A City In The Country 

At 2:04 we see $35,000 for a house. Now it would be more than that in government stamp duty charges etc. Before you start paying for the house.

What an amazing step back in time and one I remember from my childhood. I remember my father considered moving from Sydney to Albury in the 1960's and he was outvoted by my sister and myself who made an awful fuss about the possibility of having to leave our friends. 60yrs later and I have moved into the area and wonder why it took me so long.

Even now, nothing has improved. The coastal cities get bigger, whilst small rural towns that were still reasonably civilized in 1974, have virtually died away to nothing. The government has no problem in encouraging new immigrants to arrive in mammoth numbers, but then fails to redirect them to rural areas once here. Other than Canberra, Australia lacks any inland cities with skyscrapers, industry and a decent vibe about it. Overpopulated coastal cities or dusty, insipid, dying inland towns..........just one extreme or another.

That Peter's sign is AWESOME 😍

A couple of years ago, my wife and I visited Albury for the first time. While we were there, we decided to cross the river and check out Wodonga. (we had never been to Victoria). We bought some take-away food there and asked the cafe owner where would be a nice place to go to and sit to enjoy the food... He drew a rough map on some wrapping paper for us to follow.... After a somewhat longish drive, we arrived at the destination on the map... a small village called Howlong. We then realized that the fellow had sent us back into New South Wales!

A million acre dam built with muscle power and gelignite, no heavy lifting machines, just horses with scoops, drays, men with picks, shovels, breaker bars and lots and lots of bloody hard work! They should be extremely proud of themselves, but unfortunately, those days are gone…

Fund fact : The ABC did it’s bit towards restraining the national debt by reusing the same background music for all documentaries about Australian life produced between 1961 and 1974.

This is a true representation of the time. Charming. Thank you

Commentator is James Dibble from the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission).

Thanks for sharing this video 👍

I've lived in Albury since 1969.Came for a month, met my wife and rest is history.

There's a lot LESS space in Sydney and Melbourne in 2022 almost 50 years after this documentary was filmed. Congestion, overcrowding have skyrocketed since 1974.

Back when people talked to each other. No phones, no email, just people who had to be outside instead of on a laptop.

I remember the brown smog that choked the city. I remember the smell of smoke in winter when people burnt wood and briquettes to heat their homes and they burnt their rubbish outside in incinerators and every year the bonfires on cracker night. Cars also ran on unleaded petrol and had no emission equipment. The air was so polluted in those days now the air is so clean and I haven't seen smog in decades. Not sure what we are supposed to do now for the climate even all of the manufacturing industries have gone.

I look at this step back in time and lament the loss of innocence and unsophistication. It was a less complicated time then, but the need for constant growth has put an end to that. Therein lies the problem. I’m not a communist, far from it. But the underlying issue is that capitalism requires continuous growth, which at the end of the day is unsustainable. We are doomed to fail.

I don’t think I’m going to watch this whole thing, but just from the way the intro goes, and having gleaned a bit from the comments, I think it’s hilarious that they set up this paradigm of “cities are crowded and shit and polluted… so we propose creating another city to solve this problem”

2022 - “Albury Wodonga - We love ice”

Borg Warner was making car parts in Australia. Unbelievable.

$35,000 for a house!!!!😂 Cant buy a shed for that now!

Unbelievable what's happened to Australia's population growth and excessive emigration within her two largest cities. Sydney and Melbourne have no need to be over crowed with people in permanent rental stress, the population centres of Australia needs to be to spread out to give quality of life. Bring back government housing similar to what was done after WW2. Close to 1 million dollars for a 3 bedroom fibro house in Bankstown is disgusting! especially with the minimum wages paid these days.

Love these videos! More please!

$35000 for a house in Sydney oh the horror!

Best thing that happened in Albury/Wodonga was the Hume Highway bypass

52 years we have lived in Albury, Wodonga

Just great 👍the pub owner what a champion he was 😂 loved it.

everything looks so clean, these small towns are hideous now

Peter's Ice Cream...........another great Melbourne company!!!

i was in Howlong visiting in April/May 1974 and remember how clear the Murray was, people say to me its always been muddy, but it was beautiful and clear then, no carp lots of Redfin though, not many cod as illegal "Springers" had taken their toll.

It's funny how these old reels are usually talking up Australia's capital cities, but this one is taking a massive dump on them. Shows you how media bias is nothing new.

Every single business featured in this film is closed.

Albury-Wodonga is a great spot but the mega city never eventuated.

How old is this video? If they could see us now. People flooding into Australia, house prices in the millions.

Amazing!!! Thankyou NFSA Would love one from Bendigo

I love these historical videos

So where was that 3 bdr detached for 35K?

Well, that worked out just fine.

I've been looking for something like this for Albury!

Alf Wright was a Real Character.😌 Shame the Dora Dora Pub is Closed Now. It does Open for Viewing on Special Occasions.😌

A time before shitty social media.

I believe it largely failed because the governments pulled the plug on it themselves. The State government officers all jacked up when the rumours started about them moving offices from Sydney or Melbourne. The Feds already did their decentralising bit it is called the A.C.T. The Growth Centre Corporation offices in Albury ended up being a campus for Charles Sturt University late in the 20th century. Remember the Bathurst - Orange growth centre that was also strangled by government budgets (or lack of them) and inaction.

Sadly after just a few years of growth in Albury-Wodonga Malcolm Fraser promptly dumped the more ambitious elements of the scheme. It prospered as a substantial regional city but fell way short of the lofty ambitions of it's original charter. Still you were never going to lure millions to inland Australia and the choice of a coastal alternative may have been more likely to have created another metropolitan sized city.

I’ve lived in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney since the time this film was made, all I can say is that life has become better and better since then. So all the doom and gloom about choking cities was rubbish as far as I’m concerned. But what actually happened was that people who can’t afford to live the ocean in Sydney but had done quite well in life moved to the Central Coast. The market solved the problem, not government planning.

I would love to see some more old Australian film footage but not necessarily Always government-funded film footage, I think everyone's had enough of listening to the government

Another fantastic upload - thank you so much and keep them coming- do you have any on life in Tasmania by any chance ??😁😉

So after nearly 50 years, Albury /Wondonga area did not help big city conjestion at all ..it has a population of only 100,000 approx.

I dont care what they say, the Aussie comb over was the mark of an honest clown!

We have one of those petrol bowsers in our museum

We swam on in Bondi, undeterred.

Narrated by the wonderful James Dibble. Also the audio is so good, I'm wondering if it's a magnetic soundtrack (known as dual system transfer)??

Decentralization has not happened yet in those years. Jobs in big cities and country life chasing country problems (farming, ranching, etc). Most people still ived near the big cities when we lived in Aus. Maybe with co**d and quaran**nes the small towns will flourish. But here in USA the folks are expected back at work and your job is at risk if you can't make it in to the big city.

It’s crazy how the pollution changes the color of the ocean.

1 glug sunnyboy please.

They predicted 17 Million by 2000, But they were wrong there were 19 million in 2000.

seems like typical TV fear mongering, doom and gloom. this is why i gave up on tv 20 years ago.

I wonder if things changed a lot from than.

$35,000 was high ! Wow

WOW so about fifty years ago our governments did notice how crappy our capital cities were becoming to live in and set out to create a better organised alternative. But the capitals just kept growing anyway and now they are spending billions trying to fix the congestion etc in them.

That was 10 years before I was born (1984)! Melbourne is far far worse now than back then.

None of the problems fixed and not even a will to try half a century later.

So this is why Albury Wodonga is Australia's undisputed best city.

Shame it's become a haven for ice addicts

Can i buy a house for 35000 wow

Saw-tooth Mugwumps are now a protected species.

Something I have never understood about Australia 🇦🇺 and America 🇺🇸 to name but two countries with more space to grow outwards instead of upwards, is why? Personally I couldn’t live in a place that was constantly awake, noise, pollution, higher cost of living than the suburbs, and living high up with windows that can’t open, lifts that take forever to arrive and just as long to get to the floor you want, left your phone in your car? a 30 minute trek to go get it, out of milk? another lengthy trek, pizza delivery? It’s cold because it takes longer to get to your apartment than it did to make and get to the ground floor of your block, no trees no grass (apart from in the parks), it just doesn’t make sense to me, so Why?. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to expand outwards? better for the environment and your health and your children’s health, a more friendly way to live and grow. I can think of so many reasons to grow outwards but none for growing or living upwards.

20:51

too many humans. :)