Melbourne city

It is situated at the head of Port Phillip Bay and the mouth of the Yarra River. The area was discovered by Europeans in 1802 and incorporated into the colony of New South Wales. The first permanent settlement was founded in 1835 by settlers from Tasmania, and in 1837 it was named for the British prime minister, Lord Melbourne. The city was made the capital of Victoria in 1851, and it grew rapidly with the gold rush of the early 1850s. It served as the first capital of the Australian commonwealth (1901–27), until Canberra became the new capital. Second in size to Sydney, it is an industrial, commercial, and financial centre and the seat of several universities, including the University of Melbourne.

The landscape
THE CITY SITE
Metropolitan Melbourne is situated at the northern end of Port Phillip Bay, 30 nautical miles (55 km) from the bay’s narrow entrance. Most of the flat terrain is less than 390 feet (120 metres) above sea level. The expansion of Melbourne from its origins at the mouth of the Yarra River to its present shape displays a strong correlation with the geology and drainage of the land. West of the original city site, basalt flows during the Cenozoic Era (i.e., the last 65 million years) filled the existing valleys and left flat, uniform plains. The eastern region, however, consists of undulating and dissected beds of sandstones, shales, and conglomerates laid down in the Silurian and Devonian periods (about 445 to 360 million years ago). The thicker soils of the eastern region, together with its higher annual rainfall, supported a much denser cover of trees than on the basalt plains. Not surprisingly, the development of Melbourne has been mainly eastward into the broad reaches of land between Darebin Creek, the Plenty and Yarra rivers, and Koonung and Gardiners creeks. In a strikingly asymmetrical fashion, Melbourne’s urban development presently lines the entire eastern shore of Port Phillip Bay, from the mouth of the Yarra River to Point Nepean, 60 miles (97 km) distant, while corresponding development on the west coast of the bay extends for only 10 miles (16 km).

climate

Melbourne’s weather results from the eastward flow of high-pressure cells separated by low-pressure troughs. These patterns follow a course that passes south of the continent in summer and over northern Victoria in winter. The annual rainfall of 26 inches (660 mm) is fairly evenly distributed throughout the year, with October usually the wettest month and January the driest. Temperatures are moderate, only rarely falling below freezing; average daily maximum temperatures vary from 55 °F (13 °C) in July to 79 °F (26 °C) in January. Winds associated with the eastward passage of weather systems ensure that Melbourne is spared the serious of some other large cities.

THE CITY LAYOUT

The area of original settlement in Melbourne, which today forms its financial, legal, administrative, and ecclesiastical heart, was laid out in a rectangular pattern that has not changed. The area has a frontage along the Yarra River. Within this core are the major suburban and interstate railway stations, Victoria’s Houses of Parliament, the Anglican and Roman Catholic cathedrals, arts and entertainment venues, museums, the Law Courts, the State Library, and many financial institutions, including the Melbourne Stock Exchange and the headquarters of major banks. Central to this area are two major destinations, Bourke and Swanston streets, which have been transformed into pedestrian malls, closed to automobile traffic. Most of the city’s buildings are modern, but the Town Hall, the Law Courts, and the Exhibition Building provide excellent examples of 19th-century official architecture. The city is divided into 14 precincts, sectors identified by ethnic concentration, commercial clusters, or attractions.

The people

PATTERNS OF IMMIGRATION

The first official census of Melbourne, in 1836, numbered 177 persons, of whom 35 were females. In the 1850s the gold rush in nearby areas of Victoria sparked the city’s first major period of immigration. Newcomers came principally from other Australian colonies and Britain. By the 1920s Melbourne had become the home of more than half the residents of Victoria, and toward the end of World War II it reached a population of 1,000,000. This trend continued throughout the 20th century. By 2000 the Melbourne metropolitan area comprised nearly three-fourths of Victoria’s population.

MOVE TO THE SUBURBS

In the 1940s about 90 percent of Melbourne’s residents lived within 10 miles (16 km) of the central business district. This proportion fell to less than 50 percent by the 1980s as the outer suburban areas grew correspondingly. By 1966 the population of the Melbourne area had exceeded two million, and the city limits were rapidly being pushed eastward. The migrants from southern Europe were at first concentrated in the older industrial suburbs, where they found lower rents and nearby job opportunities. In those areas support was available from earlier immigrants and the associations they had established. As these people prospered, they embraced the Australian dream of owning a home on a quarter-acre plot and began to move to the outer suburbs. By the mid-1990s the area’s population had surpassed the three million mark. By the end of the 20th century, however, the trend of moving to the suburbs had begun to reverse itself. The central city became increasingly residential as many aging buildings were rehabilitated and repurposed as housing. Melbourne’s suburbs, on the whole, represent a fairly even mixture of and occupations, although some western sections can be typified as working-class districts.

The economy

INDUSTRY AND TRADE

That Melbourne dominates the economic life of Victoria is not surprising—the city contains the bulk of the state’s population. It is Victoria’s financial centre and seat of government and is at the hub of the communications network linking the state to the rest of Australia and the world.

The city’s original core offers the most employment, but employment is growing at a faster rate in the outer suburbs. The central city mainly holds service activities such as banking, insurance, retailing, entertainment, public accommodation, and railway transportation. Surrounding this core is an incomplete ring of inner industrial suburbs, where the first clothing and metal factories were established in the 19th century. In the outer suburbs, particularly to the east, small manufacturing areas began to develop after World War II, when these suburbs could offer large areas of inexpensive land, few problems of traffic congestion, and an increasing population.

TRANSPORTATION

Melbourne is well served by an integrated public transportation system of electric trains, buses, and tramcars, the latter a signature sight in the city. A network of national highways links Melbourne with adjoining states, and a system of freeways was greatly upgraded in the 1990s, including the creation of the Western Ring Road as a bypass route. The City Link project joined three major freeways with a bridge, tunnels, highway extensions, and interchanges to facilitate traffic movement. An underground rail loop serves the central business district. Melbourne’s international and domestic airport is located at Tullamarine, 14 miles (23 km) northwest of the city’s centre.

Administration and social conditions

GOVERNMENT

The Victoria state government has the ultimate responsibility for Melbourne’s major planning decisions and for providing its principal health, educational, and transport services. Local government in the Melbourne Statistical Division is provided by more than 30 entities. Councillors, led by a lord mayor, are elected under a system of compulsory voting conducted by mail. Councillors receive a stipend and represent the city at large. The councils pass local ordinances and control a number of services connected with building regulations, community welfare, garbage collection, and vehicle parking. Revenue for these purposes is raised by property taxes (rates).

HEALTH AND EDUCATION

Since the system of free public hospitals was started in 1846, it has grown to encompass numerous special facilities, which deal with either particular ailments or categories of patients, as well as general hospitals. There are, in addition, many private hospitals.

The University of Melbourne, one of the oldest in Australia, was established in 1853 (though the first students were admitted in 1855); Monash and La Trobe universities were established in the 1960s, and Deakin University, established in 1974, maintains three campuses. Melbourne also has colleges of advanced education that offer degrees or diplomas in a variety of technical and academic subjects.

Cultural life

ARTS

Melbourne’s already rich cultural life was greatly enhanced during the period between 1968 and 1984, when the Victorian Arts Centre was created on the south bank of the Yarra River close to the city’s centre. It encompasses the National Gallery of Victoria, the Melbourne Concert Hall, and several theatres, among other facilities for the arts.

The National Gallery of Victoria was originally opened in 1861 and moved to its present site in the arts centre in 1968. It houses several outstanding collections, including, most notably, Australian art ranging from the colonial period to modern times; European art, with 18th-century works particularly well represented; and .

RECREATION

Automobile license plates in Victoria carry the identification “Victoria—Garden State.” Melbourne is worthy as the capital of a garden state, with more than one-fourth of its inner-city area consisting of public parks and reserves. These spaces were set aside in the mid-19th century, at a time when many civic leaders in other cities were concerned with commercial development rather than with the quality of life. Extensive tracts have also been allotted as parklands in the newer outer suburbs.

The most famous park in Melbourne is the Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG). This area of 89 acres (36 hectares) was established in 1846 and today contains lakes, lawns, and thousands of named trees and shrubs. The associated National Herbarium of Victoria, which houses a collection of 1,200,000 pressed plant specimens, is internationally recognized and used by scholars. The RBG also maintains a separate 200-acre (80-hectare) facility at Cranbourne, about 30 miles (48 km) southeast of central Melbourne.

History

Early settlement

Port Phillip Bay was discovered by Europeans in 1802, when Lieutenant John Murray and Captain Matthew Flinders visited the bay within a few months of each other. This area was then part of the colony of New South Wales, and the colony’s governor, Philip Gidley King, instructed the surveyor-general, Charles Grimes, to examine the shores of the bay with a view to identifying sites for future settlement. In 1803 Grimes and his party discovered the Yarra River and traveled along its lower course. Unlike some members of the party, Grimes was not enthusiastic about the Yarra River as a potential settlement. Later in the same year Captain arrived with a contingent of soldiers and convicts and settled near Sorrento, just inside the entrance to the bay on the east coast. Within a few months, however, he decided that the location was unsuitable and moved his group to Tasmania.

Growth of the city

Melbourne capitalized on its central position within Victoria and its port facilities to capture most of the region’s trade. Between 1856 and 1873, railways were built to Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Echuca, and Wodonga, and in 1883 a link with the New South Wales rail system was established at Albury. In 1877 the Melbourne Harbour Trust was created, and the Coode Canal was cut in the soft alluvial sediments of the lower Yarra River to provide a more direct course free from silting problems.

During the 1870s manufacturing flourished under the protection of a high tariff, and progress in most spheres continued until 1889, when a financial crisis and the collapse of many firms lowered public confidence. The following decade witnessed a severe economic depression that began with a maritime strike and the failure of a number of banks and was sealed by seven years of drought from 1895 to 1902. In the decade before 1891 the population of Melbourne had increased by 200,000; in the following decade it rose by only 6,000.

In the early years of the 20th century, confidence gradually revived. Australia became a commonwealth, and Melbourne served as its federal capital until 1927, when Canberra was established. World Wars I and II encouraged the growth of manufacturing, and after 1945 European immigrants began to arrive in significant numbers.

After 1971 Melbourne’s rate of growth slackened as immigration declined, and economic conditions worsened through the 1970s and early ’80s. Nevertheless, during this period of slower population growth a number of major changes took place. The appearance of the inner city was transformed by the replacement of old buildings with multistory office structures and hotels. The system of arterial roads was improved dramatically. Several important suburban economic areas emerged, reducing the retail and industrial importance of the city’s centre. And the cultural life of the city was immeasurably enlivened by the completion of the Victorian Arts Centre. The revitalization of central Melbourne continued after 1990 as the residential population grew and the massive Docklands development project began to transform the long-neglected waterfront area into a spectacular urban showplace.