Fairfield, New South Wales

Fairfield is a suburb in the City of Fairfield, in south-western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, about 30 kilometres from the Sydney central business district. Fairfield supports a mixture of commercial and residential environments. This city's postcode is 2165.

1 History
2 Environment
3 Overview
4 Transport
5 Education
6 Sister cities
7 External links

[edit] History

For more than 30,000 years, Aboriginal people from the Cabrogal-Gandangara tribe tribe have lived in the area.

European settlement began in the mid 19th century supported by railway construction in 1856. At the turn of the century the area had a population of 2,500 people and with fertile soils, produced crops for distribution in Sydney. Captain John Horsley bought the land which is now known as Fairfield, from a Frenchman who was a soldier in the NSW Corp. He renamed the area Fairfield in honour of his family estate in Somerset, in the UK.

Rapid population increase after World War II saw the settlement of many ex-service men and European migrants. Large scale Housing Commission development in the 1950s swelled the population to 38,000. By 1979, the population had reached 120,000 and the City was becoming one of the larger Local Government Areas in NSW.

[edit] Environment

Much of the original bushland cover within the City has been cleared through past land management practices. A few small areas of this original bushland remain, including examples of Cumberland Plain vegetation, which is listed under the Threatened Species Conservation Act.

Eight creeks, 80 kilometres in length, have their headwaters in Fairfield City and flow into the Georges River and Hawkesbury Nepean catchments. The impact of development over the past 50 years has resulted in severe degradation of the natural habitat in the creek banks and water quality has been assessed as very poor in recent years. Strategies are being implemented so that this trend is being reversed.

Air quality in the City is heavily impacted upon by an insufficiently integrated public transport system, creating an over reliance upon private vehicles for moving people and freight.

[edit] Overview

A large portion of Fairfield's residents are migrants and their descendants, notably from former Yugoslavia and more recently from Cambodia, Laos and especially Vietnam, the latter concentrated around the suburb of Cabramatta. Large Assyrian, African people Italian and Spanish-speaking populations also reside in Fairfield and surrounding suburbs such as Bossley Park, Wetherill Park and Smithfield.

Fairfield has three major shopping malls; Fairfield Forum, Neeta City and Fairfield Chase. There has been significant development in Neeta city with greater commercial opportunities. Due to Fairfield's culturally diverse population there are over twenty different multicultural cafés and restaurants including Italian, Assyrian, Spanish and Thai.

Today, Fairfield City is home to approximately 182,000 people. The City of Fairfield is Australia's fifth largest city and the third largest in the Sydney metropolitan area (after Blacktown and Sutherland).

Fairfield has 2 major local newspapers, The Fairfield Advance and the Fairfield Champion. Fairfield Advance and Fairfield Champion is issued every Wednesday.

While Fairfield City has a comparatively young population with many young families, the greatest growth is occurring in the number of older residents, those aged 65 years or more.

Fairfield City is mainly residential in nature with large-scale industrial estates at Wetherill Park and Smithfield. There are four major business and retail centres at Fairfield, Cabramatta, Bonnyrigg and Prairiewood, as well as a large number of suburban shopping malls. Large expanses of rural land characterise the suburbs of Horsley Park and Cecil Park.

There are 580 parks (60 of which are major parks) and the new Western Sydney Regional Parklands.

Fairfield is also known for its high crime rate in the Assyrian Community.

Image:FairfieldCityCouncilWards.jpg

City of Fairfield

[edit] Transport

Fairfield also has a train station on the CityRail network operating on the Cumberland Line and the south line. Fairfield also has many bus services via Transit First, and Westbus. There are exactly two trains a day from Fairfield to Blacktown. Trains run frequently from Fairfield to Campbelltown, New South Wales and the City Circle

Fairfield is led by Fairfield City Council, with Nick Lalich as Mayor, Joseph Tripodi as State MP, and Chris Bowen and Julia Irwin as Federal MPs for the seats of Prospect and Fowler respectively.

[edit] Education

There are about 17 schools in Fairfield. There are many Public Schools in the Fairfield region: Fairfield Public School, Fairfield High School, St Johns Park High School, Westfields Sports High School, Fairvale High School, Yennora Public School, and many more. There are also many successful Catholic Schools such as: Patrician Brothers' College, Our Lady of the Rosary Primary School, Mary Mackillop College and Freeman Catholic College. Patrician Brothers' Primary School was also previously located in Fairfield and now closed down as of 2007.

[edit] Sister cities

Hsinchu City, Taiwan (1994)
Plano, Texas, USA (2003)

[edit] External links

Fairfied City Official Site

Coordinates: -33.87028° 150.95622°

Maps and aerial photos
- Street map from Street Directory, MSN Maps and Multimap.
- Satellite image from Google Maps, WikiMapia and Terraserver.
2001 Census Information.
Fairfield Advance Local Newspaper

Suburbs and localities within the City of Fairfield | South-western Sydney | Sydney

List of Sydney suburbs

Suburbs and localities within the City of Holroyd \| Western Sydney \| Sydney
Fairfield \| Girraween \| Granville \| Greystanes \| Guildford \| Guildford West \| Holroyd \| Mays Hill \| Merrylands \| Merrylands West \| Pemulwuy \| Pendle Hill \| South Wentworthville \| Wentworthville \| Westmead \| Woodpark \| Yennora
List of Sydney suburbs