19 May

City and country aren’t two ways of life. They’re one way of life. Originally what we call ‘rural’ coexisted in the cities with more urban dwelling. But then they ran out of room and needed more resources, so farming and mining in particular expanded out past the outskirts of cities. Here in country NSW, farming and mining are the reason every town exists. Nothing to do with a love of the countryside, the ‘country’ is just the outer edges of the city. As these original extractive industries became unviable so too did ‘country life’. The towns now struggle to find a reason to exist. Like ex-colonies of empire, they become tourist destinations, bucolic theme parks for bored people who need something do on the weekends. That gentrification in turn pushes prices for everything in these areas beyond what the locals can afford, which eventually hollows them out and leaves ghost towns, when the tourist dollar gets bored. And it’s easily bored.