Liverpool, Australia

Liverpool is a city in the state of New South Wales in Australia, located 32 kilometres (20 miles) southwest of Sydney. It is one of the oldest urban settlements in Australia, being founded in 1810 as an agricultural centre by Governor Lachlan Macquarie[?]. Its estimated population in 2002 was 163,464. The City covers an area of 313 square kilometres, though most of this is still agricultural land.

Liverpool is at the head of navigation of the Georges River and combined with the Great Southern Railway from Sydney to Melbourne reaching Liverpool in the late 1850s, Liverpool became a major agricultural and transportation centre as the land in the district was very productive. A large Army base was established in Liverpool during World War One, which exists to this day as the Holsworthy Barracks.

Until the 1950s Liverpool was still a satellite town with an agricultural economy based on poultry farming and market gardening. However the tidal surge of urban sprawl which engulfed the rich flatlands west of Sydney known as the Cumberland Plain[?] soon reached Liverpool, and it became an outer suburb of metropolitan Sydney with a strong working-class presence and manufacturing facilities. Liverpool also became renowned for its vast Housing Commission estates housing thousands of low-income families after the slum clearance and urban renewal programs in inner-city Sydney in the 1950s.

Today Liverpool continues to grow, with new residential subdivisions and shopping centres being constructed in the western part of the City of Liverpool. Much of the City's area is still devoted to smallhold agriculture, though this is slowly being enveloped by urban sprawl. Though it has lost much of its old working-class character and has become one of the most multicultural cities in Australia, Liverpool is still one of the most socially and economically disadvantaged parts of metropolitan Sydney with relatively high unemployment, crime and racial tension.

Liverpool is well served by transport facilities such as the Hume Highway, the M5 motorway, a frequent electric railway service to Sydney and Parramatta and the Hoxton Park Airport. It is home to the largest municipal library in Australia, a large district hospital, two technical colleges and many shopping centres and office buildings. Industries include a large cable factory, a telephone manufacturer, pharmaceutical laboratories and cold storage plants.