My working week took me to Philadelphia and Baltimore - two very historic cities that take a dominant place in American political history. Philadelphia was home to the Continental Congress when the Revolutionary War was going on. Baltimore is the location of Fort McHenry which was getting pounded by the British while Francis Scott Key paced the deck of a British ship in concern. The experience led Key to write the "Star Spangled Banner". They are large cities now, but back then they were much smaller.
Philadelphia in 1776, despite being one of the larger cities in colonial America, was a small regional town dominated by Quakers. When fevers hit the streets of Philadelphia the few main streets would empty as people fled to the countryside for fresher air. When I think of Revolutionary War Philadelphia, I think of it in the same exotic, mythical forms I see many of the Australian regional towns in the Southern Tablelands, Western Plains and along the Murray.
One of those towns, Goulburn, has a looming crisis. Philadelphia, and the brilliant minds of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton combined in post-revolutionary war Philadelphia to change how we think about political systems. Will Goulburn rise to the challenge and change how we view water? (more)
