Two sentiments

Over the last ten thousand years there seem to have been two separate and conflicting building sentiments throughout the history of towns and cities. 1 is the desire to start again, for a variety of reasons: an earthquake or a tidal wave may have demolished the settlement, or fire destroyed it, or the new city 2 a new political beginning. The other can be likened to the effect of a magnet: established settlements attract people, who 3 come whether or not there is any planning for their arrival. The clash between these two sentiments is evident in every established city 4 its development has been almost completely accidental or is lost in history. Incidentally, many settlements have been planned from the beginning but, for a variety of reasons, no settlement followed the plan. A good example is Currowan, on the Clyde River in New South Wales, which 5 in the second half of the 19th century, in expectation that people would come to establish agriculture and a small port. But no one came. Most country towns in New South Wales started with an original survey whose grid lines are still there today in the pattern of the original streets.