A history of Australian capital city centres since 1945

Abstract

The working paper is divided into two main parts. Historical development of Australia's capital city centres provides a brief overview setting the city centre in its historical context. This section considers the whole city not just the centre, but also refers to developments which have shaped and are still evident in city centres. It should also be noted that the cities and their centres were one and the same to begin with and that the centre retained most of the urban population and services for many years, in Darwin’s case until well after World War II. City centres since World War II comprises the longest section of the paper. This discusses the postwar city centre in terms of major historical themes chosen from the thematic framework developed in the heritage report. These headings are arranged so that the first themes in each thematic section are the most general and set the context for those following.