The MMBW should never have been abolished. It was the only organisation that was capable of delivering coordinated, metropolitan wide planning. Today, we have 32 local councils in Melbourne, each pushing its own agenda with little consideration for the bigger picture.
I remember as a twelve-year-old living in Campbellfield, looking at the large gutter running east/west under Sydney road and thinking, this would make a great road one day. It is now the ring road..
The inner-city slum shots were filmed around Fitzroy - the then-derelict row of shops at 6:35 still stands and is very much in use on the corner of Brunswick Street and Greeves Street. The rundown houses at 6:56 were located on the corner of Cowell Street and Little Hanover Street and were an early casualty of the slum abolition program. The terrace houses at 7:45 are partly still standing, part demolished around the corner on Fitzroy Street and Cowell Street.
@@mocknroll5790 Former Melbournite now Sydney sider since the 70's here, the jokes about the weather are all true, the only thing more changeable is Dan Andrews version of the truth.
It was interesting to see the crowded trams and trains but the implication was to make matters worse by expanding the roads network. Let's be grateful the roads planning didn't decimate Melbourne to the degree that it could have.
Following this the MMBW had authority over road projects in the inner Melbourne metropolitan area instead of the Country Roads Board. The inner section of the Tullamarine Freeway from Strathmore and the South Eastern Freeway to Toorak Road along with the St Kilda Junction underpass were all built the MMBW standards. The CRB took over all road building from the 1970s.
Used to be great in the 1950. People were lean and healthy mostly. Food was good, wonderful grass fed healthy meat and some even in cities had hens. Shops closed at 12 noon on Saturday so everyone had a weekend holiday and lots of sport. Plain nasty now but banks are much much more wealthy.
Not really. It is typical of the kind of background music used in film shorts or newsreels in those days . It is upbeat and energetic and lilting - a now old fashioned type of style but its not Hitchcock theme . He used amazing film score writers such as Dimitri Tiomkin who are legendary now. Not like modern movie producers that use computer generated pap -the same one movie to the next.
This is a valuable historical document but also great footage. Background music is beautifully incorporate with records to convey the atmosphere of days in the 1950s. I can't imagine how much effort they put to visualize the city. I m impressed.
The 1954 Planning scheme map at 11:10 can be viewed at Planning VicPlan Maps and Spatial Data. From the Map tab go to Layer List. Under Planning Scheme - Historic Zoning Maps - 1954 Historic Planning Scheme.
7:00 peasant image in the slums of places like South Melbourne. 9:00 we had an outside pan service toilet in East Keilor 1958-1964 before we moved to North Balwyn - luxury !!
1954, the year Elvis Presley released his first song, That's All Right, with rock n roll taking a foothold in western culture, and Footscray Bulldogs won their first Grand Final.
Loved Melbourne CBD at that time but we also had some very poor places. I was 22. Now where are our factories, have they gone forever and will Australia always rely on other countries for goods?
ahhh the good old days. which was before i was born. 2:07, the building looks familiar. i spent a couple of particularly boring weeks making knives and forks here. 14:57 the west gate bridge is included but no kings way which ended up happening only a few years after this film was made.
Driving through the city when travelling from one side of the another is neaver easy and traditionally avoided, but not long ago, both pedestrian and vehicle congestion in Melbourne was almost unbelievable. A trip to the city would not in any way have been enjoyable. It was like this for many a decade but this madness could not have gone on like this forever. These scenes look honestly horrifying! Check out the music soundtrack at 4:52.
Early 50s make to understand hard work done by planning aerial survey university every land parcels were documented.Good documetry to develop urban and periurbab areas
Not only that, but growing up in East Camberwell I remember going for a drive around 1960 ( I would have been 10 at the time ) and seeing just a sole Dickins store on the site that would become Doncaster Shoppingtown less than 10 years later.
It's interesting to see how Melbourne was planned in 1949 & how it sits today. The rate of Melbourne's population was growing each year by the size of the City of Geelong as growth extended outwards on Crown land. The MMBW was separated into 4 companies, all owned by the State Government. Unfortunately, today, the government is addressing population growth by building inner suburb apartments, which are a social disaster. The water pressure alone is quite low to service all the units in an apartment. If the government does not act and plan now, it will be a big problem in the next 20 years for all water, sewerage, drainage, gas & and electricity utilities.
Not. We don’t plan. We just drop a plan brown bag full of cash and things get approved despite it obviously being wrong for an area or inadequate thought gone into it.
First thing i see is they put the plan to the people of Melbourne before it went to parliament. Seems that now a lot of dodgy deals are done behind closed doors, terrible planning with zero consultation, shoddy cheaply made unlivable hong kong style death trap apartment buildings, and satellite suburbs with poor infrastructure that was promised but never delivered... am i missing anything?
@we are doomed It's like there's two kinds of people involved in planning these days. One group is in it to make as much money as possible - and the other has some sort of political agenda (often one and same actually) - both of which means that anything remotely useful or easy on the eye never gets built.
The Planning minister in Melbourne can learn from this footage that back then they thought of their citizens and wellbeing of wide Road's. Today in 2022 over the past decade we in Melbourne have new Estates that are an abomination of planning Greed. Why do I say this well the roads are narrow limiting emergency vehicles entering the residential streets as cars of these residents have no where to park their vehicles in their own drive way as the vehicle sticks out onto the pavement. There is no alternative but to park on these narrow streets yet limiting on coming vehicles to see who can go first through the street. The streets because if greedy developers haven't planned but thought of themselves. The size of the house and plot if land is down narrowest of margins where homes touch other dwellings. In Tarneit there are far fewer street lights per street say to that of white neighborhoods such as Wallan Epping Mernda ... Do these people realise they ought not to pay rates as the roads are diplorable. Did u know Coles and Woolworths through the Greed of developers have managed to create new estates where the entire estate is depended on these food chains by building a shopping centre that's all fine but where are the high street shops like Australia post the local milk bar fish and chips shops.... Our local Planning Authorities are evil by destroying community neighborhoods. Small back yards you can't even have room to put a Garden shed... The level of corrupt officials allowing this to occur in Melbourne is a disgrace there ought to be an investigation into local council Authorities.... These new Estates are the slums of tomorrow. Oh by the way ...The public transport for bus users is also a disgrace as there are no Bus shelters..... Rain hail or blistering heat I see immigrants waiting either standing for hours or sitting on the road side curb waiting for the bus. Disgusting .... Did u know that the Tarneit train station was to have other rail stations as well... They built a rail station that resembles a prison facility with concrete and steel with endless carpark of at least 300 meters to the nearest platform. You have to get to the rail station before 5am as the carpark fills up very quick. Melbourne is a city destroyed from its grace and beauty.... It's turning into an ugly concrete over crowded over priced city where a new emerging underclass and new homeless people wandering the streets because rent and housing is unaffordable. All attributed to foreign investors pushing working class suburbs through the roof.
Urban sprawl in the 50s? That was nothing compared to today. It's full on busy, BS full of international everything!! You can't even move, let alone breathe 🙄😤☺️
It was one of the greatest planning feats of all time and it stood the test of time well into the 80s. Then Govts got in bed with property developers and that is why we have the shambles we have now. State Govt subbied out Planning to Councils what a mess.
Back when councils weren't too concerned about zoning, the "neighbourhood character", and what you did with the property you own in general. What happened?
1954 saw loads of immigrants. Overwhelmed everything. There was a shortage of building materials postwar too. House size was limited to 12 squares but the mid century modern architectural movement was giving house plans and how to build furniture published in magazines. The new housing push was for excellent design for anyone who could build the simplest of homes. No longer dark boxes but wonderful Aus design for our climate and for families.
PS: Because city planners thought cars were the future, they neglected public transport for a very long time, and for that reason Melb ran the “Red Rattlers” for 60 years...
@@hypercomms2001 ,yeah, mate. the whole bloody lot of them. by the way, my favourite trains were the dog boxes. so there was a benefit in them not doing much. if they had done more my beloved dog boxes would have been removed decades before they were removed. and they still did lots to the st. kilda junction. just not was planned in this film.
@@hypercomms2001 , he also knowingly, intentionally and willingly hanged the last person to be hanged in this country for a crime he didn't commit. knowing full well that the pentridge guard supposedly shot by ryan, who had no gun, was shot accidentally by a fellow prison guard. bolte did this because he knew it would help him at the next election. and it did.
apparently, a lot of the old buildings were too graceful for some people in the city by the 50s a lot of Melbourne best examples of Victorianvera architecture were under the wreckers hammer
Wait .. this film is about Melbourne not having it all; it's about planning to have it all. Suburbs with out infrastructure, too many people for the city; women not able to push a baby carriage to the shops - where you not watching the film??
I thought the Melbourne metropolitan board of works only did water utilities and sewerage? This film sounds like it was responsible for all kinds of infrastructure, services and planning. MMBW was abolished in 1992 and succeeded by Melbourne Water
Yes. Lots of non water related functions. I remember the MMBW major input into the Joint Road Planning Group into the eighties. The Warburton railway line may have been closed in 1965 partly to prevent urban sprawl into the Yarra Ranges on MMBW advice. Railways being a big part of urban sprawl as evidenced in the 1954 MMBW major report arising from these studies.
Really? I like to think it amazing that our city keeps growing, sure it has its bad points but growth is essential. You wouldn't want to end up like Detroit would you? that is what would happen if growth stopped or was limited, it would be a depressed, run down place.
Robert Westwood no you are wrong. Australia has limited water and hence soil formation and agricultural land. We can’t support more than 23 million or so sustainably, abundance that is inclusive of Asian students and global visitors and work visa holders. Nothing whatever to do with Detroit, that was lack of employment fuckwit.
2:00 all those car plants are gone now. UK Standard/Triumph and US GMH cars. My 1960 Triumph TR3A Roadster was assembled here. 5:30 see the superior British cars made of steel not plastic.
@@sutherlandA1 - See my orange 1960 Triumph TR3A Roadster in the round photo on left. Still going strong after 60 years. Are there any Japanese cars from 1960 still on the road in Australia I wonder?
@@adrianjackson2696 more than plenty actually, rust isn't so much of an issue down Under so the mechanicals can live on and on without the constant fettling and expense of the Eurotrash that litter our junkyards, there's a good reason why Triumph cars (and British Leyland for that matter) don't exist no more. Your roadster is a real beauty btw, a real credit to your care, passion and dedicated ownwrship
@@sutherlandA1 I also own a 1985 Range Rover Classis V8 made of aluminum except for the bonnet. No rust with aluminum. Land Rover started using aluminum after WW2 when there was plenty of surplus aeroplane aluminum.
I’d like to thank the Elders from many nations; past present and future who arrived after 1788 and have built a great nation and lay a good foundation for the future. 👍👍
That is what was called "Light Music". It was highly popular for a couple of decades after the war and used in films such as this as well as the intros to radio dramas and quiz shows at a time when not everyone owned a television. Here's a UK Light Music playlist, although most local shows had their own locally produced themes in the same style. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-a0vcBptJ4gI.html
People should not vote for any Polly... The infrastructure in Melbourne is a disgrace. Calder freeway as well as the western hwy and Sydney Road campberfield.. Totally a mess
That car was made until 1953. People did not throw away a car when it got a year or two old. But yes , dates of films are often the release dates and not the filming date.
HAHAHA...overall the citycity old municipal plan remain THE SAME in CBD gridlock streets. Hahaha... never see any ships mooring along Yarra River. But that chocal crank STILL sustains. For the offload chocal PLACE, now become a BIG parking lot with a lot of graffiti arts on the walls......STF......
