Re: [TramsDownUnder] Sydney: 1930s snapshot

On 27/11/2024 12:24, 'David Critchley' via TramsDownUnder wrote:

Note in the second image how 'low' Sydney looked in that era, especially when compared to Melbourne and Brisbane at the time.  Following a series of disasterous fires around the turn-of-the-century and fearing that fighting fires was nearly impossible in tall buildings, the NSW Government passed the Height of Buildings Act of 1912, limiting new buildings to just 150 feet tall.  The Act was to determine the height of Sydney buildings for almost 50 years.  It wasn't repealed until 1957 and as a result Sydney spent almost half a century growing predominantly outward rather than upward.  

Melbourne still has a similar height limit covering the blocks bound by Flinders, Elizabeth, Lonsdale and Russell streets.

Together with wide streets it keeps central Melbourne from the 'curse of the canyons'.

Not so with the Melbourne Docklands development where developers and planners were one and the same, resulting in narrow streets and tall towers.

Mal Rowe - whose words fail him in describing the 'security fence' in the attached picture of Collins St, Docklands