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122-638: Dudley Flats was a locality in Melbourne , Australia, in the 1920s–1950s, which supported a homeless camp during the Great Depression . It was located near the Melbourne docks beyond Dudley Street , south of Footscray Road, and on either side of the Moonee Ponds Creek . The area was formerly part of Batmans Swamp , a large saltwater lagoon, which by the mid 19th century had become fouled with effluent from

244-402: A 9,993 km (3,858 sq mi) metropolitan area also known as Greater Melbourne , comprising an urban agglomeration of 31 local municipalities , although the name is also used specifically for the local municipality of City of Melbourne based around its central business area . The metropolis occupies much of the northern and eastern coastlines of Port Phillip Bay and spreads into

366-448: A Hansom Cab (1886), the fastest-selling crime novel of the era, is set in Melbourne, as is Australia's best-selling book of poetry, The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915) by C. J. Dennis . Contemporary Melbourne authors who have set novels in the city include Peter Carey , Helen Garner and Gerald Murnane . Melbourne has Australia's widest range of bookstores, as well as the nation's largest publishing sector. The city also hosts

488-647: A campaign to revive the economy with an aggressive development campaign of public works coupled with the promotion of the city as a tourist destination with a focus on major events and sports tourism. During this period the Australian Grand Prix moved to Melbourne from Adelaide . Major projects included the construction of a new facility for the Melbourne Museum , Federation Square , the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre , Crown Casino and

610-496: A contributing factor to the Australian economic depression of the 1890s and the Australian banking crisis of 1893 . The effects of the depression on the city were profound, with virtually no significant construction until the late 1890s. At the time of Australia's federation on 1 January 1901 Melbourne became the seat of government of the federated Commonwealth of Australia . The first federal parliament convened on 9 May 1901 in

732-550: A densely populated neighbourhood with some buildings reaching six storeys high. There are theatres, schools, nurseries and local newspapers. In Argentina, shanty towns are known as villas miseria . As of 2011, there were 500,000 people living in 864 informal settlements in the metropolitan Buenos Aires area. In Peru, they are known as pueblos jóvenes ("young towns"), as campamentos in Chile , and as asentamientos in Guatemala. During

854-399: A long period of time and newer towns still lack basic services. Nevertheless, there has been a general trend whereby shanties undergo gradual improvements, rather than relocation to even more distant parts of a metropolis. In Africa, many shanty towns are starting to implement the use of composting toilets and solar panels . In India, people living in slums have access to cell phones and

976-460: A major renewal of the CBD and St Kilda Road which significantly modernised the city. New fire regulations and redevelopment saw most of the taller pre-war CBD buildings either demolished or partially retained through a policy of facadism . Many of the larger suburban mansions from the boom era were also either demolished or subdivided. To counter the trend towards low-density suburban residential growth,

1098-610: A pastoral estate in Bulleen , now the Heide Museum of Modern Art . The city is also home to the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art , as well as numerous independent galleries and artist-run spaces. In the 2000s, street art proliferated in Melbourne , with Banksy saying its graffiti scene "leads the world", and "laneway galleries" becoming major tourist sites; Hosier Lane for example attracts more Instagram hashtags than some of

1220-700: A prominent example of the latter style in the CBD. The 1926 Nicholas Building is the city's grandest example of the Chicago School style, while the influence of Art Deco is apparent in the Manchester Unity Building , completed in 1932. The city also features the Shrine of Remembrance , which was built as a memorial to the men and women of Victoria who served in World War I and is now a memorial to all Australians who have served in war. Residential architecture

1342-456: A rapid clearing trend to sunny and relatively calm weather and the temperature rising back to what it was before the shower. This can occur in the space of minutes and can be repeated many times a day, giving Melbourne a reputation for having "four seasons in one day", a phrase that is part of local popular culture . The lowest temperature on record is −2.8 °C (27.0 °F), on 21 July 1869. The highest temperature recorded in Melbourne city

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1464-504: A shanty town built on a former mangrove swamp in Mumbai . It is one of the most densely populated places on the globe. In 2011, there were at least four improvised settlements in Mumbai containing even more people. There are in total 3.4 million people living in the 5,000 informal settlements of Bangladesh's capital city Dhaka . Thailand has 5,500 informal settlements, one of the largest being

1586-725: A shanty town in the Khlong Toei District of Bangkok . In China, 171 urban villages were demolished before the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. As of 2005, there were 346 shanty towns in Beijing, housing 1.5 million people. Author Robert Neuwirth wrote that around six million people, half the population of Istanbul lived in gecekondu areas. In Hong Kong, the Kowloon Walled City housed up to 50,000 people, with rooftop slums currently providing some additional housing . The world's largest shanty town

1708-628: A suburb of the Central Coast ). Many films have been shot in shanty towns. Slumdog Millionaire centres on characters who spend most of their lives in Indian shanty towns. The Brazilian film City of God was set in Cidade de Deus and filmed in another favela, called Cidade Alta. White Elephant , a 2012 Argentinian movie, is set in a villa miseria in Buenos Aires. The South African film District 9

1830-433: Is Ciudad Neza or Neza-Chalco-Itza, which is part of the city of Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, next to Mexico City. Estimates of its population range from 1.2 million to 4 million. Brazil has many favelas . In Rio de Janeiro , Brazil, it was calculated in 2000 that over 20% of its 6.5 million inhabitants were living in more than 600 favelas. For example, Rocinha is home to an estimated 80,000 inhabitants. It has developed into

1952-432: Is Flinders Street station and its main regional rail and road coach terminus is Southern Cross station . It also has Australia's most extensive freeway network and the largest urban tram network in the world . Aboriginal Australians have lived in the Melbourne area for at least 40,000 years. When European colonisers arrived in the 19th century, at least 20,000 Kulin people from three distinct language groups –

2074-512: Is Orangi in Karachi , Pakistan, which had an estimated 1.5 million inhabitants in 2011. The Orangi Pilot Project aims to lift local people out of poverty. It was begun by Akhtar Hameed Khan and run by Parveen Rehman until her murder in 2013. Residents laid sewage pipes themselves and almost all of Orangi's 8,000 streets are now connected. In India, an estimated one million people live in Dharavi ,

2196-604: Is becoming unaffordable for some. Public housing is managed and provided by the Victorian Government's Department of Families, Fairness and Housing , and operates within the framework of the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement, by which both federal and state governments provide funding for housing. Melbourne is experiencing high population growth, generating high demand for housing. This housing boom has increased house prices and rents, as well as

2318-598: Is home to more skyscrapers than any other Australian city , the tallest being Australia 108 , situated in Southbank. Melbourne's newest planned skyscraper, Southbank By Beulah (also known as "Green Spine"), has recently been approved for construction and will be the tallest structure in Australia by 2025. The CBD and surrounds also contain many significant historic buildings such as the Royal Exhibition Building ,

2440-546: Is known for its music, theatre and arts scenes, as well as its diverse range of cultural events and festivals, including the Melbourne International Arts Festival , Melbourne Fringe Festival and Moomba , Australia's largest free community festival. For much of the 2010s, Melbourne topped The Economist Intelligence Unit 's list of the world's most liveable cities , partly due to its cultural attributes. State Library Victoria , founded in 1854,

2562-437: Is largely protected from the ocean, resulting in greater temperature variation across seasons. Melbourne's urban area is approximately 2,704 km , the largest in Australia and the 33rd largest in the world. The Hoddle Grid , a grid of streets measuring approximately 1 by 1 ⁄ 2  mi (1.61 by 0.80 km), forms the nucleus of Melbourne's central business district (CBD). The grid's southern edge fronts onto

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2684-472: Is largely set in a township called Chiawelo, from which people had been forcibly resettled. The 2016 Chinese TV series Housing tells the story of shantytown clearance in Beiliang, Baotou, Inner Mongolia. A 2023 Nigerian crime thriller titled Shanty Town was released on Netflix on January 20, 2023. It is a six-part series that tells the story of a ruthless leader named Scar ( Chidi Mokeme ) who handles

2806-415: Is mainly due to the generally poor economic situation found. While most shanty towns begin as precarious establishments haphazardly thrown together without basic social and civil services, over time, some have undergone a certain amount of development. Often the residents themselves are responsible for the major improvements. Community organizations sometimes working alongside NGOs , private companies, and

2928-693: Is not defined by a single architectural style, but rather an eclectic mix of large McMansion -style houses (particularly in areas of urban sprawl), apartment buildings, condominiums, and townhouses which generally characterise the medium-density inner-city neighbourhoods. Freestanding dwellings with relatively large gardens are perhaps the most common type of housing outside inner city Melbourne. Victorian terrace housing, townhouses and historic Italianate , Tudor revival and Neo-Georgian mansions are all common in inner-city neighbourhoods such as Carlton, Fitzroy and further into suburban enclaves like Toorak . Often referred to as Australia's cultural capital, Melbourne

3050-554: Is noted for its street art , live music and theatre scenes. It hosts major annual sporting events, such as the Australian Grand Prix and the Australian Open , and also hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics . Melbourne ranked as the world's most livable city for much of the 2010s. Melbourne Airport is the second-busiest airport in Australia and the Port of Melbourne is the nation's busiest seaport. Its main metropolitan rail terminus

3172-481: Is often referred to as Australia's garden city, and the state of Victoria is known as the garden state . There is an abundance of parks and gardens in Melbourne , many close to the CBD with a variety of common and rare plant species amid landscaped vistas, pedestrian pathways and tree-lined avenues. Melbourne's parks are often considered the best public parks in all of Australia's major cities. There are also many parks in

3294-543: Is one of the world's oldest free public libraries and, as of 2018, the fourth most-visited library globally. During the 19th-century boom period, Melbourne-based authors and poets Marcus Clarke , Adam Lindsay Gordon and Rolf Boldrewood produced classic visions of colonial life, and many visiting writers recorded literary responses to the city: for Henry Kendall , it was a "wild bleak Bohemia", while Henry Kingsley stated that, in its rapid growth, Melbourne "surpasses all human experience". Fergus Hume 's The Mystery of

3416-530: The Australian Dream . This, coupled with the popularity of the private automobile after 1945, led to the auto-centric urban structure now present today in the middle and outer suburbs. Much of metropolitan Melbourne is accordingly characterised by low-density sprawl, whilst its inner-city areas feature predominantly medium-density, transit-oriented urban forms. The city centre, Docklands, St. Kilda Road and Southbank areas feature high-density forms. Melbourne

3538-485: The Catholic Church 's Council for Justice and Peace have emphasised the need for information, involvement and choice being offered to people being moved on. Shanty towns are present in a number of developing countries . In Francophone countries, shanty towns are referred to as bidonvilles (French for "can town"); such countries include Haiti , where Cité Soleil houses between 200,000 and 300,000 people on

3660-449: The CityLink tollway . Other strategies included the privatisation of some of Melbourne's services, including power and public transport, and a reduction in funding to public services such as health, education and public transport infrastructure. Since the mid-1990s, Melbourne has maintained significant population and employment growth. There has been substantial international investment in

3782-573: The Empire of Japan , and the government requisitioned the Melbourne Cricket Ground for military use. In the immediate years after World War II , Melbourne expanded rapidly, its growth boosted by post-war immigration to Australia , primarily from Southern Europe and the Mediterranean . While the "Paris End" of Collins Street began Melbourne's boutique shopping and open air cafe cultures,

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3904-584: The Heidelberg School of impressionists, named after a suburb where they camped to paint en plein air in the 1880s. The Australian tonalists followed in the 1910s, some of whom founded Montsalvat in Eltham , Australia's oldest surviving art colony. Mid-century Melbourne became a stronghold of figurative modernism through the paintings of the Antipodeans and Angry Penguins ; the latter group often met at

4026-593: The Melbourne Bounce genre and the Melbourne Shuffle dance style, both of which emerged from the city's underground rave scene. Established in 1861, the National Gallery of Victoria is Australia's oldest and largest art museum, and houses its collection across two sites: NGV International in Southbank and NGV Australia at Federation Square. Several art movements originated in Melbourne, most famously

4148-516: The Melbourne City Council health inspector from 1910 to 1949. Dudley Flats proper was located south of Footscray Road on the banks of the Coal Canal – constructed in the 1880s as an outlet for Moonee Ponds Creek, and to allow barges to unload coal at the locomotive depot. The 'Batchelor Quarters' were located on the north side of Dudley Street near a bridge over the canal, while 'Happy Valley'

4270-535: The Melbourne Town Hall and Parliament House . Although the area is described as the centre , it is not actually the demographic centre of Melbourne at all, due to an urban sprawl to the southeast, the demographic centre being located at Camberwell . Melbourne is typical of Australian capital cities in that after the turn of the 20th century, it expanded with the underlying notion of a 'quarter acre home and garden' for every family, often referred to locally as

4392-426: The Melbourne Town Hall , St Patrick's cathedral, though many remained incomplete for decades. The layout of the inner suburbs on a largely one-mile grid pattern, cut through by wide radial boulevards and parklands surrounding the central city, was largely established in the 1850s and 1860s. These areas rapidly filled with the ubiquitous terrace houses, as well as with detached houses and grand mansions, while some of

4514-750: The Melbourne Writers Festival and the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards . In 2008, it became the second UNESCO City of Literature . Melbourne is home to many theatres , eight of which are concentrated in the East End Theatre District , including the Victorian era Athenaeum , Her Majesty's and Princess theatres, as well as the Forum and the Regent . Other heritage-listed theatres include

4636-709: The Mornington Peninsula , part of West Gippsland , as well as the hinterlands towards the Yarra Valley , the Dandenong Ranges , and the Macedon Ranges . As of 2023, the population of the metropolitan area was 5.2 million (19% of the population of Australia ); inhabitants are referred to as "Melburnians". The area of Melbourne has been home to Aboriginal Victorians for over 40,000 years and serves as an important meeting place for local Kulin nation clans. Of

4758-466: The Otway and Macedon Ranges , which block much of the rainfall arriving from the north and west. Port Phillip is often warmer than the surrounding oceans or the land mass, particularly in spring and autumn; this can set up a " bay effect rain ", similar to the " lake effect " seen in colder climates, where showers are intensified leeward of the bay. Relatively narrow streams of heavy showers can often affect

4880-472: The Royal Exhibition Building , subsequently moving to the Victorian Parliament House, where it sat until it moved to Canberra in 1927. The Governor-General of Australia resided at Government House in Melbourne until 1930, and many major national institutions remained in Melbourne well into the twentieth century. During World War II the city hosted American military forces who were fighting

5002-761: The Selwyn fault , which transects Mount Martha and Cranbourne . The western portion of the metropolitan area lies within the Victorian Volcanic Plain grasslands vegetation community, and the southeast falls in the Gippsland Plains Grassy Woodland zone. Melbourne extends northward through the undulating bushland valleys of the Yarra Valley 's tributaries— Moonee Ponds Creek (toward Melbourne Airport ), Merri Creek , Darebin Creek and Plenty River . The city reaches southeast through Dandenong to

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5124-575: The World Heritage -listed Royal Exhibition Building (1880), the General Post Office (1867), Hotel Windsor (1884) and the Block Arcade (1891). Comparatively little remains of Melbourne's pre-gold rush architecture; St James Old Cathedral (1839) and St Francis' Church (1845) are among the few examples left in the CBD. Many of the CBD's Victorian boom-time landmarks were also demolished in

5246-645: The Wurundjeri , Bunurong and Wathaurong – resided in the area. It was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance and a vital source of food and water. In June 2021, the boundaries between the land of two of the traditional owner groups, the Wurundjeri and Bunurong, were agreed after being drawn up by the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council . The borderline runs across

5368-499: The Yarra River . More recent office, commercial and public developments in the adjoining districts of Southbank and Docklands have made these areas into extensions of the CBD in all but name. A byproduct of the CBD's layout is its network of lanes and arcades , such as Block Arcade and Royal Arcade . Melbourne's CBD has become Australia's most densely populated area, with approximately 19,500 residents per square kilometre, and

5490-438: The invasões of Brasilia ) that "squatter settlements [as opposed to slums ], despite their unattractive building materials, may also be places of hope, scenes of a counter-culture, with an encouraging potential for change and a strong upward impetus". Stewart Brand has observed that shanty towns are green , with people recycling as much as possible and tending to travel by foot, bicycle, rickshaw or shared taxi , though this

5612-536: The market town of Melbourne , Derbyshire . That year, the settlement's general post office officially opened with that name. Between 1836 and 1842, Victorian Aboriginal groups were largely dispossessed of their land by British colonists. In 1840, the Superintendent of the Port Phillip District , Charles La Trobe issued a directive to banish Aborigines from the immediate vicinity of Melbourne. This

5734-428: The 'King of Dudley Flats' and was the flats' longest resident, having arrived in about 1932 and remained until the early 1950s, insisting on his rights to remain, claiming he had money enough to support himself and This life suits me and it is only the mental weaklings who desire to remove me. Men of education would allow me to remain." In 1987, 60 demonstrators constructed a shanty town near Footscray Road to protest

5856-730: The 1930s Great Depression , shanty towns nicknamed Hoovervilles sprang up across the United States. Following the Great Depression, squatters lived in shacks on landfill sites beside the Martin Pena canal in Puerto Rico and were still there in 2010. More recently, cities such as Newark and Oakland have witnessed the creation of tent cities . The Umoja Village shanty town was squatted in 2006 in Miami, Florida. There are also colonias near

5978-725: The 2010s the State Government of Victoria initiated a number of major infrastructure projects designed to reduce congestion in Melbourne and encourage economic growth, including the Metro Tunnel , the West Gate Tunnel , the Level Crossing Removal Project and the Suburban Rail Loop . New urban renewal zones were initiated in inner-city areas like Fisherman's Bend and Arden , while suburban growth continued on

6100-462: The 2024 Global Financial Centres Index . The city's eclectic architecture blends Victorian era structures, such as the World Heritage -listed Royal Exhibition Building , with one of the world's tallest skylines . Additional landmarks include the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the National Gallery of Victoria . Noted for its cultural heritage , the city gave rise to Australian rules football , Australian impressionism and Australian cinema , and

6222-595: The Bay was filled with teatree scrub where boorrimul (emu) and marram (kangaroo) were hunted. The first British settlement in Victoria , then part of the penal colony of New South Wales , was established by Colonel David Collins in October 1803, at Sullivan Bay , near present-day Sorrento . The following year, due to a perceived lack of resources, these settlers relocated to Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania ) and founded

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6344-589: The Colony of Victoria, with Melbourne as its capital. The discovery of gold in Victoria in mid-1851 sparked a gold rush , and Melbourne, the colony's major port, experienced rapid growth. Within months, the city's population had nearly doubled from 25,000 to 40,000 inhabitants. Exponential growth ensued, and by 1865 Melbourne had overtaken Sydney as Australia's most populous city. An influx of intercolonial and international migrants, particularly from Europe and China, saw

6466-494: The Dudley Flats shanty town, Blue Lake, researched and written by David Sornig. Melbourne Melbourne ( / ˈ m ɛ l b ər n / MEL -bərn , locally [ˈmæɫbən] ; Boonwurrung / Woiwurrung : Narrm or Naarm ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria , and the second-most populous city in Australia, after Sydney . Its name generally refers to

6588-429: The Great Depression of the 1930s (and also possibly from an earlier date), the site was visited and then occupied by Melbourne's poor and homeless who scavenged for scrap and rags from the tips, and built humpies out of discarded rubbish such as old timber and corrugated iron, even lino and hessian sacking. By 1935, over 60 humpies had been erected along the waterways and around the rubbish tips. Despite regular raids by

6710-516: The Lands Department with a view ... to serve notices to quit on the Inhabitants, and to house them in charitable homes . According to Council files, the settlement was abandoned in the early 1940s, because the nearby tips no longer held a living for scavengers after waste recovery schemes had been initiated to assist in the war effort. Official settlement in the area seems to have involved only

6832-475: The Lands Department, all refusing to claim responsibility for the area. Some of the residents were unemployed or underemployed labourers who occasionally gained work with shipping agents and stevedores at times of peak demands, but were otherwise left to scavenge an existence as best they could. The social reformer Frederick Oswald Barnett made several inspections of the congested residential areas of Melbourne's inner suburbs in 1933, including Dudley Mansions as

6954-469: The Melbourne CBD in the back-beaches of Rye , Sorrento and Portsea . Melbourne has a temperate oceanic climate ( Köppen climate classification Cfb ), with warm summers and cool winters. Melbourne is well known for its changeable weather conditions , mainly due to it being located on the boundary of hot inland areas and the cool southern ocean. This temperature differential is most pronounced in

7076-573: The area and established a settlement at the site of the current Melbourne Immigration Museum . Batman and his group arrived the following month and the two groups ultimately agreed to share the settlement, initially known by the native name of Dootigala. Batman's Treaty with the Aboriginal elders was annulled by Richard Bourke , the Governor of New South Wales (who at the time governed all of eastern mainland Australia), with compensation paid to members of

7198-418: The association. In 1836, Bourke declared the city the administrative capital of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales , and commissioned the first plan for its urban layout, the Hoddle Grid , in 1837. Known briefly as Batmania, the settlement was named Melbourne on 10 April 1837 by Bourke after the British Prime Minister , William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne , whose seat was Melbourne Hall in

7320-499: The availability of all types of housing. Subdivision regularly occurs in the outer areas of Melbourne, with numerous developers offering house and land packages. However, since the release of Melbourne 2030 in 2002, planning policies have encouraged medium-density and high-density development in existing areas with good access to public transport and other services. As a result of this, Melbourne's middle and outer-ring suburbs have seen significant brownfields redevelopment. On

7442-544: The avant-garde picture palace The Capitol and St Kilda's Palais Theatre , Australia's largest seated theatre with a capacity of 3,000 people. The Arts Precinct in Southbank is home to Arts Centre Melbourne (which includes the State Theatre and Hamer Hall ), as well as the Melbourne Recital Centre , Malthouse Theatre and Southbank Theatre , home of the Melbourne Theatre Company , Australia's oldest professional theatre company. The Australian Ballet , Opera Australia and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra are also based in

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7564-436: The back of the 1850s gold rush and 1880s land boom, Melbourne became renowned as one of the world's great Victorian-era cities, a reputation that persists due to its diverse range of Victorian architecture . High concentrations of well-preserved Victorian-era buildings can be found in the inner suburbs, such as Carlton , East Melbourne and South Melbourne . Outstanding examples of Melbourne's built Victorian heritage include

7686-434: The blocks. The Aboriginal population continued to decline, with an estimated 80% total decrease by 1863, due primarily to introduced diseases (particularly smallpox ), frontier violence and dispossession of their lands. The 1880s saw extraordinary growth: consumer confidence, easy access to credit, and steep increases in land prices led to an enormous amount of construction. During this "land boom", Melbourne reputedly became

7808-433: The border with Mexico. Although shanty towns are now generally less common in developed countries in Europe, they still exist. The growing influx of migrants has fuelled shantytowns in cities commonly used as a point of entry into the European Union, including Athens and Patras in Greece. The Calais Jungle in France had grown to over 8,000 people by the time of its clearance in October 2016. Bidonvilles exist in

7930-457: The capital of Kenya , Kibera has between 200,000 and 1 million residents. There is no running water and inhabitants use a flying toilet in which faeces are collected in a plastic bag then thrown away. Mathare is a collection of slums which contain around 500,000 people. In Zambia, the informal housing areas are known as kombonis and approximately 80% of the people in the capital Lusaka are living in them. The largest shanty town in Asia

8052-551: The city centre was seen by many as stale—the dreary domain of office workers—something expressed by John Brack in his famous painting Collins St., 5 pm (1955). Up until the 21st century, Melbourne was considered Australia's "industrial heartland". Height limits in the CBD were lifted in 1958, after the construction of ICI House , transforming the city's skyline with the introduction of skyscrapers. Suburban expansion then intensified, served by new indoor malls beginning with Chadstone Shopping Centre . The post-war period also saw

8174-399: The city from west to east, with the CBD , Richmond and Hawthorn included in Wurundjeri land, and Albert Park , St Kilda and Caulfield on Bunurong land. However, this change in boundaries is still disputed by people on both sides of the dispute including N'arweet Carolyn Briggs . The name Narrm is commonly used by the broader Aboriginal community to refer to the city, stemming from

8296-411: The city of Hobart . It would be 30 years before another settlement was attempted. In May and June 1835, John Batman , a leading member of the Port Phillip Association in Van Diemen's Land, explored the Melbourne area, and later claimed to have negotiated a purchase of 2,400 km (600,000 acres) with eight Wurundjeri elders. However, the nature of the treaty has been heavily disputed, as none of

8418-430: The city's industries and property market. Major inner-city urban renewal has occurred in areas such as Southbank , Port Melbourne , Melbourne Docklands and South Wharf . Melbourne sustained the highest population increase and economic growth rate of any Australian capital city from 2001 to 2004. From 2006, the growth of the city extended into "green wedges" and beyond the city's urban growth boundary . Predictions of

8540-596: The city's population reaching 5 million people pushed the state government to review the growth boundary in 2008 as part of its Melbourne @ Five Million strategy. In 2009, Melbourne was less affected by the Great Recession in comparison to other Australian cities. At this time, more new jobs were created in Melbourne than any other Australian city—almost as many as the next two fastest growing cities, Brisbane and Perth, combined, and Melbourne's property market remained highly priced, resulting in historically high property prices and widespread rent increases. Beginning in

8662-643: The city's traditional destinations, like the Melbourne Zoo . Melbourne's many public artworks range from the Burke and Wills monument (1865) to the abstract sculpture Vault (1978), the latter a popular reference point amongst Melbourne designers. Shanty town First used in North America to designate a shack, the term shanty is likely derived from French chantier (construction site and associated low-level workers' quarters), or alternatively from Scottish Gaelic sean ( pronounced [ʃɛn] ) meaning 'old' and taigh ( pronounced [tʰɤj] ) meaning 'house[hold]'. Globally, some of

8784-441: The city. Nauru 's then booming economy resulted in several ambitious investments in Melbourne, such as Nauru House . Melbourne remained Australia's main business and financial centre until the late 1970s, when it began to lose this primacy to Sydney. Melbourne experienced an economic downturn between 1989 and 1992, following the collapse of several local financial institutions. In 1992, the newly elected Kennett government began

8906-519: The city. The establishment of the Melbourne Hydraulic Power Company in 1886 led to the availability of high-pressure piped water, allowing for the installation of hydraulically powered elevators , which led to the construction of the first high-rise buildings in the city. The period also saw the huge expansion of a significant radial rail-based transport network throughout the city and suburbs. Melbourne's land-boom peaked in 1888,

9028-427: The close proximity they are built in. They often cause a great deal of damage to naturally occurring ecosystems, both directly, and indirectly. An example of severe indirect damage is the use of washing detergents, and refuse disposal in the nearby water source, which can often be seen for hundreds of kilometers down stream. Due to the lack of infrastructure, and the cost of basic services, such as water and electricity,

9150-434: The cost of transport. Shanty towns tend to begin as improvised shelters on squatted land. People build shacks from whatever materials are easy to acquire, for example wood or mud. There are no facilities such as electricity, gas, sewage or running water. The squatters choose areas such as railway sidings, preservation areas or disputed building projects. Swiss journalist Georg Gerster has noted (with specific reference to

9272-548: The countryside from the late 1850s. Construction started on further major public buildings in the 1860s and 1870s, such as the Supreme Court , Government House , and the Queen Victoria Market . The central city filled up with shops and offices, workshops, and warehouses. Large banks and hotels faced the main streets, with fine townhouses in the east end of Collins Street, contrasting with tiny cottages down laneways within

9394-645: The decades after World War II, including the Federal Coffee Palace (1888) and the APA Building (1889), one of the tallest early skyscrapers upon completion. Heritage listings and heritage overlays have since been introduced in an effort to prevent further losses of the city's historic fabric. In line with the city's expansion during the early 20th century, suburbs such as Hawthorn and Camberwell are defined largely by Federation and Edwardian architectural styles. The City Baths , built in 1903, are

9516-471: The eastern fringe at Gembrook . Melbourne receives 48.6 clear days annually. Dewpoint temperatures in the summer range from 9.5 to 11.7 °C (49.1 to 53.1 °F). Melbourne is also prone to isolated convective showers forming when a cold pool crosses the state, especially if there is considerable daytime heating. These showers are often heavy and can include hail, squalls, and significant drops in temperature, but they often pass through very quickly with

9638-531: The edge of Port-au-Prince . In 2016, 62% of Africa's population was living in shanty towns. Squatter camps in South Africa typically use cheap, and easily acquired building materials such as corrugated tin sheets to build shacks. Offering very little protection against extreme weather conditions, these squatter camps, often built near streams or rivers due to the steady water supply, are often subjected to flash floods. They are also prone to runaway fires due to

9760-468: The establishment of slums, including Chinatown and a temporary "tent city" on the southern banks of the Yarra. In the aftermath of the 1854 Eureka Rebellion , mass public support for the plight of the miners resulted in major political changes to the colony, including improvements in working conditions across mining, agriculture, manufacturing and other local industries. At least twenty nationalities took part in

9882-561: The five peoples of the Kulin nation, the traditional custodians of the land encompassing Melbourne are the Boonwurrung , Woiwurrung and the Wurundjeri peoples. In 1803, a short-lived British penal settlement was established at Port Phillip, then part of the Colony of New South Wales . Melbourne was founded in 1835 with the arrival of free settlers from Van Diemen's Land (modern-day Tasmania ). It

10004-539: The government began a series of controversial public housing projects in the inner city by the Housing Commission of Victoria , which resulted in the demolition of many neighbourhoods and a proliferation of high-rise towers. In later years, with the rapid rise of motor vehicle ownership, the investment in freeway and highway developments greatly accelerated the outward suburban sprawl and declining inner-city population. The Bolte government sought to rapidly accelerate

10126-490: The government, set up connections to the municipal water supply, pave roads, and build local schools. Some of these shanties have become middle class suburbs . One such example is the Los Olivos neighbourhood of Lima , Peru, which now contains gated communities , casinos , and plastic surgery clinics. Some Brazilian favelas have also seen improvements in recent years and can even attract tourists. Development occurs over

10248-556: The growing city. Dudley Flats was on the fringe of the Melbourne city area, and became a dumping ground, with rubbish tips and a destructor established in the 1860s by the Melbourne City Council and Victorian Railways. The Melbourne Harbour Trust deposited dredged silt as part of land reclamation, and the railways tipped ash from locomotives at the North Melbourne Locomotive Depot from around 1888. During

10370-549: The growth corridor of Pakenham towards West Gippsland . In the west, it extends along the Maribyrnong River and its tributaries north towards Sunbury . Melbourne's major bayside beaches are in the various suburbs along the shores of Port Phillip Bay, in areas like Port Melbourne , Albert Park , St Kilda , Elwood , Brighton , Sandringham , Mentone , Frankston , Altona , Williamstown and Werribee South. The nearest surf beaches are 85 km (53 mi) south of

10492-483: The humpies were called. He photographed the slums and the residents' living conditions and recorded information on the residents' state of health, income, and where they obtained work (if at all). This material contributed to reports on slum conditions which eventually pressured the government into passing the Housing Act of 1937. There were several separate camps in the area identified by Bamett and Edgar Thomas Wood ,

10614-544: The internet. Other African shanty towns have even become popular tourist attractions. Soweto, an old squatter camp from apartheid-era South Africa is now classified as a city within a city, with a population of almost 2 million. It boasts the popular "Soweto Towers" and a multitude of guided excursions, often including a Shisa-nyama. Pope Francis argues in his 2015 encyclical letter Laudato si' that shanty town settlements should be developed, if possible, rather than people being moved on and their settlements destroyed. He and

10736-497: The lack of public housing. Archaeological excavations in 1999 for the City Link Freeway exposed thousands of bottles and other rubbish from the tips, but it was not possible to distinguish remains of the settlement (which was built of tip rubbish on top of tip rubbish and eventually buried in tip rubbish). Dudley Flats was a popular subject for painters from the late nineteenth century to about 1950, possibly in part because of

10858-659: The largest informal settlement in Europe, and Skid Row is an infamous shanty town in Los Angeles. Shanty towns are sometimes found on places such as railway sidings , swampland or disputed building projects. In South Africa , squatter camps, often referred to as "plakkerskampe", directly translated from the Afrikaans word for squatter camps, often starts and grows rapidly on vacant land or public spaces within or close to cities and towns, where there may be nearby work opportunities, without

10980-709: The largest shanty towns are Ciudad Neza in Mexico, Orangi in Pakistan and Dharavi in India. They are known by various names in different places, such as favela in Brazil, villa miseria in Argentina and gecekondu in Turkey. Shanty towns are mostly found in developing nations , but also in the cities of developed nations , such as Athens , Los Angeles and Madrid . Cañada Real is considered

11102-562: The late 1970s and early 1980s, including the Little Band scene and St Kilda 's Crystal Ballroom scene, which gave rise to Dead Can Dance and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds . More recent independent acts from Melbourne to achieve global recognition include The Avalanches , Gotye and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard . Melbourne is also regarded as a centre of EDM , and lends its name to

11224-633: The major roads developed as shopping streets. Melbourne quickly became a major finance centre, home to several banks, the Royal Mint , and (in 1861) Australia's first stock exchange . In 1855, the Melbourne Cricket Club secured possession of its now famous ground, the MCG . Members of the Melbourne Football Club codified Australian football in 1859, and in 1861, the first Melbourne Cup race

11346-430: The modernisation of Melbourne. Major road projects including the remodelling of St Kilda Junction , the widening of Hoddle Street and then the extensive 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan changed the face of the city into a car-dominated environment. Australia's financial and mining booms during 1969 and 1970 resulted in establishment of the headquarters of many major companies ( BHP and Rio Tinto , among others) in

11468-550: The most famous Melburnian of the Edwardian era. The Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Kings Domain hosted the largest crowd ever for a music concert in Australia when an estimated 200,000 attendees saw Melbourne band The Seekers in 1967. Airing between 1974 and 1987, Melbourne's Countdown helped launch the careers of local acts as diverse as AC/DC and Kylie Minogue . Several distinct post-punk scenes flourished in Melbourne during

11590-440: The nation's largest city in 2029–30 at just over 5.9 million, exceeding 6 million people the following year. Melbourne is in the southeastern part of mainland Australia, within the state of Victoria . Geologically, it is built on the confluence of Quaternary lava flows to the west, Silurian mudstones to the east, and Holocene sand accumulation to the southeast along Port Phillip . The southeastern suburbs are situated on

11712-446: The north and Dandenong Ranges National Park to the east. There are also a number of significant state parks just outside Melbourne. The extensive area covered by urban Melbourne is formally divided into hundreds of suburbs (for addressing and postal purposes), and administered as local government areas, 31 of which are located within the metropolitan area. Melbourne has minimal public housing and high demand for rental housing, which

11834-570: The occasional watchman at the nearby wharves. For example, Clement F. Harvey is recorded as living beside the Railway Canal on the North Side of Dudley Street West Melbourne in the Sands and McDougall Post Office Directory for 1929. However, the unofficial, and possibly illegal occupation of Dudley Flats was not recorded in the normal official sources. Jack Peacock, a salvage dealer, was popularly known as

11956-514: The occupants' interests, the interests of the community, and for health reasons, be removed therefrom ... the Conference recommends that the Departments concerned be asked to give the occupants notice to vacate the area within one month, and, on vacation, to have the structures entirely demolished . A little later council resolved to instruct the town clerk (Mr. H. S. Wootton) to discuss the matter with

12078-556: The overall squatted area is often barren, with the ground sweeped and stamped to minimise dust, and where gardening is simply impossible and unaffordable. Illegal and dangerous electricity connections are abundant, another danger for fires, and electrical accidents, The Joe Slovo squatter camp, in Cape Town, houses an estimated 20,000 people. Shack dwellers in South Africa organise themselves in groups such as Abahlali baseMjondolo and Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign . In Nairobi ,

12200-483: The parties spoke the same language, and the elders likely perceived it as part of the gift exchanges which had taken place over the previous few days amounting to a tanderrum ceremony which allows temporary, not permanent, access to and use of the land. Batman selected a site on the northern bank of the Yarra River , declaring that "this will be the place for a village" before returning to Van Diemen's Land. In August 1835, another group of Vandemonian settlers arrived in

12322-481: The peripheries of some French cities. The state authorities recorded 16,399 people living in 391 slums across the country in 2012. Of these, 41% lived on the outskirts of Paris. In Madrid , Spain, a shanty town named Cañada Real is considered the largest informal settlement in Europe. It has an estimated 8,628 inhabitants, who are mainly Spanish, Romani and north African, but only one mobile health unit. After 40 years, property developers began to take an interest in

12444-537: The picturesque qualities created by wasteland and fringe settlements. These works included: Reference in literature or quotes from literary figures relating to Dudley Flats are also common in the second half of the twentieth century: In 2006, Sharon Thorn completed a PhD thesis on the artistic possibilities in fringe life. In 2018, Griffin Press (Scribe Publications) launched a combined social history, psychogeographic contemplation and biography of three specific residents of

12566-598: The police and possibly Harbour Trust officers, who attempted to move people out and demolish their huts, the area continued to be occupied at least up until World War II. The camps had been able to remain or be reestablished in part because of disputes between the various government bodies over who had authority, with the Railways Department, Melbourne City Council, the Melbourne Harbour Trust, the Board of Works, and

12688-563: The precinct. Many of Melbourne's theatres join the Melbourne Town Hall in hosting the annual Melbourne International Comedy Festival , one of the world's three largest comedy festivals. Melbourne has been called "the live music capital of the world"; one study found it has more music venues per capita than any other world city sampled, with 17.5 million patron visits to 553 venues in 2016. Australia's first global music star, opera singer Nellie Melba , took her stage name from her hometown. Composer Percy Grainger followed her in becoming

12810-614: The rebellion, giving some indication of immigration flows at the time. With the wealth brought in from the gold rush and the subsequent need for public buildings, a program of grand civic construction soon began. The 1850s and 1860s saw the commencement of Parliament House , the Treasury Building , the Old Melbourne Gaol , Victoria Barracks , the State Library , University of Melbourne , General Post Office , Customs House ,

12932-639: The richest city in the world, and the second-largest (after London) in the British Empire . The decade began with the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880, held in the large purpose-built Exhibition Building . A telephone exchange was established that year, and the foundations of St Paul's were laid. In 1881, electric light was installed in the Eastern Market , and a generating station capable of supplying 2,000 incandescent lamps

13054-399: The same places (usually the eastern suburbs) for an extended period, while the rest of Melbourne and surrounds stays dry. Overall, the area around Melbourne is, owing to its rain shadow, nonetheless significantly drier than average for southern Victoria. Within the city and surrounds, rainfall varies widely, from around 425 mm (17 in) at Little River to 1,250 mm (49 in) on

13176-531: The site in 2012. There have been cardboard cities in London and Belgrade . In some cases, shanty towns can persist in gentrified areas that local governments have yet to redevelop, or in regions of political dispute. A major historical example was the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong . In Australia and New Zealand , there were many shanty towns before World War II , some of which still exist (for example Wyee ,

13298-416: The spring and summer months and can cause strong cold fronts to form. These cold fronts can be responsible for varied forms of severe weather from gales to thunderstorms and hail , large temperature drops and heavy rain. Winters, while exceptionally dry by southern Victorian standards, are nonetheless drizzly and overcast. The lack of winter rainfall is owed to Melbourne's rain shadowed location between

13420-496: The surrounding suburbs of Melbourne, such as in the municipalities of Stonnington , Boroondara and Port Phillip , southeast of the central business district. Several national parks have been designated around the urban area of Melbourne, including the Mornington Peninsula National Park , Port Phillip Heads Marine National Park and Point Nepean National Park in the southeast, Organ Pipes National Park to

13542-625: The traditional name recorded for the area on which the Melbourne city centre is built. The word is closely related to Narm-narm , being the Boonwurrung word for Port Phillip Bay . Narrm means scrub in Eastern Kulin languages which reflects the Creation Story of how the Bay was filled by the creation of the Birrarung (Yarra River). Before this, the dry Melbourne region extended out into the Bay and

13664-553: The urban periphery in Melbourne's outer west and east in suburbs like Wyndham Vale and Cranbourne . Middle suburbs like Box Hill became denser as a greater proportion of Melburnians began living in apartments. A construction boom resulted in 34 new skyscrapers being built in the central business district between 2010 and 2020. In 2020, Melbourne was classified as an Alpha city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network . Out of all major Australian cities, Melbourne

13786-476: The world's largest and wealthiest metropolises. After the federation of Australia in 1901, Melbourne served as the interim seat of government of the new nation until Canberra became the permanent capital in 1927. Today, Melbourne is culturally diverse and, among world cities, has the 4th largest foreign born population . It is a leading financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region, ranking 28th globally in

13908-464: The year it hosted the Centennial Exhibition. The brash boosterism that had typified Melbourne during that time ended in the early 1890s. The bubble supporting the local finance and property industries burst, resulting in a severe economic depression. Sixteen small land banks and building societies collapsed, and 133 limited companies went into liquidation. The Melbourne financial crisis was

14030-537: Was 46.4 °C (115.5 °F), on 7 February 2009 . While snow is occasionally seen at higher elevations in the outskirts of the city, and dustings were observed in 2020, it has not been recorded in the Central Business District since 1986. The sea temperature in Melbourne is warmer than the surrounding ocean during the summer months, and colder during the winter months. This is predominately due to Port Phillip Bay being an enclosed and shallow bay that

14152-484: Was enforced later that same year by the mass-arrest and imprisonment of hundreds of Indigenous people during the Lettsom raid . However, Aboriginal people still managed to continue living near the settlement and by January 1844 there were said to be 675 residing in squalid camps around Melbourne. The British Colonial Office had appointed five Aboriginal Protectors for the Aboriginal people of Victoria, in 1839, but their work

14274-457: Was held. Melbourne acquired its first public monument, the Burke and Wills statue, in 1864. With the gold rush largely over by 1860, Melbourne continued to grow on the back of continuing gold-mining, as the major port for exporting the agricultural products of Victoria (especially wool) and with a developing manufacturing sector protected by high tariffs. An extensive radial railway network spread into

14396-499: Was in operation by 1882. The Melbourne cable tramway system opened in 1885 and became one of the world's most extensive systems by 1890. In 1885, visiting English journalist George Augustus Henry Sala coined the phrase "Marvellous Melbourne", which stuck long into the twentieth century and has come to refer to the opulence and energy of the 1880s, during which time large commercial buildings, grand hotels, banks, coffee palaces , terrace housing and palatial mansions proliferated in

14518-483: Was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837, and named after the then- Prime Minister of the United Kingdom , William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne . Declared a city by Queen Victoria in 1847, it became the capital of the newly separated Colony of Victoria in 1851. During the 1850s Victorian gold rush , the city entered a lengthy boom period that, by the late 1880s, had transformed it into Australia's, and one of

14640-523: Was nullified by a land policy that favoured squatters who took possession of Aboriginal lands. By 1845, fewer than 240 wealthy Europeans held all the pastoral licences then issued in Victoria and became a powerful political and economic force in Victoria for generations to come. Letters patent of Queen Victoria , issued on 25 June 1847, declared Melbourne a city. On 1 July 1851, the Port Phillip District separated from New South Wales to become

14762-421: Was on the east side of the canal. Residents were given notice of eviction in 1938, but nothing seems to have been done to remove them. The Melbourne City Council hosted a conference of the authorities responsible, which resolved unanimously: that the shacks and their occupants on areas of land at West Melbourne controlled by the Lands Department, Harbour Trust and Railways Dept, constitute a nuisance and should, in

14884-471: Was the worst affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and spent a long time under lockdown restrictions, with Melbourne experiencing six lockdowns totalling 262 days. While this contributed to a net outflow of migration causing a slight reduction in Melbourne's population over the course of 2020 to 2022, Melbourne is projected to be the fastest growing capital city in Australia from 2023–24 onwards, overtaking Sydney as

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