There are two main layout changes. I can now pin things to the top of the page as 'Featured'. This is useful since part of the reason for not writing more blog posts this year was that I was reluctant to bump the VicRoads relocation article (along with some of the others) out of view. Now I can just pin it up the top and leave it there. The second main change is that all updates now live in the one stream. It was getting somewhat absurd to have all of the site updates occur in just one thin column, while the rest of the page remained static. So that's fixed now. Again, blog posts will disappear quicker than I'd like, but that won't be such an issue now that I can pin the ones I consider important up the top.
With this refresh, I'm also experimenting with introducing a database of places, mostly focussed in and around the CBD. At this stage, it will just document places (addresses, locations or buildings) that are or may be changing. I wouldn't mind adding a history to them at some point (long-term history and perhaps short-term permit history if I can automate it easily). Again, I make no guarantees.
Finally, I've updated the header with a photo I took back on a sunny day in April. It's particularly interesting because I often find it difficult to pin down what Dandenong is or should be: is it a suburb or a city? Should it remove every trace of it's large-town heritage and melt into the rest of suburbia, or should it try to evolve into something more focal? I often think our councillors and state planners suffer the same confusion, with many decisions being suburb-oriented, and others being city-oriented. This photo clarifies things for me a little: Yes, we are a city, but we are a small city — a cosy, intimate city — and, while we should be very ambitious in how we grow and in what we do, we should always aim to remain an intimate city.
Below is a labelled version of the picture. (Click for a larger version.)
