The steelworks and Wollongong are forever intrinsically linked. It makes up a massive part of the city's DNA from a cultural and economic perspective.
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The Illawarra, not just Wollongong, may not have evolved into the colourful, diverse city is has become otherwise.
So when BlueScope told a gathering of Illawarra industry types that its surplus industrial lands will be preserved as employment precincts, and not turned into residential suburbs, you could understand if there was a muffled cheer.
Muffled because, well, of course, there's a dire need for housing of all types. The Mercury has time and again chronicled the desperate plight of people searching for homes. In January this year it was a crisis. In June it was declared a full-blown housing emergency.
But it's a chicken and egg discussion. What comes first - houses or jobs? In an ideal world, they arrive simultaneously.
And BlueScope, which celebrates its centenary of manufacturing in 2028, wants to be well on its way to leaving a 21st century-style legacy - something beyond the steelworks' first 100 years.
Given the land is the size of the Melbourne CBD this will be no quick-sticks solution. But already there are positive building blocks.
Handily enough, those surplus lands sit next to a six-lane highway and a dual-track train line with four stations - Lysaghts, Cringila, Port Kembla North and Port Kembla.
"We're talking to Transport at a high level around how we activate that," BlueScope's Michael Reay said. "How do we unlock that and have an open front door for the community and the precinct?"
A foot in the door with NSW Transport on planning matters is a tasty headstart which would benefit any project.
But wait ... BlueScope also has another few hundred hectares of unused land near West Dapto and Kembla Grange. It, Mr Reay said, would be more appropriate for housing development.
It is a bold and potentially exciting project - which, no doubt, will have its detractors. But if we're having a conversation about it now, surely that's a positive.
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