Past Programs
History - 2006
The Best of ATB in 2006: The North in Australia: Compass Points and Dividing Lines
21/12/2006
Dividing lines and compass points, a sense of place, and the meaning of the north . . . brought out callers from all across the country, and especially from the top bits.
This was a program that revealed so much about Australia, about internal migration, and about how we relate to where we live - that we decided to replay an edited version of that discussion.
Because for all the steamy frontiers, a crucial intersection with Asia, or the final remnants of the "real" Outback: this may be a wide brown land, but in some ways it's divided from top to bottom.
The North. The Territory. The top of Queensland and the upper reaches of WA. Some people argue these are more than just places, they're ideas. It's "north of the ten commandments", or simply "beyond the pale".
The North holds so much of our Australian identity; but it's also alien to much of the population "down south".
This program was first broadcast on 6 September 2006.
Family History
07/12/2006
We're supposed to be a nation of sports lovers, with weekends taken up with energetic activities. But at computers and in libraries around the country a quieter activity is pursued - genealogy. At any one time thousands of Australians are delving into their family's past; trying to fill in the gaps or confirm apocryphal tales. Sometimes this history can disappoint or it can reveal complex sagas. But why are we so fascinated with our past?
The New Town Square: Public Space
16/05/2006
From standing on the corner to promenading in parks; meeting in the town square to showing off at the local swimming pool: definitions and boundaries of public space in our cities and town have changed.
This program examines public spaces, and how we make and change them.
Public Space can mean a lot more than the occasional boardwalk or park with a giant chessboard, it can be defined and shaped by consumers, by governments, by planners and by historical imagination.
So from a range of analyses that covered the "fluid city" and new consumer demographics, to the ways in which cities are imbued with histories, stories and memories, we turned to you, as listeners, to ask what public spaces mean to you.
What, we asked, makes a good and useable and enjoyable public space for you. What is it, and what makes it special?
Is it a park, and a spread of green leafiness? Or maybe it's the supermarket that makes you feel most connected to the place you live? Or the swimming pool or ferry stop or a particular bench on the busiest corner where you can watch the world go by . . .
Or maybe it's the place that's no longer there. The shadow of a building where you met your first love; the place where your grandmother first stepped onto the dock in Australia.
And who makes these public spaces: urban planners and architects, or all of us when we say, "hey, I'll meet you under the Town Hall Clock"?
These questions (and others) are also being debated this week, when urban planners, historians and curators meet in Brisbane from all round the world for the Museums Australia conference, on "Cities, Cultural Spaces, Communities".
