‘The modern idea is to bring the country into the city’: Australian Urban Reformers and the Ideal of Rurality, 1900–1918*

Abstract

AbstractIn the early twentieth century, Australians strove to create a rural civilisation through state legislation to encourage rural closer settlement. The fantasy that Australia might one day support a rural population of perhaps hundreds of millions endured despite the overwhelmingly urbanised character of the nation and the harsh realities of its environment. This rural dream was present not merely in the discourse surrounding the rural settlement imperative, but also inflected the language and modes of urban reform, as planners sought to ‘ruralise’ the urban environment to reflect something distinctive about Australian life. Previous scholarship addressing the rural ideal in Australian history, as well as urban history, has failed to interrogate these links. This article illuminates the power and ideological reach of rurality in the Australian nation-building project and pushes the boundaries of ‘rural history’ by considering the ways in which reformers sought to extend a projected Australian ‘rural civilisation’ into the cities.