Retail Suburbanization, Modernization, and Growth in Sydney during Australia’s Postwar Boom

Abstract

This article uses Sydney as a case study to examine the process of retail decentralization during Australia’s postwar boom, showing how the form and function of capital city retailing changed completely in just a couple of decades. Suburban migration, the emergence of mobile car-driving consumers, socially constructed gender roles, the ongoing importance of public transport networks, planning regimes that sought to concentrate development in designated zones, and business growth strategies that deployed retail formats developed in America all played a role in shaping the form and function of Australian retailing during the postwar boom. In the process, the retail geographies of Australia’s capital cities were transformed from highly centralized distribution structures dominated by the urban core, to decentralized landscapes of retail clusters featuring modern retail forms like the supermarket and shopping center that would come to define Australian retailing for the remainder of the century.