Topic 9B: Suburban Heaven and Hell

The Menzian Dream and Reality

Beverly Chow 

While the Pascoe reading contrasts Carlton and North Balwyn as heaven and hell, this essay will contrast two paths to a suburban heaven, one where the vision is dictated from above, by the government and other planning authorities. The other path is represented by post-war Lalor, where the residents looked toward their ideal of a suburban heaven, and tried to build toward it. This essay found that in post-war Melbourne, by the time that the top-down governmental vision trickled down through the hierarchy of power, it was diluted each step of the way, and when the lukewarm reality finally reached home owners, the original vision was broken and incomplete. It also found that while the Lalor residents were at least partially successful in building their own vision of a good community, they were successful despite the governmental planning, not because of it. It points toward a need for a more vertically integrated planning scheme, which can combine the best of these top-down and bottom-up approaches.

Robert Menzies, in his dramatic 1942 "Forgotten People" speech, acknowledged and intensified the Australian desire for what Pascoe terms a distinctly "middle-class, Anglo-Australian" model of home ownership- the detached suburban home. He called the home 'the foundation of sanity and sobriety,' and claimed that the health of the home 'determines the health of the nation as a whole' (Brett, 2007).

Sydney psychologist Henry Lovell agreed, stating in a report to the Commonwealth Housing Commission that 'a man deprived of space is reduced in stature' (Harris & Larkham, 2003). Menzie described low-density housing as 'one little piece of earth with a house and a garden which is ours', which was seen as the ideal. By the 1950s, the Menzian dream was exploding, with over half a million homes constructed between 1945 and 1955. From 1910-1940, around 50% of homes were occupied by their owners. By 1961, however, despite a dramatic population increase, 70% of homes were owner-occupied (Harris & Larkham, 2003).

There were a number of factors contributed to the dramatic increase in home ownership. In the 1950s, only 10-12% of household expenditure was spent on housing, half that of the pre-war levels (Harris & Larkham, 2003), and Government policies such as the War Service Homes scheme subsidized housing to former military personnel. This scheme alone financed almost 18% of all housing in the housing boom between 1945 and 1955 (Harris & Larkham, 2003).

The desire to own 'one little piece of earth' helped foster an enormous housing shortage. There were plans to overcome this housing shortage, with the Victorian Government announcing that they would finance half of all accommodation. However, by the mid-1950s, only about 15% of Victorian houses were publicly financed (Harris & Larkham, 2003). Home buyers therefore took matters into their own hands, and the number of owner-built houses reached historic highs, comprising a staggering 40% of homes built in 1954 (Pascoe, 2011).

The unusually high effort that residents put into owning their own homes reflected the importance Victorians placed on the Menzian dream, but the government, caught by surprise at the demand for housing, could not keep up with infrastructural demands. Old subdivisions of small, outer suburban councils that were perhaps unsuitable for residential development were opened to owner-builders, who enjoyed the lack of regulatory control the councils placed on these areas (Hamnett & Freestone, 2000). Infrastructure lagged the construction of homes for years, with many homes only connected with electricity and sewage years after the initial construction (Scollay, 2012).

Many developments were extremely far from the ideals of the Commonwealth Housing Commission, which recommended homes shall be "well serviced, located in neighbourhood units in reach of schools, by-passed by traffic on main traffic arteries and with local shops and baby clinics within walking distance.” It recommended that “the main bread winner's place of employment should be located nearby and there should be outdoor recreation and open space for the family." (Hamnett & Freestone, 2000)

Despite the failure to accomplish the ideals of the Commonwealth Housing Commission, in many areas, some of the spirit of this neighbourhood ideal was attained, in an unlikely location on the outskirts of Melbourne in Lalor.

Lalor began as a soldier settlement, and the first houses there were exceptional in their isolation. Instead of submitting to this isolation however, the residents of Lalor, particularly the women, set about building a close community. Their efforts centred on the construction of a kindergarten /community hall, and their efforts to obtain governmental funding for this project were rebuffed by the conservative incumbents. (Scollay, 2012)

Figure 1 - Street view of Cyprus Street in Lalor in 1960 (Museum Victoria, 2013)

Undeterred, the Lalor Women's social club set about funding the project directly from the community. The fundraising efforts helped build a close community, with the LWSC organising "dances, balls, picture nights, fetes, children's fancy dress parties, card nights, fashion parades and gymkhanas". (Scollay, 2012)These activities continued regularly for years, which undoubtedly contributed to close friendships that developed within Lalor.

Unfortunately, the factors that drove the development of Lalor's unusually close and well-organized community seemed to be a shared adversity. Those who were first connected with services like hot water and electricity shared it with those that didn't have it yet: "Corrie came around and she says to me, 'bring your towel and have a bath. We've got the hot water out'". (Scollay, 2012) Lalor women reached out to new families and ensured that they were integrated into the community precisely because they were aware of the isolation of the area.

Figure 2 - House construction in Lalor in 1959 (Museum Victoria, 2013)

The construction of the kinderhall was driven by a small number of determined individuals who were unusual in their altruism- they did not have young children, and so would not benefit directly from the construction they advocated for. The close-knit Lalor community seems more like a product of a rare combination of factors, many of them undesirable, rather than a template to be followed.

The Lalor community was born out of an incomplete realization of the Menzian dream, a dream where the nuclear family retreats into their private, fenced sanctuary to live in a safe environment. The dream of this private sanctuary drove people to the outskirts of Melbourne, but the failure of this dream, and the collective struggle toward it, was the impetus for the development of a true community. The people of Lalor demonstrated the incompleteness of the Menzian vision, which leaves little room for fostering a community, and the need for another path that better balances the need for privacy and community.

References

Brett, J. (2007). Robert Menzies' Forgotten People. Melbourne University Press.

Hamnett, S., & Freestone, R. (2000). The Australian Metropolis: A Planning History. Taylor & Francis.

Harris, R., & Larkham, P. (2003). Changing Suburbs: Foundation, Form and Function. Routledge.

Museum Victoria. (2013). Digital Photograph - House Construction, John & Barbara Woods, Lalor, 1959. Retrieved May 5, 2015, from http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/2002107/digital-photograph-house-construction-john-barbara-woods-lalor-1959

Museum Victoria. (2013). Digital Photograph - Street View, Cyprus Street, Lalor, 1960. Retrieved May 5, 2015, from http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/2026060/digital-photograph-street-view-cyprus-street-lalor-1960

Pascoe, C. (2011). Spaces Imagined, Places Remembered: Childhood in 1950s Australia. New Castle Upon Tyne Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Scollay, M. (2012). Lalor. Sydney: UNSW Press.

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