Water, history and the Australian city Urbanism, suburbanism and watering a dry continent, 1788-2015 Lionel Frost, Andrea Gaynor, Jenny Gregory, Ruth Morgan, Seamus O’Hanlon, Peter Spearritt, John Young 2 | Water, history and the Australian city Water, history and the Australian city Urbanism, suburbanism and water in a dry continent, 1788-2015 Understanding social processes to achieve water sensitive cities (Project A2.1) A2.1 – 2 - 2016 This report provides the historical context for Australian urban and suburban development in the period since European colonisation in 1788. Author Lionel Frost1, 4, Andrea Gaynor2, 4, Jenny Gregory2, 4, Ruth Morgan1, 4, Seamus O’Hanlon1, 4, Peter Spearritt3, 4, John Young1 1 Monash University 2 The University of Western Australia 3 The University of Queensland 4 CRC for Water Sensitive Cities © 2016 Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities Pty Ltd. This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of it may be reproduced by any process without written permission from the publisher. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction rights should be directed to the publisher. Publisher Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities Level 1, 8 Scenic Blvd, Clayton Campus Monash University Clayton, VIC 3800 p. +61 3 9902 4985 e. [email protected] w. www.watersensitivecities.org.au Date of publication: July 2016 ISBN: 978-1-921912-38-2 An appropriate citation for this document is: Frost, L., Gaynor, A., Gregory, J., Morgan, R., O’Hanlon, S., Spearritt, P and Young, P. (2016) Water, history and the Australian city: urbanism, suburbanism and water in a dry continent, 1788-2015, Melbourne, Australia: Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities. Disclaimer The CRC for Water Sensitive Cities has endeavoured to ensure that all information in this publication is correct. It makes no warranty with regard to the accuracy of the information provided and will not be liable if the information is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date nor be liable for any direct or indirect damages arising from its use. The contents of this publication should not be used as a substitute for seeking independent professional advice. CRC for Water Sensitive Cities | 3 Table of contents Table of figures 5 Executive summary 6 Introduction: water, history and the Australian city 8 Part One: From Greater Brisbane to the ‘200 Kilometre City’ 10 Low densities and the ubiquitous ‘Queenslander’ 10 The coming of Greater Brisbane 12 The American invasion 12 A car-based metropolis 13 Suburban subdivision and the sewering of Brisbane 13 Belated modernisation 15 The decline of manufacturing and the rise of service industries 16 The making of the 200 kilometre city 17 From flood to drought 19 The water grid and desalination to the rescue 20 The shock of the 2011 flood 21 Conclusion 22 Part Two: Melbourne - watering the suburban city 23 Introduction: the origins of sprawl 23 Water and colonial Melbourne 23 Problems of growth 25 Addressing environmental disamenity 26 Twentieth Century Melbourne: from depression to Fordism to Neo-liberalism 29 The collapse of the boom: Federation and the lead up to the First World War 29 The interwar years 30 Postwar: Heartbreak Streets 32 1960s and 1970s: Fordism, new dams and sewerage 34 Post-1980s: the turn to economic rationalism, pricing, pipelines and desalination 35 Conclusion 36 4 | Water, history and the Australian city Table of contents (cont.) Part Three: Perth - water for a sandy city 37 Introduction 37 Living with wells and cesspits: 1829-1886 38 The gold boom and water needs: 1887-1917 38 Continuing water crises: 1918-1925 39 The era of big dams commences: 1925-1945 41 Suburban and industrial expansion: 1946-1959 42 The thirst increases and a new boom begins: 1960-1969 44 Scarcity returns: 1970-1978 45 A growing water consciousness: 1978-1994 47 Curbing consumption: 1994-2000 48 Water crisis: 2001-2005 48 Drought-proofing a drying city: 2006-2015 49 Conclusion 51 Conclusion: urban water sensitivity 53 Timelines 54 References 56 Introduction 56 Part one 56 Part two 57 Part three 59 CRC for Water Sensitive Cities | 5 Table of figures Figure 1: Private home size in Greater Brisbane 11 Figure 2: The Sewering of Brisbane 14 Figure 3: Employment by Sector Post-War Brisbane 16 Figure 4: Twenty-First Century Brisbane Population 17 Figure 5: South East Queensland Population Densities, 2006. 18 Figure 6: Hoddle’s Grid 23 Figure 7: The Yarra and its Tributaries 24 Figure 8: Melbourne, 1901. 28 Figure 9: Melbourne Urban Densities, 1929. 30 Figure 10: ‘Californian’ Bungalow, Preston, 1932. 31 Figure 11: ‘Heartbreak Street’, Moorabbin, 1955. 33 Figure 12: Melbourne Statistical District, 1970. 34 Figure 13: Plan showing existing and proposed water supply of Perth and suburbs, 1903. 40 Figure 14: Plan for the Perth Metropolitan Area 43 Figure 15: Perth estimated annual average daily water usage 44 Figure 16: Water Corporation Drinking Water Supply, Integrated Water Supply Scheme, 2011. 50 6 | Water, history and the Australian city Executive summary This report provides the historical context for Australian and policy-makers seek to move us towards a more urban and suburban development in the period since water sensitive future, rather than try to impose new European colonisation in 1788. The report is a deliverable morphologies, habits and practices on a likely unwilling for Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities Australian public, they should instead actively work with (CRCWSC) project on ‘Understanding social processes to new and existing suburban communities to adapt received achieve water sensitive cities’ (Project A2.1). ideas about residential and dwelling cultures to these new hydrological constraints. While the major focus is the three key node cities of the CRCWSC (Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth) the report While the report makes clear that Australians have also provides background information on the histories of traditionally been profligate with water, we also other Australian cities and locates the Australian urban demonstrate that they have always shown a remarkable experience within international contexts of the ‘settler willingness to adapt water habits and usage during times societies’ of the so-called New World. of crisis. Our report proves that whereas in the past planners and governments have traditionally looked to The key three cities have differing early histories as well ‘big engineering’ solutions such as newer and ever-larger as climate and topographic differences – sub-tropical dams (or more recently desalination plants) in order to and hilly Brisbane, temperate and flat Melbourne, and deal with issues around water supply and demand, in Mediterranean and flat Perth. Despite these differences, practice two important but administratively simple and residents of each of these cities as with residents of cheap policy changes have had the greatest impact: water all Australian cities - have from at least since the late pricing and public education campaigns. nineteenth century demonstrated a clear preference for suburban rather than urban living, and a strong preference The latter has been especially effective during periods for low-density, detached dwellings over higher-density of drought. The historical evidence overwhelmingly attached ones. They have also demonstrated a willingness demonstrates that once the impacts of drought and to wear the elevated private costs associated with these wasteful usage of water have been explained, urban dwelling and ‘lifestyle’ choices. Australians have adapted their water use and behaviours to fit the short-term need for restraint. We see no reason In this report we draw on the historical concept of why that should not remain the case into the future. We ‘path dependency’ - that is the key constraining roles thus recommend that in a climate change-influenced that decisions made or not made in the past have on water constrained-future, public education campaigns contemporary practices and policy options. This central about the importance of water sensitivity should become a concept leads us to argue that as planners, engineers permanent component of public policy. CRC for Water Sensitive Cities | 7 8 | Water, history and the Australian city Introduction: water, history and the Australian city While Australia’s self-image, and that which we like to Australia’s major urban settlements are thus not really project to the world, is of a rural or ‘Bush’ people, the cities at all in the way this term is understood in most reality is the nation is one of the most urbanised societies other parts of the world. Australia’s major urban areas are in the world. More than 60% of Australians live in the eight reflective of the values and tastes of the immigrant ‘settler’ State and Territory capitals, and nearly 40% in the two societies founded in the English-speaking New Worlds largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne alone. This has long of North America and Australasia in the last decades been the case, with each of the six colonies founded as of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the urban settlements which have remained their individual nineteenth. Economic historian Lionel Frost has argued state’s dominant population centre to this day. that Australia’s cities, especially Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth should thus be seen, like their counterparts on the west coast of North America, as part of a ‘new urban But Australian cities are unusual in that rather than being frontier’ – cities dominated by detached single-family compact and dominated by high-density apartment houses, and thus low-density and sprawling.4 Sydney, blocks and other tall buildings as is the case in major Brisbane and Hobart have different foundational stories to cities internationally, the most notable feature is the these other later cities, and their higher dwelling densities predominance of the single-storey detached family homes and layouts reflect both their hilly topographical locations as the standard dwelling type.