Settlement

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.