A Commonwealth Government Role in Planning: Advocacy And Resistance 1939–52

Abstract

One of the most celebrated episodes in the history of planning ideas at the national level in Australia was the work of the Commonwealth Housing Commission (CHC) in the mid 1940s. Authors such as Clem Lloyd, Pat Troy and Leonie Sandercock have contrasted the 'wide horizons' and 'great plans' of the Commission with the demise of any role in urban planning on the part of the commonwealth government from the early 1950s to the early 1970s. These authors explain this outcome in terms of the general political swing to the right in the late 1940s. This account looks at three areas of CHC recommendations-community facilities; town planning and regional planning-and attributes the demise of these Commission recommendations to a set of bureaucratic and political factors taking effect as early as 1944–45.