PERTH’S urban sprawl is putting lives at risk, says photographer and filmmaker Harry Cunningham.
He recently finished making the full-length doco The World’s Longest City, interviewing people from Mandurah to Two Rocks in a bid to show the side-effects of Perth’s 150km urban sprawl and what can be done to stop it.
“One major takeaway from making The World’s Longest City was realising how easy it is to overlook urban sprawl because it happens so gradually,” Cunningham says.
“But as Perth expands into fire-prone areas like the Perth Hills – such as the North Stoneville development – it’s clear from my interviews that lives are being put at risk.
“That was alarming, it was a big wake up call for me and I think it should be a big wakeup call for Perth”
• Some of the people Harry Cunningham photographed for his exhibition on Perth’s urban sprawl.
The World’s Longest City started out life as a photo essay that was exhibited at Perth Design Week.
The photos got such a strong reaction – more than one million views online – Cunningham decided to expand the project into a documentary.
He spent months travelling up and down the WA coastline, interviewing people from numerous places including Dawesville, Butler and Two Rocks.
“I think Two Rocks started to get built around the 1980s, so there’s still not a train station out there,” Cunningham says.
“I talked to a couple of kids there, I think they were around 14 and 16, and they were telling me that it takes an hour and a half to get to school.
“In the southernmost point I visited, there was no train or police stations.”
Cunningham says the issue stretches back to the aftermath of War World II, when urban planners designed Perth around the car because it was the “future”, mimicking the layout of cities like Los Angeles.
“The car allowed the city to be so spread out, but we’ve kind of gotten to a point where we’re the longest city in the world,” he says.
“If you want to go somewhere, it’s half an hour sometimes, an hour if you want to go to the shops. We’re just driving anywhere, so it’s a car-dominated city, which is a big issue, and it’s not sustainable.”
Impressively, it took Cunningham only five months to complete the whole documentary from start to finish, and it was a one-man band – he shot, recorded and edited the film himself.
Fremantle is featured in the doco with Cunningham interviewing Greens MLC Brad Pettitt, Steven Jacobs from In-Culture Tours, and Pippa Hurst from Design Freo.
Cunningham says the eco-friendly medium density homes on Hope Street in White Gum Valley are examples of how to sympathetically increase density and stop urban sprawl.
He says a lot of people don’t want to live in apartments or smaller developments because of the high strata fees, but these have low fees as there is no pools or lifts.
“It’s got a sense of place, it’s kept as many trees as it could, and the trees they cut down, they’ve converted them into seats for the little outdoor areas,” Cunningham says.
“It’s got really low strata fees, because one of the reasons why we spread out is because people in Australia, they want to own their own home, because that’s what Australians are used to.”
Having travelled widely while growing up, Cunningham initially wanted to find out why Perth didn’t have a strong identity, but he soon discovered that urban sprawl posed an existential threat to humans and endangered wildlife, like the Carnaby’s black Cockatoos in the Perth Hills.
“It’s one of 36 biodiversity hotspots in the world,” he says.
“Because we’re spreading east, it’s a fire risk for the people who live there, and it’s damaging the environment and putting endangered species at high risk.”
There will be a screening of The World’s Longest City at the Fremantle Buffalo Club, 54 High Street at 7pm on Thursday May 29. Tix at https://tinyurl.com/3nr988x7.
by STEPHEN POLLOCK