Under Corporate Skies: A Struggle Between People, Place, and Profit

Under Corporate Skies is the story of a small Australian country town, Yarloop, and its struggle with its corporate neighbour Alcoa and the West Australian government. Though it deals with a particular community, this tale could be told almost anywhere in Australia where people live in close contact with industry the Hunter Valley, Latrobe Valley, East Gippsland or Gladstone.

Brueckner and Ross show us the dark side of today's development agenda - the threat to the social and environmental sustainability of towns when body corporates and government fail to protect the health and wellbeing of communities in the shadow of heavy industry.

While all parties in the conflict are heard in this book, the authors foreground the voices of those least heard in the spheres where politics and economics meet - the local people faced with the breakdown of their town and community, their marriages and friendships; the loss of family, a sense of place and local history.

The authors argue for a form of partnership building in which industries, governments and their electorates meet as equals to create a shared vision that provides for society's material needs while it protects what matters locally: people and place.