Residents of the regional city of Swan Hill, Victoria have long held an ambivalent attitude to their state capital, Melbourne. Reviewing present-day Swan Hill and particularly the cultural life of its youth — the demographic section of the population which primarily is seen to constitute the town's “future” — this paper examines young people’s responses to Melbourne, their access to it, their use of it, as well as their lives in their regional home town.

This analysis of the links between the experiences of youth and regional and metropolitan places is positioned in the context of successive urban and social planning schemes for Swan Hill since the Second World War. These aimed to create a unique local culture and to emphasise the attractions of a regional city to all residents — with a focus on community identity and “rural values”— in preference to the a large scale, cosmopolitan conurbation like Melbourne.