Melbourne

Melbourne is the state capital and largest city in the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-largest city in Australia (after Sydney), with a population of approximately 3.8 million (2006 estimate) in the Melbourne metropolitan area and 69,670 in the City of Melbourne (which covers only the central city area). The city's name is pronounced as either /ˈmel.bən/ or /ˈmæl.bən/. Melbourne was the capital city of Australia from 1901 until 1927.

Melbourne is considered by most Australians to be the sporting capital of Australia, as it is home to The Melbourne Cup, Australian F1 Grand Prix, Australian Open Tennis, AFL Grand Final and MotoGP Motorcycle Grand Prix, and will host the Commonwealth Games in 2006. It is also considered to be the fashion, shopping, dining and cultural capital of Australia.

Melbourne has twice ranked first in a survey by The Economist of The World's Most Livable Cities on the basis of its cultural attributes, climate, cost of living, and social conditions such as crime rates and health care, once in 2002 ^[1], and again in 2004 – a year in which the Economist truly took a shine to Australian cities, with the five largest cities in Australia given rankings of 6 or better. In 2005, however, it was ranked 2nd, behind Vancouver, Canada. The US's Utne Reader puts it thus: "Add a long tradition of civic pride, communities of new immigrants from around the world, and the best food in Australia, and you have a recipe for what many claim is the hippest city in the Southern Hemisphere" (Nov/Dec 2001).

Melbourne has undergone a major urban 'revival', such that it is sometimes classed as being in a second tier of "world cities"; the GaWC study group in the UK ranks Melbourne, on the basis of relative availability of specialised "advanced services," as a "minor world city" comparable to cities such as Montreal, Osaka, and Prague. It has one of the highest numbers of international students studying in its universities, after London, New York City, and Paris.

A resident of Melbourne is referred to as a Melburnian.

History

Main articles: History of Melbourne and Timeline of Melbourne history

The city was named after the British Prime Minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, whose home was near the village of Melbourne in Derbyshire. Melbourne in Derbyshire derives its name from the Old English for Mill Stream (Mylla Burne).

The European settlement at Melbourne was founded in 1835 by settlers coming from Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen's Land), where they had difficulty finding available land.

The area was already inhabited by the Kulin people, then indigenous to the area. A transaction was negotiated for 600,000 acres of land from eight of their representatives; this was later anulled by the New South Wales government (then governing all of eastern mainland Australia), who compensated the settlers in exchange. Ultimately, settlement continued regardless [2].

It was the capital first of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales and then of the separate colony of Victoria. With the discovery of gold in Victoria in the 1850s, leading to the Victorian gold rush, Melbourne quickly grew as a port and service centre. Later it became Australia's leading manufacturing centre. During the 1880s, Melbourne was the second largest city in the British Empire, and came to be known as "Marvellous Melbourne". Victorian architecture abounds in Melbourne and today the city is home to the largest number of surviving Victorian era buildings of any city in the world other than London.

Melbourne became Australia's national capital at Federation on 1 January 1901. The first Federal parliament was opened on 9 May of that year in the Royal Exhibition Building. The seat of government and the national capital remained in Melbourne until 1927 when it moved to the new capital city of Canberra. Melbourne continued to expand steadily throughout the first half of the 20th century, particularly with the post-World War II influx of immigrants and the prestige of hosting the Olympic Games in 1956. Even after the national capital moved to Canberra, Melbourne remained Australia's business and finance capital until the 1970s, when it began to lose this primacy to Sydney. Melbourne also developed as a centre of the arts.

After a boom in the 1980s Melbourne experienced a largely property market and manufacturing driven slump from 1989 to 1992, with a loss of employment and a drain of population to New South Wales and Queensland. In the 1990s, the Victorian state government of Premier Jeff Kennett (Liberal) sought to reverse this trend with the aggressive development of new public buildings, such as the Melbourne Museum, the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre (nicknamed "Jeff's Shed"), Crown Casino, capital works (most notably the City Link tollway), the selling off state assets (the State Electricity Commission and redundant state schools), the pruning back of state services and the publicising of Melbourne's merits both to outsiders and Melburnians. This has continued under the government of current Premier Steve Bracks (Labor).

Geography

Melbourne is located in the south-eastern corner of mainland Australia, and is the southernmost mainland capital city. Geologically it is built on the confluence of Quaternary lava flows to the west, Silurian mudstones to the east and Holocene sand accumulation to the southeast along Port Phillip, its suburbs sprawling to the east, following the Yarra River out to the Yarra and Dandenong Ranges, south-east to the mouth of the bay, and following the Maribyrnong River and its tributaries west and north to flat farming country. The central business district (the original city) is laid out in the famous mile-by-half-a-mile Hoddle Grid, its southern edge fronting on to the Yarra.

Parks and gardens

Melbourne is often referred to as Australia's garden city. There is an abundance of parks and gardens close to the CBD with a variety of common and rare plant species amid landscaped vistas, pedestrian pathways, and majestic tree lined avenues that help make Melbourne one of the world's most livable cities. There are also many parks in the surrounding suburbs of Melbourne, such as in the cities of Stonnington and Booroondara, south east of the CBD.

Governance

The Melbourne City Council governs only the City of Melbourne, which takes in the CBD and a few adjoining inner suburbs. However the head of the Melbourne City Council, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, is frequently treated as a representative of greater Melbourne (the entire metropolitan area), particularly when interstate or overseas. The current Lord Mayor is John So.

The rest of the metropolitan area is divided into 30 municipalities, all of which are styled as cities except for five on the city's outer fringes which are styled as shires (see a list of these at Local Government Areas of Victoria). These municipalities all have elected councils and are responsible for a range of functions delegated to them by the Victorian state government. These include planning, rubbish collection, beaches, parks and gardens, child-care and preschool facilities, local festivals and cultural activities, services to the elderly, supervision of public health, sanitation and similar matters. Councils levy rates from their residents to pay for these services. The councils are collectively represented by the Local Government Association of Victoria.

Melbourne's overwhelming dominance of the state of Victoria's population and economy means the Victorian state government is also effectively the city government of greater Melbourne. Most city-wide government activities are controlled by the state government. These include public transport, main roads, traffic control, policing, education above preschool level, and planning of major infrastructure projects. Because three quarters of Victoria's population lives in Melbourne, state governments have traditionally been reluctant to allow the development of city-wide governmental bodies, which would tend to create a rival to the state government. For this reason the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, which had become a powerful semi-autonomous authority, was abolished in 1992.

Economy

Melbourne is a large commercial and industrial centre. Many of Australia's largest companies have their headquarters there, and many multinational corporations (approximately one-third of the 100 largest multinationals operating in Australia as of 2002), have their main Australian office there. The peak body representing workers in Australia, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, is also headquartered in Melbourne. Melbourne is home to Australia's largest seaport and much of Australia's automotive industry (including the engine manufacturing facility of Holden and the Ford and Toyota manufacturing facilities), in addition to many other manufacturing industries.

Most current major infrastructure projects are generally centred on the upcoming 2006 Commonwealth Games, which are to be held in the city. Such projects include the $AUD700 million Southern Cross Station redevelopment, including a $350 million world-class transport interchange facility with $350 million also set aside for office accommodation, residential towers and hotel and also a retail plaza. The project is set for completion in early 2006, before the start of the Games. At the centrepiece of the Commonwealth Games projects is the redevelopment project for the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the stadium set for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games. At a cost of $434 million the project involves reconstructing the old Olympic and Ponsford stands. In 2006, Melbourne will play host to the summit of G20 finance ministers.

Demographics

Today Melbourne is one of the world's most diverse and multicultural cities. Almost a quarter of Victoria's population was born overseas and come from 233 countries, speak over 180 languages and dialects and follow 116 religious faiths. As the capital city, Melbourne has over time become a large urban centre and the home to around 80% of the state's population.

Population History

Melbourne's population exploded during the 1850s' gold rush. From 20,000 inhabitants in 1851, an additional 15,000 arrived almost overnight with the discovery of gold in August 1852 ^[3]. In the following decades of the 1870s and 1880s, Melbourne was Australia's most populous city and led to a spectacular property boom, and exuberance still in evidence in the much loved late Victorian architecture. During the 1890s a world economic depression hit Melbourne's overleveraged economy with particular savagery. Much of Melbourne's population loss during the 1890s was the result of the unemployed moving west seeking gold, or, employment in the burgeoning industries stimulated by gold. As a consequence property prices took decades to recover.

The need for a population increase and a labour force saw many British, Yugoslav, Dutch, German, Arab and Maltese migrants arrive in 1945 after the devastation of the homelands in World War II. Large numbers from Italy and Greece arrived in the 1950s and 1960s, to become the largest groups after those from Britain and Ireland. Melbourne has one of the world's largest population of people with Greek ancestry outside Greece -- in fact it is 3rd only to Athens and Thessaloniki as a metropolis for Greek-speakers [4]. Refugees from Cambodia and Vietnam made Melbourne their home in the 1970s and 1980s and were joined by people from India, the Philippines and Malaysia. Melbourne also boasts the largest Jewish community in Oceania (See Judaism in Australia). The newest wave of immigrants comes from North Africa, particularly Sudan.

Although Brisbane and Perth are growing faster in percentage terms, and Victoria's net interstate migration has fluctuated, the Melbourne statistical division has grown by approximately 50,000 people a year since 2003, more than any other Australian city. Attraction of a large proportion of overseas immigrants and interstate migration from Sydney due to more affordable housing are two recent key factors. In recent years, Melton, Wyndham and Casey, part of the Melbourne statistical division, have recorded the highest growth rate of all local government areas in Australia.

Melbourne Population by Year:

Education

Further information: List of schools in Victoria

Melbourne's two most notable tertiary institutions are the University of Melbourne and Monash University. They are both members of the Group of Eight, a lobby group including the most prestigious universities in Australia. Both are also highly ranked among the best universities in the world by The Times Higher Education Supplement. Several other universities are also located in Melbourne, including Deakin University, La Trobe University, RMIT University, Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria University of Technology and the St Patrick's campus of the Australian Catholic University.

Melbourne has numerous government, independent and other secondary schools. Primary school consists of seven grades; a preparatory year and grades 1 to 6. From years 7 to 12 students attend high schools. A majority of the oldest schools in Melbourne belong to the Associated Public Schools of Victoria and Associated Grammar Schools of Victoria associations.

Culture

Sport

Melbourne is where Australian rules football originated, and it still the most popular sport in Victoria. The city is home to nine of the sixteen teams in the Australian Football League (AFL), whose five Melbourne games per week attract an average 35,000 people per game. The AFL Grand Final, one of the biggest sporting events in Australia, is played on the last weekend in September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), a massive arena that has held up to 120,000 spectators. The MCG was the site of many events at the 1956 Summer Olympics, including the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. It is the traditional venue for the Boxing Day cricket Test match.

Melbourne Storm, a National Rugby League team, are based at Olympic Park. Olympic Park is also the home of Melbourne Victory, a team in the newly formed Australian football (soccer) competition, the A-League. The city also has two National Basketball League franchises, the Melbourne Tigers and the South Dragons (to enter the league in 2006).

The city has hosted several major international sporting events. Annually, Melbourne hosts the Australian Open tennis tournament, one of the four Grand Slam tournaments; the Melbourne Cup horse race; the 'Boxing Day' cricket test match held each year from 26-30 December at the Melbourne Cricket Ground; and the Australian Grand Prix Formula One championship. The Wallabies, Australia's national rugby union team, usually also play at least one Test annually at Melbourne's Telstra Dome.

Since the 1956 Olympic Games were held in Melbourne, the city has hosted numerous sporting events which rotate host cities. Melbourne co-hosted the 2003 Rugby Union World Cup, including many pool matches as well as a quarter final – all of which were played at the Telstra Dome; broke new ground as the first city outside the United States to host the World Police and Fire Games in 1995, and the President's Cup golf tournament in 1999; and was the first city in the Southern Hemisphere to host the World Cup Polo Championship in 2001.

The 2006 Commonwealth Games will be held in Melbourne, the first time the city has hosted the event. In 2007, Melbourne will be the host of the FINA World Aquatics Championships.

Media

Melbourne has two major daily newspapers, The Age and The Herald Sun, as well as the free afternoon tabloid mX. There are three commercial television channels: the Seven, Nine and Ten networks — and three public channels: ABC, SBS, and a community television channel, Channel 31 Melbourne.

Melbourne has a wide range of radio stations and is the base for the Australia-wide Austereo network. 3AW is consistently the city's highest-rating commercial radio station. Melbourne also boasts a number of community radio stations, of which the best known are 3RRR and 3PBS.

The arts

Melbourne has a large and vibrant arts and cultural life.

Annuals arts celebrations include the Melbourne Arts Festival, the Melbourne Fringe Festival, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the Melbourne International Film Festival, and Moomba.

Melbourne is the home of the Australian Ballet and the second home of Opera Australia. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is highly regarded both at home and internationally.

Melbourne was strongly associated with the establishment of Australia's visual arts. The Heidelberg School was an Australian art movement of the late 19th century centered in Melbourne. It was largely the work of Melbourne-based artists, and was arguably the first distinctly Australian art movement (in the Western canon, at least). Many of its most significant works hang in the National Gallery of Victoria, which has one of Australia's top collections of visual art, particularly early Australian western-tradition art.

Several professional theatre companies operate in Melbourne, of which the Melbourne Theatre Company has the most institutional support of any in Australia, and there is a wide range of smaller companies.

Melbourne's lively rock and pop music scene has fostered many internationally renowned artists and musicians, with links to AC/DC, Nick Cave, Crowded House, John Farnham, Graeme Bell, Kylie Minogue, and Jet.

Melbourne is home to a large Australian hip hop scene, generally known as "Melburn" or "The Burn" throughout the unique sub-culture. Obese Records, a leading Australian Hip Hop recording label, was founded in 1995 in Melbourne and is located in Prahran, just off the famous Chapel Street. Melbourne is home to a gritty style of home grown Hip Hop and is home to artists such as Lyrical Commission, Muphin, Reason and Pegz. Live shows constantly occur in the city with open-mic contests and performances by up-and-coming artists held throughout the week at different locations.

The dance music scene in Melbourne is large and lively. There are dance parties happening almost every night of the year, frequently attracting some of the world's best DJs to the city. The Melbourne Shuffle, a style of dance, had its birth here, and has been evolving ever since.

Melbourne in culture

Melbourne has been the setting for many novels, television dramas, and films. Fergus Hume's international best-seller Mystery of a Hansom Cab, which outsold the Sherlock Holmes stories at the time, was set in Melbourne of the Gold Rush era. Frank Hardy's Power Without Glory tells the story of Melbourne businessman John West (based on the real-life John Wren) and is set in a thinly-disguised Collingwood, a Melbourne working-class suburb. Perhaps the best-known novel internationally is Nevil Shute's novel On the Beach. In 1959, it was made into a film directed by Stanley Kramer, and starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Anthony Perkins. The film depicted the denizens of Melbourne quietly slipping off into eternity as the last victims of a global nuclear holocaust. Filmed on location in and around Melbourne (a great novelty for Melbourne at the time), it is perhaps best remembered for a comment Ava Gardner possibly never actually made - describing Melbourne as 'the perfect place to make a film about the end of the world', commenting on the dreary conservatism of Melbourne in the late 1950s. The purported quote was invented by journalist Neil Jillett. Similar filming was undertaken when a 2000 television movie remake was produced.

In recent years, many more films have been made in Melbourne. Some of the more famous include Mad Max, Chopper, Romper Stomper, featuring a young Russell Crowe as a terrifying Melburnian skinhead; Jackie Chan's Mr. Nice Guy and The Castle.

Perhaps better known to a contemporary audience is the daily soap opera Neighbours, set in the fictional eastern suburb of Erinsborough, which presents a 'whitebread' microcosm of suburban Australian life. Other contemporary television shows set in Melbourne include Stingers (a police drama), The Secret Life Of Us, and MDA.

Singer Paul Kelly has written several well-known songs about aspects of the city close to the heart of many Melburnians, notably "Leaps And Bounds" and "From St Kilda To King's Cross", while Skyhooks also wrote some more tongue in cheek songs about Melbourne. "Balwyn Calling", "Carlton (Lygon Street Limbo)" and "Toorak Cowboy" are examples.

Melbourne-born satirist Barry Humphries created his main character Dame Edna Everage as a comedic version of a suburban homemaker. Through her he has performed cutting odes to Melbourne mores and the middle class suburbs of Moonee Ponds and Highett, among others.

Carols by Candlelight, first held in 1938, is a Christmas Eve tradition held annually at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl.

Transport

Melbourne is served with an extensive public transport network. Like many major cities in the world, Melbourne has an integrated public transport system, however some of its outlying suburbs still face transport difficulties. It has one of the world's most extensive tram networks, almost 300 bus routes and a train system with more than 15 lines. Flinders Street Station is a prominent Melbourne landmark and meeting place. From the 1920s to the 1940s it was the world's busiest passenger station. The city has rail connections wth several regional cities in the state, as well as interstate rail services to Sydney and Adelaide.

The Port of Melbourne is Australia's largest container and general cargo port. Melbourne Airport is the nation's second busiest. Station Pier in Port Phillip Bay handles cruise ships and the Spirit of Tasmania ferries which cross Bass Strait to Tasmania.

Melbourne has four significant airports. Melbourne International Airport located at Tullamarine is the city's main international and domestic gateway. Moorabbin Airport is a significant general aviation airport in the city's south east. Essendon Airport, which was once the city's main airport before the construction of Tullamarine, handles general aviation and some cargo flights, and is the base of the Victoria Police air wing and air ambulance. Avalon Airport located between Melbourne and Geelong is a freight and maintenance facility and handles some low cost flights.

Landmarks and tourist information

Melbourne attracts large numbers of tourists, particularly young backpackers. The Fitzroy Gardens in East Melbourne has many attractions including Captain Cook's Cottage. Along St Kilda Road there are many cultural attractions, including the National Gallery of Victoria, the Shrine of Remembrance, King's Domain and the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, the Arts Centre, and Victoria Barracks. Southbank on the southern bank of the Yarra River attracts locals and tourists alike for its mix of dining, shopping and recreational facilities. The Crown Casino entertainment complex can also be found in the Southbank precinct.

Melbourne hosts a disproportionately large number of spectator sports. Melbourne's best-known sporting events are the Australian F1 Grand Prix, numerous international Cricket matches, the Australian Football League Grand Final and the Spring Racing Carnival wheich culminates with the running of the Melbourne Cup horse race at Flemington. Melbourne will host the Commonwealth Games in 2006.

Melbourne's restaurants are numerous, and are generally of reasonable quality and good value. Some of the best restraunts can be found in St Kilda along Fitzroy Street, South Yarra along Chapel Street, Fitzroy along Brunswick Street, Carlton along Lygon St, South Melbourne along Clarendon St, Richmond along Bridge Rd and Victoria St and Collingwood along Smith Street, as well as in the CBD and Southbank precincts. As one would expect from a city its size, Melbourne has a wide variety of pubs, bars and nightclubs, which can be found all over the metropolitan area.

There are a variety of interesting things to see outside Melbourne proper but still within a day trip of Melbourne.

Sister cities

Melbourne has a number of sister cities. They are:

• Osaka, Japan – 1978
• Tianjin, China (PRC) – 1980
• Thessaloniki, Greece – 1984
• Boston, United States – 1985
• Saint Petersburg, Russia – 1989
• Milan, Italy – 2004
• Galle, Sri Lanka – 2005 (after the 2004 tsunami disaster Melbourne adopted Galle in order to fund the reconstruction of its cricket ground)

Notes

1. ^  Economist Intelligence Unit (2002). Melbourne and Vancouver are the world’s best cities to live in . Retrieved December 14, 2005.
2. ^  Coban, Suzie: “The immigration rush”, Special Broadcasting Service, (Unknown date).