Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T04:27:52.471Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Australian Urban History: a Progress Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2009

Graeme Davison
Graeme Davison
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Melbourne
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Australia was possibly ‘the first suburban nation’. Already at the end of the nineteenth century the American statistician Adna Weber noticed the peculiar demography of this ‘newest product of civilization’ whose population, he calculated, was more urbanized than any other country's. Yet the large coastal cities in which most town—dwellers lived were less densely occupied—more suburbanized—than the cities of Europe or North America. Here, Weber suggested, was ‘the representative of the new order of things towards which the modern world is advancing’. Later research on urban development has largely confirmed Weber's opinion. Australian city-dwellers enjoyed among the highest per capita incomes and levels of individual home-ownership in the nineteenth-century world and were among the first to display the low birth and death rates characteristic of ‘modern’ societies. They were early and enthusiastic users of railways, tramways and other forms of public transport. In 1900 about one in five Austalians lived in detached houses in the suburbs of the capital cities but by the early 1970s the proportion had risen to about three in five. A traveller flying in over Sydney or Melbourne now sees ‘the newest product of civilization’ spread out in a monotonous mosaic of green lawns, terra cotta roofs and sparkling backyard swimming pools.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History Yearbook , Volume 6 , May 1979 , pp. 100 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. The Growth of Cities in The Nineteenth Century (New York, 1899) 1, 138, 472.Google Scholar

2. On incomes see Butlin, N. G., ‘Long-run trends in Australian per capita consumption’, in Hancock, Keith (ed.), The National Income and Social Welfare (Melbourne, 1965), 1–19;Google Scholar on birth and death rates see Hicks, Neville, ‘Demographic transition in the Antipodes’, Australian Economic History Review, xiv (1974), 123–42;Google Scholar idem, ‘Theories of differential fertility and the Australian experience’, Historical Studies, xvi (1975), 567–83;Google Scholar and compare Lampard, Eric, ‘The urbanizing world’, in Dyos, H. J. and Wolff, Michael (eds), The Victorian City: Images and Realities (1973), 1, 3–57;Google Scholar on homeownership see n. 8 below; on transportation see eg. Davison, Graeme, ‘Public utilities and the expansion of Melbourne in the 1880s’, in Schedvin, C. B. and McCarty, J. W. (eds), Urbanization in Australia: The nineteenth century (Sydney, 1974), 71–91.Google Scholar

3. Palmer, Vance, The Legend of the Nineties (Melbourne, 1954); 44–51,Google Scholar Hancock, W. K., Australia (1930), ch. xiii;Google Scholar Walker, David, Dream, and Disillusion (Canberra, 1976), ch. ix;Google Scholar Rowse, Tim, ‘Heaven and a hill's hoist: Australian critics on suburbia’, Meanjin, xxxvii (1978), 3–13.Google Scholar

4. Shann, Edward, An Economic History of Australia (Canberra, 1930);Google Scholar Fitzpatrick, Brian. The British Empire in Australia An Economic History 1834–1939 (Melbourne, 1941).Google Scholar

5. Hancock, op. cit., ch. 4; Pember Reeves, W., State Experiments in Australia and New Zealand (1902), 1, 62;Google Scholar Austin, A. G., Australian Education 1788–1900 (Melbourne, 1961), 176.Google Scholar

6. Gollan, Robin, Radical and Working Class Politics (Melbourne, 1960).Google Scholar

7. See also Butlin, N. G., Australian Domestic Product, Investment and Foreign Borrowing, 1861–1938/9 (1962).Google Scholar

8. Hall, A. R., ‘Some long-period effects of the kinked age distribution of the population of Australia 1861–1961’, Economic Record, xxxix (1963), 43–52;CrossRefGoogle Scholar idem, The Stock Exchange of Melbourne and the Victorian Economy 1852–1900 (Canberra, 1968);Google Scholar Kelley, A. C., ‘Demographic change and economic growth in Australia 1861–1911’, Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, v (1968), 207–77;Google Scholar Jackson, R. V., ‘House building and the age structure of the population of New South Wales, 1861–1901’, Australian Economic History Review, xiv (1974), 143–59;Google Scholar Beever, E. A., ‘Victoria's railway spree: a reappraisal’, Melbourne Historical Journal, x (1971), 39–44;Google Scholar Davison, Graeme, The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne (Melbourne, 1978), ch. 7;Google Scholar R. V. Jackson, ‘Owner-occupation of houses in Sydney, 1871–1891’, in Schedvin and McCarty, op. cit., 40–56; Dingle, A. E. and Merrett, D. T., ‘Home owners and tenants in Melbourne, 1891–1911’, Australian Economic History Review, xii (1972), 21–35;Google Scholar idem, ‘Landlords in suburban Melbourne 1891–1911’, ibid., xvii (1977), 1–24; Davison, op. cit., 175–89.

9. Outlook, iv (1960), 10.Google Scholar

10. The relationship between British and Australian urban culture and the cultural role of cities remain largely unexplored themes but see, for example, Hergenhan, J. T. (ed.), A Colonial City: Selected Journalism of Marcus Clarke (St Lucia, 1972);Google Scholar Davison, Graeme, ‘R. E. N. Twopeny and town life in Australia’, Historical Studies, xvi (1974), 292–305;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and for recent discussion of Louis Hartz's The Foundation of New Societies in relation to Australia, see Martin, A. W., ‘Australia and the Hartz ‘Fragment’ thesis‘, Australian Economic History Review, xiii (1973), 131–47;Google Scholar G. C. Bolton, ‘Louis Hartz’, ibid., 168–76.

11. ‘The rural and urban frontiers’, Historical Studies, x (1963), 421.Google Scholar

12. There were also several brief outline accounts of the capital cities as a whole: Turner, Ian, ‘The growth of Melbourne’, in Troy, P. (ed.), Urban Redevelopment in Australia (Canberra, 1968), ch. 2;Google Scholar Eric, Fry, ‘The Growth of Sydney’, in Troy, P. and Parker, R. S. (eds), The Politics of Urban Growth (Canberra, 1972), ch. 1.Google Scholar

13. Silver, Sin, and Sixpenny Ale A Social History of Broken Hill, 1883–1921 (Melbourne, 1978).Google Scholar

14. Hobart Town (Canberra, 1973).Google ScholarPubMed

15. x (1970), 1–39 (reprinted in Schedvin and McCarty, op. cit.); McCarty had developed his regional approach to Australian history more recently in ‘Australia as a region of recent settlement in the nineteenth century’, Australian Economic History Review, xiii (1973), 131–47,Google Scholar and ‘Australian regional history’, Historical Studies, xviii (1978), 88–105.Google Scholar

16. Robinson, K. W., ‘Processes and patterns of urbanization in Australia and New Zealand’, New Zealand Geographer, xviii (1962), 32–9;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Rose, A. J., ‘Dissent from Down-Under: metropolitan primacy as the normal state’, Pacific Viewpoint, vii (1966), 1–27.Google Scholar Johnston, R. J., ‘The location of high status residential areas’, Geografiska Annaler, xlviii Ser. B (1966), 23–35;CrossRefGoogle Scholar idem, ‘Land use changes in the Melbourne C.B.D.: 1857–1962’, in Troy, P. (ed.), Urban Redevelopment in Australia (Canberra, 1968), 177–201;Google Scholar Rimmer, P. J., ‘The boot and shoe industry in Melbourne’, Australian Geographer, x (1968), 370–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a general review of Australian historical geography see Wynn, Graeme, ‘Discovering the Antipodes’, Journal of Historical Geography, iii (1977), 251–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. ‘A perspective on Australian urbanization’, in Powell, J. M. and Williams, M. (eds), Australian Space: Australian Time (Melbourne, 1975), 104–49;Google Scholar idem, ‘Integration and communications technology in an emerging urban system’, Economic Geography, liv (1978), 1–16.Google Scholar

18. Urbanisation: The Evolution of an Australian Capital (Sydney, 1976).Google Scholar

19. See also his study, ‘The historical foundations of the South Australian urban system’, in Forster, C. A. and Stimson, R. J. (eds), Urban South Australia: Selected Readings (Adelaide, 1977), 3–22.Google Scholar

20. Compare Blainey, Geoffrey. The Tyranny of Distance (Melbourne, 1966),Google Scholar and see also Hirst, J. B., ‘Distance in Australia—Was it a tyrant?’, Historical Studies, xvi (1975), 435–47,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Geoffrey Blainey, ‘Essay On Distance’, ibid., 598–605.

21. See also his ‘Explanations of urban radicalism: old theories and new histories’, Historical Studies, xviii (1978), 68–87.Google Scholar

22. op. cit., ch. 10, and idem, ‘Sydney and the Bush: an urban context for the Australian legend’. Historical Studies, xviii (1978) (forthcoming).Google Scholar

23. Whitlam, E. G., Responsibilities for Urban and Regional Development (Canberra).Google Scholar

24. Neutze, Max, Urban Development in Australia (Sydney, 1977),Google Scholar contains a conspectus and bibliography, and Troy, P. N., A Fair Price: The Land Commission Program 1972–1977, (Sydney, 1978),Google Scholar outlines the relationship between the U.R.U. and the Whitlam government's programme.

25. Butlin himself has edited three substantial reports, Sydney's Environmental Amenity 1970–1975 (Canberra, 1976),Google Scholar Factory Waste Potential in Sydney (Canberra, 1977),Google Scholar and The Impact of Port Botany (Canberra, 1976),Google Scholar and an historical volume by Dan Coward, Sydney's Environmental Policy 1850–1970, is expected shortly.

26. See Capitalism, Socialism and the Environment (1976), 222.Google Scholar

27. The Inner Suburbs: The evolution of an industrial area (Melbourne, 1971).Google Scholar

28. Sinclair, W. A., ‘Economic growth and well-being: Melbourne 1870–1914’, Economic Record, li (1975), 153–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29. McConville, Christopher, ‘Outcast Melbourne: social deviance in the city, 1880–1914’ (M.A. thesis, University of Melbourne, 1974);Google Scholar Swain, Shurlee, ‘The Victorian charity network in the 1890s’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Melbourne, 1977).Google Scholar

30. Grabosky, Peter, Sydney in Ferment: Crime, dissent and official reaction 1788 to 1973 (Canberra, 1977).Google Scholar

31. Cannon, Michael, The Landboomers (Melbourne, 1966).Google Scholar

32. Sandercock, Leonie, Cities for Sale: Property, politics and urban planning in Australia (Melbourne, 1975).Google Scholar

33. Jones, M. A., Housing and Poverty in Australia (Melbourne, 1972);Google Scholar Spearritt, Peter ‘Sydney's ‘slums’: middle class reformers and the Labor response’, Labour History, xxvi (1974), 65–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34. Merrett, D. T., ‘Australian capital cities in the twentieth century’, in McCarty, J. W. and Schedvin, C. B. (eds), Australian Capital Cities: Historical essays (Sydney, 1978), 171–98.Google Scholar

35. op. cit., 7–46.

36. Ian Burnley (ed.), Urbanization in Australia: The post-war experience (1974); for further studies see the series of bibliographies on Australian migration edited by Charles Price.

37. The Sydney History Group comprises, besides professional historians, a number of architects, planners and people from other related disciplines and meets in private homes. For further information write to Dr Peter Spearritt, School of History, Philosophy and Politics, Macquarie University, North Ryde, New South Wales, 2113.

The Melbourne Urban History Seminar attracts historians and others mainly from universities and colleges in the Melbourne-Geelong area. For further information write to the author, Department of History, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, 3052.