Photo of an empty street with several lanes for cars and a wide footpath. The Parramatta Council offices are on the left side. The camera looks towards a few large office towers visible at the end of the street.
By the way, for anyone wondering where I have been, I am still a city planning student. I have been focused on other tasks and websites, but I still like looking here very occasionally.
[26/03/2026]
For anyone with the financial capacity to do so, I would appreciate it if you could donate to or commission my friend who is currently in significant financial distress and facing several major expenses.
A chibi Kasane Teto waving from a chibi Alstom Citadis 305
Teto tram!
Also, the map is from the Campbelltown Development Control Plan 2015, volume 2, part 8A.
I'd assume that both the council and the developer didn't have confidence that frequencies on the Southern Highlands Line (the train line running to this precinct) would be improved from 0.5tph, so didn't bother with TOD. Of course, this isn't really a good excuse.
Photo of a few tall buildings in a line that are mainly pastel blue with some stronger blues on the lower floors. The buildings look like office buildings and are very rectangular. By the way, this is Burwood in New South Wales, Australia.
I love Japan
A sign optimistically promising an Oran Park Station
News this morning that Albo is going to splash some cash for the much-needed rail link between the new Western Sydney Airport, Leppington and Macarthur. Great news for Western Sydney, I'm keen to hear the details on when and how it'll be done.
Will the prophecy be fulfilled?
Coming home on CityRail...
Photo of two apartment buildings that are each 8 stories tall. The buildings look like they're made of cubes with floors 1 to 7 having balconies on the corners of each building. The ground floors have shops. A building on the Prince of Wales Hospital Campus is visible in the foreground.
Photo of a very large metal structure with double spiral slides in the centre along with swings and other playground equipment on the periphery of the playground.
Yesterday, I found a pretty cool group of apartments with a very cool playground opposite the Prince of Wales Hospital Campus in Randwick.
These buildings are great; we should build 10 billion more of them around UNSW and the Prince of Wales Hospital.
[11/03/2025]
Illustration of a Parramatta Light Rail Urbos 100 headed towards the Parramatta CBD at sunset
The Parramatta Light Rail!
For context, this area is currently zoned for low-density residential.
The station will soon be upgraded with lifts for step-free access.
www.transport.nsw.gov.au/projects/cur...
Screenshot from Google Maps of Macquarie Fields station and the area surrounding it. The streets adjacent to the station have few footpaths and the majority of properties shown are single family houses. There is a car park in the bottom left of the image and some townhouses on the bottom right.
Macquarie Fields is a station on the T8 and receives the same number of trains into the city as Campbelltown.
However, the land use around the station is quite lacking with mostly single-family houses and some townhouses. How would you zone this area?
#urbanism #housing #transit
We're nowhere near prepared to deal with the practical realities of climate change, particularly & especially that:
1) lots of people live in lots of places where they shouldn't
2) rebuilding there after climate disasters is untenable
3) we need a ton more housing everywhere else to compensate
This is something that I’ve long advocated for Indooroopilly SC, including provision of a new school the western suburbs desperately needs and which the state government has been unable to provide for decades.
The redevelopment by Vicinity of Box Hill Central North (the former Whitehorse Plaza) into 7 mixed use towers has state government approvals and looks like it's moving ahead: www.theurbandeveloper.com/articles/vic...
Last time I was there, they'd already moved most of the tenants out.
Somewhat similarly, the former Brands on Sale Outlet Centre on Queen Street, Campbelltown has been demolished after being abandoned for several years and is being replaced by ~550 apartments.
www.theurbandeveloper.com/articles/ala...
This was made for fun, so the idea and the sketch are quite rough. I think it is cool to consider what could be on sites like this instead of what is already there.
Drawing of a potential street layout for the new precinct and the locations of various buildings. The tallest buildings would be concentrated on Hurley Street near existing bus routes with building heights sloping down towards Queen Street. Most of the car park would be replaced by a park and there would be new pedestrian corridors through the precinct.
Satellite photo of the existing area with Campbelltown Mall. Image obtained from Apple Maps.
Campbelltown Mall is a large shopping centre in the Campbelltown CBD. If it was consolidated into taller buildings, the rest its floor area could be used to build a new precinct with 100s of homes, an expanded Koshigaya Park, and a new primary school. This idea and the sketch are very rough.
Chair Stop-Motion 🪑💨 Made with 444 pictures taken over 10 days
Just saying if you want to improve transit services
Photo of an Adelaide Metro bus stop sign reading 'Stop 17 Payneham Road, South East side'.
In Adelaide, most bus stops are named with a number that usually ascends as you travel away from the CBD and the road that the stop is on.
This system is impressively consistent, but for stops with a notable point of interest (POI) nearby, the road name should be replaced with the name of that POI.
These comments match my sentiment to free fares. People who are least able to afford any type of travel, like children, seniors, and low income individuals should have free or very low fares. We can use remaining fare revenue and other revenue methods (e.g. property sales) to provide better service.
Photo of several pink and white fireworks exploding on a clear night sky. To the left, the rectangle-shaped Sofitel hotel at Darling Harbour is visible with several stripes of different colour lights.
Happy (late) New Year
Narrow footpath partially obstructed by bins. 2 lanes for cars and parking on the station side.
We really do give a ridiculous amount of space to cars. Pedestrians here can barely pass on the footpath on bin day, yet there is ample room for driving and storing metal boxes. #HobsonsBay #Altona
Map of route 300 in Adelaide. The route covers the inner suburbs, some popular beaches, and Flinders University.
Map of route 998 and 999 in Perth which each operate the loop around the city in a different direction. The route goes through various inner suburbs, bus interchanges, train stations, and Fremantle.
Map of Brisbane's route 598. This route is also known as the Great Circle Line. It goes through the inner suburbs of Brisbane, various shopping centres, and some train stations.
Map of route 903 in Melbourne. The route is a horseshoe shape starting in Mordialloc, going around Melbourne to various stations and local centres, then terminating at Altona.
Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, and Melbourne all have very long bus routes that encircle the city.
Out of all of them, which is the best and which is the worst?
I concur, it would be much better than the current plan of building more suburban sprawl
I gotta give it to the USGS. This is a really good timelapse of the beginning of the eruption at Kilauea today.
An earlier version of this post was missing alt text. This issue has now been fixed.
Satellite image of Westfield West Lakes shopping centre and its surroundings. The shopping centre is in the centre of the image. It is directly next to a river to its north and west. There is an oval to the east and golf course to the southeast. There are many single-storey suburban houses surrounding the shopping centre.
Westfield West Lakes covers a large land area near Adelaide’s coastline. It is a major shopping centre and bus interchange for the region with connections to the CBD.
I think this land could be used better if some of the surface car parks were turned into apartments and actual public parks.
22-storey residential tower in Basel, by Morger Partner Architekten
Single stair, and a mix of 2 and 3 bedroom apartments in a compact floor plan
