Governance and Public Space in the Australian City : Negotiating Public Order in Brisbane, 1875-1914

Governance and Public Space in the Australian City is a rich and evocative examination of the production and use of public spaces in Australian cities in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Using Brisbane as a case study, it demonstrates the way public spaces were constructed, contested, and controlled in attempts to create ‘ideal'city spaces. This construction of space is considered not just in the literal and material sense but also as a product of aspirational and imaginative processes of city-building by municipal authorities and citizens. This book is as much about people as it is about cities – uncovering the manner in which perceived models of ideal urban citizenship were reflected in the production and ordering of city spaces. This book challenges common narratives that situate public spaces as universal or equalising aspects of the urban sphere. Exploring three distinct types of public space – the streets, slums, and parks – the book questions how urban spaces functioned, alongside how they were intended to function. In so doing, Governance and Public Space in the Australian City situates public spaces as products of manipulation and regulation at odds with broader concepts of individual liberty and the ‘rights'of people to public space. It will be illuminating reading for scholars and students of urban history and Australian history. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements List of Acronyms and Abbreviations Introduction Ordering Public Desire Reading the City Socially Writing the City Spatially Part I: The Streets 1 “City Improvements Are Not Made for Men Who Walk Backwards”: Safety and Comfort in the Streetscape The Brisbane ‘Boulevard’: The Legacy of Governor Gipps “A City of Stinks”: Purifying the Streetscape A Matter of Convenience: Or Lack Thereof Socialising the Street Conclusion 2 “Not Every Person Who Waits Is Loitering”: Municipal Bylaws and Civil Liberties in the Streetscape Laws of Motion: Enforcing Flow on City Streets Harlots and Hatpins: The Street as a Site of Feminine Degradation Conclusion Part II: The Slum 3 The ‘Hard’ City Slum – Materiality and Moralism in Frog’s Hollow Approaching the Slum in Urban History Settling Frog’s Hollow Making a Slum: Material or Mental? The Haunts of Hunted Women The ‘Vanishing’ of Frog’s Hollow The Hollow Re-Emerges: ‘Slums and Slatterns’ in The Truth Conclusion 4 The ‘Soft’ City Slum: Frog’s Hollow as a Site of Social Otherness Representing Race The ‘Nine-Holes’ Chinese Quarter: The Slum within the Slum Daylight and Dark: Dissecting Lane’s ‘Labyrinth’ Separating the Real from the Imagined Governmental and Judicial Intervention Conclusion Part III: The Natural Environment 5 Breathing Spaces in a Wilderness of Bricks and Mortar The “Lungs” of the City: The Necessity of Parks in Urban Life ‘Reserving’ Public Space in Colonial Brisbane Municipal Parks versus Government Gardens The Artificial ‘Natural’ Conclusion 6 Regulating Nature – The Paradox of the Park Urban Reformers or Middle-Class Playgrounds The ‘Ladies’ Who Lunch’ and the Sly Sirens: Women in Parks Daylight versus Gaslight: The Light and Dark Binary in Urban Parks Conclusion Conclusion Index