Chinatowns as iconic enclaves exist in several Australian cities. Among them, Melbourne Chinatown is the oldest, which dates back to the gold rush in the 1850s. Early Chinese migrants settled along the Little Bourke Street on the outskirts of the city, which served as a staging post on their journey to goldfields. Lodging houses were...

This study injects urban design into global city discourse which frequently brushes over the micro-production of the built environment. Yet at this scale, the adaptation of design strategies and controls as a neoliberalist policy tools to shape a global city becomes apparent. The study focuses on the Sydney experience. It analyses the urban design elements...

The ways that the past impacts the Australian city in the present, sparking the historical consciousness of its residents and rulers alike, has its own social history. No doubt this history is tied to nineteenth-century Britain, the National Trusts and other voluntary organisations, and the farsighted local figures that drew attention to aspects of the...

In May 1920, the Prince of Wales attended a history pageant on Petone Beach. The highlight of the performance was a re-enactment of the arrival of New Zealand Company settlers at the same place 80 years earlier. For the occasion, a 6,000 seat amphitheatre and model Maori village were constructed at the intersection of Buick...

Enthusiasts in Launceston, the second biggest city in Tasmania, had pushed the virtues of town planning between 1915 and 1945 without much success because of a lack of effective legislation and of town planning expertise. The advent of the Town Planning Act 1944 and of the advice given by successive Town and County Planning Commissioners...