"This book is about Perth in all its splendour and natural beauty, and about its colourful past and promising future. It is also a unique look into the commercial life of the state and the way in which West Australians have built Australia's fastest growing and most prosperous state." -foreword.

SOCIAL FORECASTING, FUTUROLOGY. AUSTRALIAN. Perth, a city of 1.5 million relatively complacent people, is changing at a phenomenal rate. Latest predictions are that the city will grow from 1.5 million people to 4.2 million by 2056. To meet this increase the entire city and its infrastructure needs to double in the next 4 decades. This will have huge consequences for the culture and ecology of the city: Perths long term survival is at stake. The book is designed to help the community visualize the results of planning decisions and get everyone involved in the debate about how the city should grow. This is an important and timely book for Perth, but it also presents a model piece of research that could be emulated in any city experiencing rapid change.

Perth Then and Now accurately matches historic photographs of the city with specially commissioned contemporary views that show how each site looks today. With an Aboriginal history going back over 40,000 years, Perth ranks amongst the oldest places on earth with near continuous human habitation. The modern city came into being in 1829 with the formation of the Swan River Colony. For the first 60 years of its existence, Perth was no more than a small country town which lived on an economic knife-edge between riches and ruin. Then, in the 1890s, commercial quantities of gold were discovered in the North and East of Western Australia. This sparked the first of several mineral booms in the State and resulted in Perth being able to demonstrate its newfound wealth in the form grandiose buildings which transformed the modest town into a fine city. Since the late nineteenth century, a cycle of ‘boom and bust’ has added successive layers of development to the city’s rich tapestry of building styles. As with many cities around the world, Perth witnessed the destruction of many older buildings during the last quarter of the 20th century, but has now learned to respect its heritage, resulting in some spectacular and imaginative adaptive reuses of older buildings. Past and present are laid side by side in this fascinating visual tour around the capital of Western Australia. Sites include: Crawley Baths, Narrows Bridge, King’s Park, Cottesloe Beach, T&G Building, Government Gardens, Russell Square, City Beach, St Georges Terrace, Hay Street, HIs Majesty’s Theatre, Hyde Park, Piccadilly Arcade, Hotel Metropole, Town Hall, St George’s Hall, the WACA, GPO Building, Central Arcade, St Mary’s Cathedral, Matilda Bay, Horseshoe Bridge, Swan Brewery.

The city of Perth is well known and treasured for its areas of protected bushland in the heart of the city. Kings Park and Bold Park represent a significant part of the natural heritage of the Swan Coastal Plain and are an important part of city life. The city is also a gateway to the incredible biodiversity to be found in south-west Western Australia. Perth Plants provides a comprehensive photographic guide to all plants known to occur in the bushlands of Kings Park and Bold Park, both native plants and naturalised weeds. There are 778 species included, representing approximately one-quarter of all the plants in the greater Perth region, and one-tenth of all species known for the south-west of Western Australia. This new edition contains 22 additional species and updated photography throughout. It is an essential reference for anyone interested in the plants of south-west Western Australia, and particularly the Swan Coastal Plain.

In Western Australia, the Swan River has been flowing the same course for some 60 million years. Take Me to the River traces the relationship of European-Australian culture to this ancient river system. This historical narrative is viewed through the lens of schemes proposed for Perth's foreshore, the city's symbolic front garden. The foreshore has been contentious since the first plan for Perth was drawn up, and has subsequently acted as a sinkhole for hundreds of proposals. An investigation of this archaeological stratum of foreshore drawings allows us to understand changing ideas of what Perth was, what it could have been, and indeed what it can be. "This fascinating book uncovers hundreds of 'lost' proposals for Perth's foreshore - and sets out a compelling vision for how the city should relate to its river in the 21st century. It is essential reading for those who have a stake in the future of Perth and the Swan River." -- Janet Holmes a Court AC *** Librarians: ebook available on ProQuest and EBSCO [Subject: Urban Design, Architecture, Australian Studies]

Following is an excerpt from this extensive & highly detailed guide by a lifetime resident of Australia. The guide covers all the hotels, restaurants, sights to see and activities, from beachgoing to hiking, kayaking to exploring the Outback and the cultural attractions. Australia's largest state takes up nearly a third of the continent, filling some 2,525,250 square kilometers with a diverse mix of extreme and wonderful landscapes. The balmy seaside capital of Perth and its thriving southern suburb of Fremantle, where 1.4 of the state's 1.8 million residents live, are spread along Australia's southwest edge, just north of the Cape Naturaliste hook. South of here, lush river valleys and coastal parks stretch east for more than 1,620 km, while north of Perth, along the rough edge of the Indian Ocean, towns are far and few, with vast natural parklands coloring in the empty spaces between them. The country's westernmost town, Coral Bay, lies halfway up the coast, from where the land cuts back east and north toward Port Hedland and Broome. And still the state sprawls on, further northeast through the great, dry plains of the Kimberley, and south through endless expanses of gold and red desert. Within these great, barren stretches and along the coastlines, however, are hidden treasures that for the past century have fueled much of Australia's economy. The famous goldfields, where fortune-seekers thronged in the late 1800s, surround the southern Outback city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Mineral sands and deposits of bauxite, the source for the country's massive aluminum industry, are tucked along the state's southwest edge. Around the Kimberley, or the far northwest, natural gas is the abundant resource, tapped in enormous quantities from the Northwest Shelf. The Pilbara, along the north-central coast, has the world's most extensive iron-ore deposits. And this is all not to mention the world-famous pearls found offshore of Broome, which rack up some US$200 million in yearly exports alone, or the Argyle Diamond mine of the same region, which produces more diamonds a year than anywhere else on the planet. In short, this is a massive state where riches and resources are only just being discovered. Million-hectare cattle stations stretch far and wide; broad national parks with million-year-old natural phenomena take their places in patchwork fashion around them; and thousands of kilometers of desolate, unexplored lands fill the gaps in between. You could wander here for a year and not run into a soul if you were well-prepared, or you could skirt between desert, ocean, and river excursions. There's plenty of history and culture surrounding every settlement, too, providing for a well-rounded adventure experience that delves deep into a very unique blend of environments. With more than 63 national parks, bushwalking is the number-one activity, followed closely by four-wheel-drive adventures. The entire state is edged by the ocean, with magnificent reefs around the center, so diving and snorkeling, boating, windsurfing, and other watersports are all possibilities. Historic cultural excursions take place in the center and the far north Aboriginal lands, while modern encounters might have you wine-tasting through the southwest Margaret River vineyards. You can cycle around the coast, rock climb and abseil in the rugged mountains, explore caves in the central region, camel trek in the desert, kayak the southern rivers, dive and snorkel along remote reefs, and surf chic Perth swells or lonely Pacific bays. The possibilities are as endless as the land, for the state is only just being chiseled into a major adventure destination, and it's a place where you truly have the chance to trail-blaze, get lost, and discover something entirely new about the world - and your own character within it.