Maurice T. Daly, 1939–2021

Abstract

Maurice (Maurie) Daly was a highly influential urban and economic geographer in an era when the ability to shape policy meant more to academic reputation than the metrics of h-Indexes. He coupled impressive scholarly credentials with the street-smart ability to identify and crystalise the nub of an issue in front of him. Maurie was proudly from the southern suburbs of Sydney, being born in Kogarah on 6th December 1939. Growing up in the rough and tumble of post-war suburban Sydney seemed to leave a profound imprint on his life, with his personality always staying true to those suburban values. He had brilliance for explaining complex ideas, and these were inevitably fashioned in language that was accessible to the common person. Generations of undergraduates understood the world better because of the clarity that Maurie could bring to the densest of subject matter on how financial or regulatory processes shaped flows of capital and hence the shape of our cities and regions. After being educated through the Catholic school system, Maurie attended the University of Sydney, from which he graduated with BA (Hons 1) in 1962. Never a person to waste time wondering what might come next, Maurie commenced a PhD immediately upon finishing Honours and at the same time moved to Newcastle with his new wife, Liz (they were married in 1964) to take a position at the Hunter Valley Research Foundation. Maurie completed his PhD in three years and on submission of his thesis moved to Canada where he was appointed Director of the Atlantic Provinces Economic Development program, afterwards returning to Australia to work on the Sydney Regional Plan, and then accepted a Rockefeller Foundation grant to work in Nigeria. Eventually Maurie returned to Australia to take up a post at Macquarie University, and in 1976 returned to his alma mater to become Professor of Geography. He held that position for 18 years until resigning in 1994. It was during his time at the University of Sydney that his major professional breakthroughs were achieved. Like others of his generation, Maurie was initially immersed in the quantitative revolution in Human Geography (he was a skilled mathematician) however, after a while was sufficiently astute to swim against the tide and recognise its shortcomings. As early as 1968, in an article exploring residential location decisions in Newcastle, NSW, he argued against the application of a formal model (rent theory) to explain the more complexly determined processes of how and why people made choices about where to live (Daly 1968). In 1973, he challenged another dominant formal approach (traditional location theory) in explaining the spatial distribution of factories in Australian cities, arguing instead that historical factors and the internal dynamics of firm-decision-making