ABSTRACT
Over the past decade, mining has been a divisive issue in Australia, with public debates largely centered around the economic benefits of mining. But as the mining boom appears to have reached its zenith, the balance of opinion is shifting away from the economy towards the industry's wider social and environmental impacts. Popular and scholarly accounts of Australian mining history illustrate there is nothing new in concerns about the deleterious effects on people and places in the industry; these have been persistent features of Australian mining since the mid-nineteenth century. However, this chapter will argue that such concerns have tended to overshadow less obvious effects concerning the particular modes of building, planning, and urbanization brought about by mining. Most Australian mining operations are typically located in remote and regional areas of the country, far away from the six major coastal population centers, and further yet from what many would consider to be the main game of Australian architecture and urbanization. In a context where many inland Australian towns and cities are shrinking and coastal centers are expanding, mining is playing a major, if little understood, role.
