Australian Studies

SUBURBAN DEVELOPMENT IN SYDNEY 1850 TO 1920 Janet Robinson Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of M.A. (Honours) in Interdisciplinary Studies - Australian Studies. University of New South Wales 1989 I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of �ny other degree or diploma of a university or other institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledgement is made in the text. ABSTRACT In the 70 years from 1850 to 1920, Sydney grew to be a large city by world standards. The most significant feature of Sydney's growth in this period was the move of the majority of Sydney residents into detached, single storey houses in low density suburbs, creating a great suburban sprawl around the city. By 1921, Sydney and its suburbs spread out over 185 square miles. This study analyses the content of this growth and examines the influences on Sydney's suburban development from 1850, when the first suburbs appeared, to 1920. To put Sydney's suburban growth in context, the literature on suburbanisation in Britain, the United States and the other states of Australia has been examined to provide a basis of comparison by which the patterns and timing of Sydney's suburban development can be judged. The use of census data, maps, printed primary source material and field observation has been combined with an analysis and synthesis of the work of others on specific aspects of Sydney's growth. Photographs from the field observation have been used to illustrate the analysis of Sydney's changing residential preferences. Sydney's suburban development up to 1920 was the result of the operations of laissez-faire capitalism assisted by a lack of resistance in the structures of the colonial society to the spread of the suburbs. From the 1880s, trams, and to a lesser extent trains, allowed people to live in the suburbs and work in the city. The growth of the middle and lower middle classes in Sydney was intimately linked with the growth and form of Sydney's suburbs in this period. The influences on, and the agents of, Sydney's suburban development were similar to those operating in other parts of Australia, Britain and the United States. The pattern of responses to these influences varied somewhat in each place, with some differences in timing. In the long view, the responses have been remarkably similar resulting in the development of low density middle and lower middle class suburbs in each place. CONTENTS Introduction 1 1. Studying Suburbs 11 2. Sydney's Growth, 1850 to 1920 38 , 3. The Shapes of Sydney s Suburban Development 75 , 4. Influences on Sydney s Suburban Development 114 , 5. The Agents of Sydney s Suburban Development 149 6. Conclusion 189 Bibliography 196 All illustrations which have been derived from other sources are acknowledged in the text. The photographs containing no acknowledgement are original photographs taken by the author. Sydney and suburbs 1861. From a map in Census 1891. 0 2 • 6mu.. 11--,,---1-,11r--r1'½;_J'Tt-r.'-r--t--71.....,! Jo~rn A ALEXANDRIA B ANNANOALE C DARUNGTON O ERSl<INVII.. LE E GLEBE F HOMEBUSH Sydney and suburbs 1920-1930. From Richard Cardew "Flats in Sydney" Twentieth Century Sydney p. 75. INTRODUCTION In the 70 years from 1850 to 1920, Sydney grew to be a large city by world standards. My aim in carrying out the research for this report has been to collate and analyse the fragmented research on the development of suburban Sydney and to flesh this out with research of my own, to provide a framework for future directions of research and analysis of Sydney's suburban development. In this study I will examine the processes which led to Sydney's suburban development up to 1920. Despite Sydney's prominent role in the development of New South Wales and Australia, no comprehensive analysis has been undertaken of the processes underlying the early growth of Sydney's suburbs. Much of the analysis of Sydney's development has been parochial, focusing on Sydney as a unique entity. Individual suburbs, or strands of Sydney's development, have been put under the microscope for their own sakes or with the implied intent of seeing Sydney as special and different to the other Australian state capitals and the other cities of the Anglo-American world. An advance in the study of Sydney's development will be made when the similarities, as well as the differences, become 1 the focus of attention. For Sydney, we would benefit from more comparative analysis of the trends and agents operating within the various Sydney suburbs, as well as taking a broader view and evaluating the development of Sydney's suburbs against the experience in other suburbanising parts of the world in the 19th and 20th centuries. The suburban developments in Sydney in the second half of the 19th and the early 20th centuries require comparative analysis with other suburbanising parts of the world. Sydney was not unique. As a start, Sydney's development and its response to the forces of international capitalism should be compared with the suburban growth in the United States and Britain, as influential old and new world patterns of social organisation. Closer comparative analysis should show that the timing of developments in Sydney, in other Australian cities, in Britain and the United States, varied from place to place due to local circumstances and constraints. However, over a longer period, the various elements of suburban development, such as the development of low density suburbs, occurred in all the cities closely linked to the Western economy. A comparative analysis of this process, 2 and the variations in each place, will give us a much better understanding of the forces and values underlying our current suburban society. At times, Sydney was early in aspects of its development and response to modernising influences. Sydney's rapid, low density suburban spread is a good example of an early response to the reduction of spatial constraints made possible by efficient, fast public transport and a lack of restraints on the spread of the city. In other aspects of its suburban development, Sydney could be up to 50 years bebind developments in Britain and the United States. Sydney's suburban development was dominated by the unplanned operation of market forces and the maximisation of profit. Suburbs burgeoned and spread, because there was a demand which could be met by the subdivision of lands on the fringe of the built up area. This was a familiar process in Britain and the United States, but in those places, perhaps because of the more complex social and economic structures, planned suburbs were developed 50 years in advance of Sydney's first planning efforts. The work of examining Sydney's development will be facilitated by having available a broad overview of the development of the whole Sydney area from the 3 time suburban development began to take off. Peter Spearritt in Sydney Since the Twenties looks at aspects of Sydney's growth and culture from 1920 to about 1976. (1) Despite the different emphasis of his study from my work, I will confine my analysis of Sydney's suburban growth from 1850, when the early suburbs began developing outside the city proper, to 1920, the beginning point of Spearritt's study. My study along with Spearritt's work can provide an overview of Sydney's growth from its take-off in the mid 19th century to the middle of the 1970's. My analysis is cross disciplinary, drawing particularly on the techniques of urban and social history, geography and political science. This amalgam of techniques is becoming more common in studies of complex phenomena, such as cities, in which the different factors isolated for examination and analysis by the various disciplines complement one another to provide a more satisfactory explanation than the use of one set of disciplinary·techniques alone can provide. (2) The current concentration of research on Sydney on the development of the inner ·suburbs, the deteiiorating working class _housing in the city and the formation of the working class, while important, needs to be extended to look at the development of the middle and lower middle classes 4 and the place of the intermediate and outer suburbs in this process. In terms of social stratification, Sydney's suburbs were probably a great social laboratory. I suspect this was also the case in the United States and Britain. In Sydney, those who moved to the middle and outer suburbs had accepted, or were struggling for, the mantle of middle class respectability. This is a fruitful field for comparative studies of Sydney's suburbs, charting the process of the increasing embourgeoisement of segments of the Sydney population. As well, the class developments in Sydney and their manifestation in the suburbs should be studied against the developments in other cities, to add to our understanding of whether the Sydney experience was similar to or different from suburban life in other places. Sydney is a city blessed with a temperate climate and an exceptional ~hysical setting. Did these physical attributes make any difference to the development of suburban Sydney and the suburban development in other cities with harsher climates and fewer natural attractions? Outdoor life is an important part of the experience of Sydney suburbanites. Backyards became an important part of the Sydney suburban lifestyle. As well, the harbour, the ocean beaches and outdoor sporting 5 facilities have been important elements in the quality of life of Sydney suburbanites in the 20th century.

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