Steel Town: The Making and Breaking of Port Kembla by Erik Eklund

Description

"The sun moves across the narrow coastal plain that borders the range to the north . . . It shows once separate places now merged into one suburban entity, a ribbon of residential, commercial and industrial development . . . There is a commercial centre whose tall metallic and glass structures reflect the light, and celebrate an industrial heritage. And to the south, an area where a mass of industrial buildings converge around a large harbour. This area stands as a telling symbol of the show more region's golden industrial age. To most Australians Port Kembla is a grimy, polluted, industrial wasteland located down the coast from Sydney. Such images were formed over fifty years ago when industrial development in the town was at its height, and when the expanse of breathtaking coast had been colonised by the stacks and furnaces of heavy industry. Yet the vision of stacks and pollution from furnaces was never the whole story--there was always more to Port Kembla. Although these ideas persist even today, they obscure the real experiences of the people of the port. Steel Townilluminates our understanding of the processes of industrial and social change. Port Kembla wa show less