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Here are the photos of Orange you won't see on the tourism websites
EDITORIAL
The people of Glenroi deserve much better than this.
Better than living in a suburb where garbage is strewn about in public reserves and on empty blocks.
In Orange, the distance from millionaire's row to skid row is just a couple of kilometres, but they might as well be on different planets.
Head south-east from the million-dollar-plus Federation houses around Cook Park - within walking distance of cafes, bars and restaurants - with their pressed metal ceilings, leadlight windows and butler's pantry, and cross the tracks.
Make a right. Soon the landscape changes.
This is Glenroi.
Where the contrast between the well-tended lawns of the house-proud, with garden gnomes and bird statues, and the blocks where the despair, dysfunction and/or disadvantage ooze out of every square inch of villa, townhouse, house and garden, becomes ever more stark the deeper you head into the area behind the Homemaker Centre.
Drive the streets and it feels as if parts of the suburb - with their many road to nowhere cul-de-sacs, labyrinthine back lane pathways ideal for mischief-making, and disadvantage piled on top of disadvantage - are in a natural state of edginess. And malaise.
Arson, theft, bashings and mindless destruction over the past year have left sections of the community angry, scared and vengeful.
Not having as much as some others in town shouldn't mean having to live in a heightened state of anxiety.
A handful of children who should probably be in school are walking the streets and the lanes.
People sit on their front verandah staring warily at those who drive past, as if to say "What are you doing in my cul-de-sac?", or words to that effect.
The night before, a senior constable was injured after a pursuit of two 4WDs that moved through some of these streets.
The council bulk waste clean-up is on, and it appears as if the neatly stacked junk awaiting collection outside most homes has mutated.
On council reserves and at the front of patches of unoccupied land, garbage has been dumped by people from unknown places. Are they locals? Or people from elsewhere who just saw it as an opportunity to avoid a fee at the tip?
Those responsible should feel no sense of pride, particularly given the availability of council's bulk waste collections.
The actions of a few should not impact the landscape for everyone else.
Having to walk or drive by this mess every day cannot be good for people's sense of self-worth. Would the mayor, the state member or the federal member cop this around their homes?
It is not council's fault that people choose to dump rubbish.
However it is its responsibility to get it tidied up quickly, and look at ways to try and avoid it happening in the future.
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