Like most people, I have my own part of the city, a relatively confined space with which I am intimately familiar. Over the years the location of that patch has changed, but for the past decade and a bit it has been the area that extends from the University of Sydney west to Marrickville and the Cooks River, along with Alexandria and Erskineville. This region is only one part of the larger expanse of the inner west, but for me at least, its very particular mix of old industrial space, jumbled rows of terrace houses, semis and detached houses from the first few decades of the 20th century seems to capture something essential about the character of this part of Sydney.
The arrival of summer in such densely developed space often seems to have as much to do with a shift in the rhythms of urban life as it does with a change in the weather. Along King Street and Enmore Road, the pubs and bars and restaurants begin to spill out on to the streets, and in the narrow streets behind them, music and laughter drifts through the air as people gather in the houses to drink and talk and dance or wander in the warm possibility of the night.
