Vegetative profusion, economic slide

Australia is the world's driest inhabited continent but after a particularly severe ten year drought, Sydney is experiencing a rebirth of sorts. The city's characteristic dry shrub has taken on a lush hue. In our backyard, the oranges are falling out of their tree. The narrow streets of inner west are choked with green. And walking through sydney's royal botanical gardens is like touring a crazed horticulturalist's we dream, the rains having transformed the grounds into some kind of eco-porn menagerie.

At the same time as this ecological blossoming, massive job cuts across nearly every sector of the economy (except mining) and the deepening recession have created a deep sense of unease among Australians. I see it every day in Sydney. Most of the people I've met are un- or underemployed. Sydney has become oppressively expensive (the 6th most expensive city in the world apparently) and the current economic slide has only exacerbated anxieties. Australia has always been a land of extremes but this current juxtapostion between Sydney's green flourishing and economic downturn draws attention to the weird and dangerous disconnect between economies and ecologies.