Cirrus@Austlit

Australia is one of the most heavily urbanised nations on earth. It also has an extraordinarily large concentration of its population in large metropolitan centres. This is surprising given Australia's reputation overseas (and its image of itself) as a country of wide-open spaces, laconic bushfolk and an economy built on rural industries and mining. This course will examine the history of the growth and development of city and suburban living in Australia. Theories and models of city development will be presented - the commercial city, the industrial city, the metropolis and the hinterland, ideal cities and garden suburbs, the post-modern city - and their applicability to the history of urban development in Australia explored. Themes to be examined will include: poverty, crime and corruption; the revolutions in public health, transport and communications; suburbia and domestic architecture; planning, city architecture, and high culture; settlement patterns, immigration, urban decay and urban rebirth.