Fairfield, New South Wales

Fairfield is a western suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Fairfield is located 29 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the City of Fairfield and is also partly in the local government area of the City of Holroyd.

Fairfield shares the postcode of 2165 with the separate suburbs of Fairfield East, Fairfield Heights and Fairfield West.

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

European settlement
Frenchman Gabriel Louis Marie Huon de Kerrileu who was a soldier in the NSW Corp received a grant of 100 acre in 1807. He arrived in the colony in 1793 fleeing France during the French revolution and enlisted in the NSW Corps. In 1807 he married Louise LaSage to satisfy the colonial law. He received a grant of 100 acre in the center of Fairfield which he called Castel Paul. In 1840, Captain John Horsley bought Castel Paul and renamed it Fairfield, after the family estate in Sommerset, England. In 1840, Captain John Horsley bought the land and named the area Fairfield in honour of his family estate in Somerset, in Britain. Later, a State Treasurer, Thomas Ware Smart (1810–1881) bought the estate and in the 1860s built the mansion, Fairfield House.

Fairfield railway station was opened in 1856 and is one of the oldest in NSW. Electricity was connected in 1921. Development 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. A private railway existed from Fairfield station to the blue metal quarry at Widemere between 1924 and 1945.

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 New South Wales.

Commercial area
Fairfield is one of the largest commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney. Fairfield supports a mixture of commercial and residential developments, mostly characterised by medium-density buildings and some new high-rise apartments and one office building. Fairfield has three major shopping malls: Fairfield Forum, Neeta City and Fairfield Chase. Fairfield Forum sits behind Thomas Ware Plaza. Fairfield's culturally diverse population is reflected in multicultural local businesses such as over twenty different types of cafés and restaurants that include Croatian, Lebanese, Assyrian, Iraqi, Kurdish, Italian, Spanish and Thai cuisine.

Fairfield's large Assyrian and Iraqi Arab community has had the media describe the suburb as 'Little Iraq' or 'Little Assyria'. More Iraqi/Assyrian businesses have opened in Fairfield, mostly around Ware Street. These businesses include everything from jewellery shops to restaurants, making the area favourite entertainment and shopping hotspot for the Iraqi/Assyrian community. Fairfield also has many Assyrian churches, sporting clubs, cultural associations and health groups. Sydney's Iraqi community congregated in Fairfield to celebrate Iraq qualifying for the Asian Soccer Cup finals in 2007. More than 7000 people joined in street celebrations around Fairfield on Sunday 29 July 2007 after Iraq won the Asian Cup finals.

Transport
Fairfield railway station is on the Cumberland Line and South line of the CityRail network. Trains run frequently from Fairfield to Campbelltown and the City Circle. There are two trains a day from Fairfield directly to Blacktown. Fairfield also has many bus services via Transit First, and Westbus.

Schools
Public Schools in Fairfield include:Fairvale High School, Fairfield Public School, Fairfield High School. Catholic Schools are: Patrician Brothers' College and Our Lady of the Rosary Primary School. Patrician Brothers' Primary School was also previously located in Fairfield but closed in 2006.

Climate
Fairfield's climate is much warmer and drier than Sydney's. It is usually a few degrees warmer on summer days and a few degrees cooler on winter nights. There could be a temperature differential of 5 degrees Celsius in summer due to sea breezes in the City, and in extreme cases there could be a 10 degrees differential.


 * Highest Recorded Temperature: 44.8 °C
 * Lowest Recorded Temperature: -4.0 °C
 * Warmest Month: January
 * Coolest Month: July
 * Highest Precipitation: February
 * Lowest Precipitation: July

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.

Demographics
According to the 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics Census, the suburb of Fairfield had a population of 15,483 people, the majority of whom (60%) were born overseas. The largest groups were born in Iraq (18%) and Vietnam (7.5%) with the most common languages spoken other than English being Assyrian (15%), Arabic (14%) and Vietnamese (9%). The number of Assyrian speakers in Fairfeld represented a tenth of the Assyrian speaking population of Australia. The median family income of people living in Fairfield ($740 per week) was much lower than the national average ($1171).

Culture
Fairfield has two local newspapers, The Fairfield Advance and the Fairfield Champion. Fairfield Advance and Fairfield Champion is issued every Wednesday.

Politics
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.