The Elevation of Urban Ugliness

In just a few recent days, a line of historic and beautiful fig trees along Sydney’s Anzac Parade fell.  No storm was involved.  No act of God. This was man’s mechanical doing.  And it all happened with the full, prior, knowledge and approval of NSW’s Baird government, which is building a new light-rail corridor from the city to Randwick and Kingsford. Future racegoers will roll to the track and students glide to the nearby University of NSW.  But none of us will ever again enjoy the wonderful sylvan vista of mighty figs along Moore Park.

As Ogden Nash could have writ, I think I shall never see a light rail lovely as a tree.  But then, the masters of light rail promise that so many more trees are to be planted instead.  Nonetheless, I regret that the lovely, symmetric, shade-filled avenue that was Anzac Parade is now gone forever, the latest casualties of a philosophy and aesthetic that values ugly, multi-lane roads, steel forests of signage, and endless strips of tacky…