 3 main areas where a large change can be seen in the urban transect. These are changes in building types, Transport infrastructure and a change in open space or density.

Change in Building Types

Using Figure 2 it is obvious that as you travel away from Sydney the height and size of the buildings slowly diminishes. In the CBD there are large commercial and residential buildings (such as Figure 3), because it is the largest area in Sydney. As you move to the outer areas of Sydney a dramatic change is already obvious with areas such as Mascot showing huge changes in building size. With an increased number of small residential buildings and the presence of industrial buildings, there is a huge change compared to the CBD. As you travel further from Sydney the building size continues to shrink, with greater amounts of rural communities and industrial buildings until you finally come to farmland.

Figure 3. High rise building in the CBD

Change in Transport Infrastructure

The second area of changes the transport infrastructure dramatically changes the further you travel out of Sydney. In the CBD there are thousands of taxis, busses and a large number of train stations. However the further you travel from Sydney the less of these there are. In areas such as Mascot there are very few taxis and busses with a few train stations. However by the time you reach Moss Vale there are no taxis, very few busses and only industrial train stations. This means that in rural areas there is a greater reliance on cars and also walking.

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Change in amount of Open Space

The last area of change is in the amount of open space and the density level. Usually, as the amount of open space increases the density level drops (seen in figure 2). In the CBD Buildings are packed in very tightly, with very little open space. In Moss Vale, however, there is a great deal more open space, making it a very low density area.

An urban study of Berrima

This section of the report will explore a short history and will attempt to account ...

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