Decisions and disasters, Alienation of the Adelaide Parklands

This book was published in 1987 by Adelaide author Jim Daly. It is subject to discussion in the other major work on this website, Pastures of plenty, by John Bridgland.

South Australians seeking a broader historical understanding of long-past Adelaide park lands politics are encouraged to read what is perhaps the most important reference created just after the period that many believe was the city’s most culturally prosperous post-war years – the 1970s.

Jim Daly’s 1980 master’s thesis was the basis for this 1987 book. It made tangible what was in retrospect a fresh idea that might have occurred to any other writer years earlier, but didn’t. His ‘historical study of the alienation process’ regarding Adelaide’s park lands since settlement of the colony and growth of the city of Adelaide set a public standard in the late 1980s (as opposed to any unpublished academic effort that may exist in archives). The scholarship behind Decisions and disasters was never subsequently replicated in the same way and to the same extent. It is a work that many South Australians may never have read, or simply have forgotten. Because it was not in common circulation at the time this website became operational (2024) it is included here, with the permission of the author.  Read more….