Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T20:19:35.227Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Urban disruption, suburbanization and retail innovation: establishing shopping centres in Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2019

Matthew Bailey Open the ORCID record for Matthew Bailey [Opens in a new window]
Matthew Bailey*
Affiliation:
Macquarie University Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations, North Ryde, New South Wales 2109, Australia
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Australian cities were transformed in the 1950s and 1960s by the spread of the automobile and suburbanization. This article examines the patterns of retail diffusion that followed and the resultant adoption of the shopping centre form. Further, it considers the broader implications of retail innovation during a period of urban disruption, revealing intersections between urban geographies, business innovation and retail hierarchies. In the Australian case, dominant firms were able to leverage their market power to adapt to shifting retail geographies and new technologies, while some small entrepreneurial developers catering to the needs of these established retailers laid foundations for national and international expansion. A by-product of these processes was the creation of a unique Australian shopping centre form.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 152 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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 Longstreth, R.W., City Center to Regional Mall: Architecture, the Automobile, and Retailing in Los Angeles, 1920–1950 (Cambridge, MA, 1997)Google Scholar; Cohen, L., ‘From town center to shopping center: the reconfiguration of community marketplaces in postwar America’, American Historical Review, 101 (1996), 1050–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jackson, K.T., ‘All the world's a mall: reflections on the social and economic consequences of the American shopping center’, American Historical Review, 101 (1996), 1111–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Farrell, J.J., One Nation under Goods: Malls and the Seduction of American Shopping (Washington, DC, 2003)Google Scholar; Cohen, L., ‘Is there an urban history of consumption?’, Journal of Urban History, 29 (2003), 87–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Gosseye, J. and Avermaete, T. (eds.), Shopping Towns Europe: Commercial Collectivity and the Architecture of the Shopping Centre, 1945–1975 (London and New York, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dávila, A., El Mall: The Spatial and Class Politics of Shopping Malls in Latin America (Oakland, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jewell, N., Shopping Malls and Public Space in Modern China (Farnham, 2015)Google Scholar; Dick, H.W. and Rimmer, P.J., ‘Beyond the third world city: the new urban geography of South-east Asia’, Urban Studies, 35 (1998), 2303–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Abaza, M., ‘Shopping malls, consumer culture and the reshaping of public space in Egypt’, Theory, Culture & Society, 18 (2001), 97–122CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Scott, P., The Property Masters: A History of the British Commercial Property Sector (London, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Guy, C., ‘Whatever happened to regional shopping centres?’, Geography, 79 (1994), 293–312Google Scholar.

4 Bailey, M., ‘Retailing and the home in 1960s Sydney’, History Australia, 11 (2014), 59–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Spearritt, P., ‘Suburban cathedrals: the rise of the drive-in shopping centre’, in Davison, G., Dingle, T. and O'Hanlon, S. (eds.), The Cream Brick Frontier: Histories of Australian Suburbia (Clayton, VIC, 1995), 88–107Google Scholar; Davison, Graeme, Car Wars: How the Car Won our Hearts and Conquered our Cities (Crows Nest, NSW, 2004), 104–8Google Scholar.

5 Sammartino, A. and Ruth, F. Van, ‘The Westfield group’, in Dick, H. and Merrett, D. (eds.), The Internationalisation Strategies of Small-Country Firms: The Australian Experience of Globalisation (Cheltenham, 2007), 308–18Google Scholar; Bailey, M., ‘Absorptive capacity, international business knowledge transfer and local adaptation: establishing discount department stores in Australia’, Australian Economic History Review, 57 (2017), 194–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bailey, M., ‘Marketing to the big middle: establishing Australian discount department stores’, Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, 8 (2016), 416–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Vernon, P., ‘Shopping towns Australia’, Fabrications, 22 (2012), 102–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Allan, A., ‘Marion: a study of a super-regional centre and its impact on Adelaide’, Urban Policy and Research, 16 (1998), 117–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bailey, M., ‘Shopping for entertainment: malls and multiplexes in Sydney, Australia’, Urban History, 42 (2015), 309–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Moutou, C.J., ‘Car parking matters: adapting to changing customer mobility in neighborhood town centers of an inner city area of Sydney’, Journal of Urban History, 39 (2013), 690–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Census of Retail Establishments, 1948–53.

10 ABS, Motor Vehicle Census, Australia, 1955–71.

11 ‘Norman Nock, A.C.R. President's Annual Report’, Retail Merchandiser, Jul. 1956, 18.

12 Coles Myer Archive (CMA), box 142, letter from James B. Griffen, secretary, Retail Traders’ Association of New South Wales to the town clerk, town hall, Sydney, 27 Sep. 1963; CMA, box 142, Peter Hyde, suburban opportunities in Sydney metropolitan area – Sydney survey, May 1965, 14. See also ‘Sydney off-street parking’, Retail Merchandiser, Oct. 1956, 27; the Myer Emporium annual report (Melbourne, 1955); ‘Hordern's believe in car parking’, Retail Merchandiser, Feb. 1961, 15.

13 Cumberland County Council, The Effects of Urban Decentralisation on the City and Suburban Business Centres (Sydney, 1958), 5–7Google Scholar.

14 Farrell, One Nation under Goods, 7–8.

15 Spearritt, ‘Suburban cathedrals’, 96.

16 ‘Australia's first drive in centre’, Retail Merchandiser, Jul. 1957, 25–6.

17 CMA, box 2735, S. Barber, oral history interview with Arthur Coles, 24 Feb. 1988, T19/1988, transcript, 6, 16.

18 Courier Mail, 29 May 1970, 20–3. See also CMA, box 1941, press release, ‘The Myer Emporium Limited Melbourne’, 23 Feb. 1959; CMA, box 1800, ‘Australia's largest regional shopping centre: Chadstone’, c. 1959.

19 Modern Merchandising Methods (MMM), Australian Shopping Centres (Australia, 1965), 3Google Scholar; Kingston, B., Basket, Bag and Trolley: A History of Shopping in Australia (Melbourne, 1994), 80Google Scholar.

20 Spearritt, ‘Suburban cathedrals’, 88.

21 Sydney Morning Herald, 12 Nov. 1957, 19.

22 ABS, Census of Retail Establishments, 1956/57.

23 Spearritt, ‘Suburban cathedrals’, 96–7.

24 T.W. Beed, ‘The growth of suburban retailing in Sydney: a preliminary study of some factors affecting the form and function of suburban shopping centres’, University of Sydney Ph.D. thesis, 1964, 158.

25 Barber, S.M., Your Store Myer: The Story of Australia's Leading Department Store (Woolloomooloo, NSW, 2008), 85–102Google Scholar.

26 The Myer Emporium annual report (Melbourne, 1955).

27 Courier Mail, 29 May 1957, 22.

28 ‘The future of retailing’, Retail Merchandiser, Jun. 1957, 15.

29 Beed, ‘The growth of suburban retailing’, 228; CMA, box 142, letter from Keith Kelly, Larry Smith & Company to George McCahon, the Myer Emporium, 11 Jun. 1963.

30 CMA, box 142, minutes of a meeting in Mr A.H. Tolley's Office 10am Tuesday 9 Aug., reference Sydney branch development, 1961.

31 Barber, Your Store Myer, 89.

32 ABS, Census of Retail Establishments, 1956/57.

33 Beed, ‘The growth of suburban retailing’, 161.

34 CMA, box 142, memorandum: the drift from the cities, 29 Jul. 1963.

35 CMA, box 142, Larry Smith & Company, market analysis of the Sydney metropolitan area prepared for Farmer & Company Limited, 21 May 1963, 3; ABS, Census of Retail Establishments, 1961/62.

36 MMM, Australian Shopping Centres, 2.

37 CMA, box 142, Peter Hyde, suburban opportunities in Sydney metropolitan area – Sydney survey, May 1965, 3.

38 Author interview with Reg Jebb, 23 Feb. 2015; Ebury, S., The Many Lives of Kenneth Myer (Carlton, VIC, 2008), 236–7, 263–4Google Scholar.

39 G. Davison, ‘From the market to the mall’, background report, Victorian Retail Policy Review, Department of Planning and Community Development, Dec. 2006.

40 Cumberland County Council, The Effects of Urban Decentralisation, 8–10.

41 MMM, Shopping Centres – Australia (Sydney, c. 1970), n.p.

42 Brown, S., ‘A perceptual approach to retail agglomeration’, Area, 19 (1987), 131Google Scholar.

43 Author interview with Tony Dimasi, 3 Nov. 2014.

44 State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW), MLOH 451, nos. 23 and 24, J. Hudson, oral history interview with Fraser Coss, c. 1995, transcript, 12.

45 Author interview with Andrew Scott (former director of strategy and property Coles Myer), 31 Mar. 2015.

46 Blacktown Advocate, 25 Jun. 1959, 12.

47 CMA, box 957, Coles Timeline, c. 1978; CMA, box 2735, S. Barber, oral history interview with Sir Thomas North, 13 Jan. 1986, T3/1986, transcript, 8; CMA, box 2735, S. Barber, oral history interview with Bevan Bradbury, 18 Dec. 1985, T41/1985, transcript, 5; Westfield Holdings Ltd, The Westfield Story: The First 40 Years (Sydney, 2000), 33Google Scholar.

48 CMA, box 2735, S. Barber, oral history interview with Bevan Bradbury.

49 Westfield Holdings Ltd, The Westfield Story, 33.

50 Sammartino and Van Ruth, ‘The Westfield group’, 308–10.

51 Westfield also built centres at Dee Why and Yagoona in Sydney, but details such as retail floor space and tenancy mix are unavailable. See, MMM, Shopping Centres – Australia, n.p.

52 SLNSW, MLOH 451, nos. 23 and 24, J. Hudson, oral history interview with Fraser Coss, c. 1995, transcript, 24.

53 CMA, box 1505, S. Barber, oral history interview with Lance Robinson, 1985, transcript, 29; CMA, box 2735, S. Barber, oral history interview with Jim Thomas, 9 Dec. 1987, T58/1987, transcript, 41–2.

54 CMA, box 2735, S. Barber, oral history interview with Jim Thomas, 41–2, 47.

55 Kemeny, J., ‘The South Australian Housing Trust: a socioeconomic case study in public housing’, Australian Journal of Social Issues, 15 (1980), 109CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peel, M., Planning the Good City in Australia: Elizabeth as a New Town (Canberra, 1992), 10Google Scholar; Groenhart, L., ‘Employment of public housing residents in Australian cities’, Urban Policy and Research, 33 (2015), 294CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Peel, Planning the Good City, 3–4.

57 Kemeny, ‘The South Australian Housing Trust’, 109; Marsden, S., ‘The South Australian Housing Trust, Elizabeth and twentieth-century heritage’, Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, 28 (2000), 55Google Scholar.

58 Baker, G. and Funaro, B., Shopping Centers: Design and Operation (New York, 1956), 81Google Scholar.

59 SAHT, Proposed Shopping Facilities, Elizabeth South Australia (SAHT, 30 Jun. 1961), 2.

60 H.P. Smith, ‘Town planning in Elizabeth, South Australia’, Architecture Today, Jan. 1959, 19–23.

61 MMM, Shopping Centres – Australia, n.p.

62 D.C. Ward, ‘An architect abroad’, Retail Merchandiser, Dec. 1963, 26.

63 ‘New South Australian town’, Retail Merchandiser, Jan. 1957, 10; Herbert, G., ‘Elizabeth – the dream and the reality of an Australian new town’, Hemisphere, 7 (1963), 11–16Google Scholar.

64 Marsden, ‘The South Australian Housing Trust’, 50.

65 In 1982, Elizabeth town centre was acquired under a 99-year lease under a joint venture between Myer Shopping Centres and Jennings Industries.

66 Greenhalgh, J., ‘Consuming communities: the neighbourhood unit and the role of retail spaces on British housing estates, 1944–1958’, Urban History, 43 (2016), 158–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 CMA, box 2735, S. Barber, oral history interview with Brian Quinn, 10 Jul. 1987, T48/1987, transcript, 10.

68 For a discussion of research on this issue, see Greenhalgh, ‘Consuming communities’, 169.

69 Ward, ‘An architect abroad’, 26.

70 Vernon, ‘Shopping towns Australia’, 108.

71 Davison, Car Wars, 105.

72 ‘Sir Norman Myer's death’, Retail Merchandiser, Jan. 1957, 9.

73 Author interview with Reg Jebb, 23 Feb. 2015; Davison, ‘From the market to the mall’.

74 Ebury, The Many Lives, 236–7, 263–4.

75 Vernon, ‘Shopping towns Australia’, 108.

76 Author interview with Reg Jebb, 23 Feb. 2015.

77 Davison, ‘From the market to the mall’.

78 Davison, Car Wars, 105; CMA, box 1429, letter from Larry Smith & Company to George McCahon, the Myer Emporium, Ltd, 22 Dec. 1958; Hutson, A., ‘“I dream of Jeannie”? The American origins of the Chadstone shopping centre’, Fabrications, 9 (1999), 23–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

79 CMA, box 1941, J. Carter, ‘First one-stop-shop revolutionizes Australian's shopping habits’, 3 Sep. 1980; Davison, ‘From the market to the mall’.

80 ‘Australia's largest’, Retail Merchandiser, May 1960, 8–10.

81 Ebury, The Many Lives, 265.

82 The Sun, 4 Aug. 1960, 26–7; The Herald, 17 Sep. 1960, 3 Oct. 1960, 25; ‘The Chadstone project’, Retail Merchandiser, May 1960, 8–10.

83 Davison, ‘From the market to the mall’; The Sun, 4 Aug. 1960, 26–7.

84 CMA, box 1941, press release, Chadstone shopping centre, 19 Feb. 1959.

85 CMA, box 1800, Chadstone News, no. 2, c. 1960.

86 CMA, box 1941, press release, Chadstone shopping centre participants, 15 May 1959.

87 G.J. Connor, ‘A surfeit of centres’, Retail Merchandiser, Feb. 1958, 13.

88 MMM, Australian Shopping Centres.

89 Bailey, ‘Absorptive capacity’; Bailey, ‘Marketing to the big middle’.

90 Author interview, Micheal Lloyd (former Lend Lease executive), 11 Jun. 2014.

91 Author interview, John Schroder (former CEO Commercial Property, Stockland), 4 Mar. 2015.