Why Australians don't loiter

August 6, 2017 7:20 AM

When the British Empire's Australian colonies were being established, Governor Richard Bourke of New South Wales (which then encompassed Victoria) decreed that, in order to facilitate control and prevent rebellion, the towns being established must not include public squares, as cities in Britain and Europe did. Open spaces, such as those outside public buildings, were enclosed with fences and gates. The impact of these decisions has shaped the Australian attitude to public space, from central business districts which were (until recent decades) deserted outside of business hours as people retreated to their family homes, to tendencies to meet in private buildings and pay little attention to the urban landscape along the way.

While public squares have been added to Australian cities in recent decades, they have been a somewhat awkward fit for a culture to which the concept of such spaces has been foreign. Meanwhile, improvised meeting places, such as “under the clocks” at Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, continue to exist.

posted by acb (19 comments total)

Early settlers transported to Australia were convicts, leading to this specific concern which doesn't show up in other British Empire colonies such as Canada, for instance.
posted by infini at 7:34 AM on August 6, 2017

Really? Already they don't have any public spaces, and you're just gonna waltz in here and call them all criminals? That is some straight up entitlement, right there...
posted by sexyrobot at 7:40 AM on August 6, 2017

No, it's a fair cop, we kept nicking the public spaces
posted by Merus at 7:47 AM on August 6, 2017 [28 favorites]

Australia according to this thread.
posted by Talez at 7:47 AM on August 6, 2017 [4 favorites]

Yes, Melbourne's public spaces feel hostile and grafted on. Especially City Square, it's an abomination (and is currently an open pit into the depths of Hades anyway due to railway works). I guess it's reassuring to know that's part of the intent of the urban design, and not just paranoia.
We do loiter, just not on the street. My local shopping centre is always full of loitering people – mostly oldies – treating the food court and supermarket forecourts like how I imagine a mediterranean piazza, although they are mostly Greek and Italian, so some imported cultural expectations might have something to do with that. I guess we've successfully brainwashed ourselves into privatizing public space. You win this round capitalism, thanks Bourke - fitting that another awkward, consumerist public space is named after him, Bourke St Mall.
posted by threecheesetrees at 8:32 AM on August 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

sexyrobot, my comment was referencing the FPP, specifically the phrase

decreed that, in order to facilitate control and prevent rebellion, the towns being established must not include public squares,
posted by infini at 8:37 AM on August 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

Does this affect private spaces in terms of how they're laid out or if houses have backyards or condos have pools as well?
posted by BrotherCaine at 9:31 AM on August 6, 2017

"The Conversation: Academic rigour, journalistic flair " Wow, this utter bollocks is harsh commentary.
posted by hawthorne at 9:56 AM on August 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

infini, this was actually a Melbourne thing so it was (mostly) affecting free settlers. The convicts in Sydney by that time already had the Domain/Hyde Park for their rabble-rousing. Apparently Bourke didn't trust anyone who thought moving to Australia of their own free will was a good idea.
posted by N-stoff at 10:12 AM on August 6, 2017 [8 favorites]

I don't quite see how the lack of public space in early Melbourne city planning really explains all the things the article would like to explain: things like 60s-era suburbanization are hardly restricted to Melbourne or Australia.

Looking at Google maps, moreover, makes it look like there are tons of public parks in the heart of Melbourne -- Royal Park, Fawkner Park, the Botanic Gardens, etc. And this handbook from the 1880s describes Melbourne as having "a number of public squares, gardens, and parks." The absence of public squares from the very heart of what is today Melbourne's financial district seems like a slender thread to hang so much about Melbourne's cultural life, especially when it doesn't seem like it's very distinctive to Melbourne.
posted by crazy with stars at 10:26 AM on August 6, 2017 [4 favorites]

The thing that strikes me about Melbourne isn't the lack of public spaces, it's the lack of indigenous Australians; that is the tragedy.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 11:06 AM on August 6, 2017 [8 favorites]

I don't quite see how the lack of public space in early Melbourne city planning really explains all the things the article would like to explain: things like 60s-era suburbanization are hardly restricted to Melbourne or Australia.


I think there's a point to be madeinthis article, but it is oversold.

Boston made quite the case for abolishing public squares. There were two indoor spaces (Fanueil Hall and the Old South Meeting House) that were basically used to agitate for the rebellion.

But a short walk from those two is a corner of Boston Common, overseen by a lectern hanging out of the window of Park Street Church. That lectern was used by abolitionists, and was quite the political gathering spot, until the space below it was taken up by 5 lanes of car traffic. So it's not like Melbourne is that special for winding up atomized by a lack of such spaces. Most of the US paved them out for the proverbial parking lot.
posted by ocschwar at 11:34 AM on August 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

So my AU history is crap but when I stayed for a month or so in Canberra, I was amazed, at how it seemed each little "surburb"* had a nice public area just a short walk or bike down a (no motor vehicle) greenbelt. I only saw a handful of these spaces but they had some mix of grocery store, cafe, maybe a church, some park spaces, one of those weird-to-me betting parlours, a dinner club thingy, etc. It's a planned and batch-constructed city that was conceived as a whole staked out in 1908, so maybe all the lovely green/open/public spaces were sort of in retaliation to how Sydney and Melbourne were at the time?

*(what I'd call an urban core residential neighborhood from a USA perspective, each one is rather small, and they call them suburbs even when they are right in the middle of the capital I think.)
posted by SaltySalticid at 1:02 PM on August 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

King George Square

Post Office Square

Anzac Square

Queens Garden

City Botanic Gardens

All within the Brisbane CBD. When they say 'Australia' I think they mean 'Melbourne'.
posted by adept256 at 1:14 PM on August 6, 2017 [8 favorites]

So . . author never been to Adelaide?
posted by dangerousdan at 1:28 PM on August 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

It is completely true that if you discount all the public spaces in Australian cities, the author's theory could be right on the money!
posted by bystander at 3:39 PM on August 6, 2017 [6 favorites]

All within the Brisbane CBD. When they say 'Australia' I think they mean 'Melbourne'.

Probably also Sydney, which does lack public squares in the Euro sense (but not public spaces).
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:57 PM on August 6, 2017

Some speculation here but perhaps Australian towns came too late in history to develop the classic European town square.

Go back far enough and a significant use of the squares was as a market. With most towns in Australia developing after the Industrial Revolution there were different forces in play for urban development and squares may not have been as important. By the time Melbourne was a going concern fertilizers were in common use, there was mechanical seeding and decent ploughs. The squattocracy was claiming far larger parcels of land for farming than were seen in England, making direct sales by farmers infeasible.
posted by N-stoff at 7:05 PM on August 6, 2017

I loiter a lot, and get a lot of odd looks for it. I constantly feel like a criminal for pausing to sort my bag or eat a sandwich in public space. While I get that there are some public spaces, I do think there might be some nugget of truth here. I feel a lot more allowed in public when I'm in Germany.
posted by Peter B-S at 4:52 AM on August 7, 2017 [2 favorites]