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Beach heart stayed same as city grew

The scene from City Beach in the 1960s shows white sand packed with swimmers, low, undulating dunes and cars parked by a road running right along the beach.

Ian and Sue Scott remember it well; they spent almost every weekend there. They would make their way down from their house nearby, bought for 3000 pounds on the edge of the newly built Empire Games village, which was bush just a few years earlier.

Over the past 50 years, they have watched City Beach change but also stay the same.

Buildings have gone up and come down and the road has been moved but the beach itself is mostly as it was: low-key and family-friendly.

The Scotts, long-time members of the surf club and who now live in Wembley Downs, are grateful a slice of life from 50 years ago still exists.

Elsewhere in the suburb, many things have changed. Areas that were bare sand or scrub are dotted with stately mansions.

Perth skyline from Kings Park, 1968. Picture: Rob Middenway/National Archives of Australia

Mr Scott remembers "laughing our heads off" when the area around Kapinara Primary School, north of The Boulevard, was opened up to housing.

"It was a sand hill with not a single tree, not a bush or anything," he said.

"We thought no one would buy a house there … These days, it is a garden suburb."

Developers had long eyed the area where parks, pockets of natural bush and the sand dunes along West Coast Highway had remained much as they always were, Mr Scott said.

Former UK town planner and architect Professor Gordon Stephenson left a lasting mark on Perth. Picture:National Archives of Australia

But thanks to careful management, while City Beach had filled up, those glimpses of the past had endured.

"You look back on life with nostalgia but I think it has handled the 50-year transition well. It's the same but with a modern flavour.

"People want to keep it simple. They don't want it to be like Bondi or the Gold Coast."

But in other areas of our city, the transformation has been widespread.

St Georges Terrace in 1966. Picture:W Brindle /National Archives of Australia

In 1965, Perth was a small capital city with a population of about half a million and nothing around it but country towns. In the 50 years since, it has exploded, growing to two million people on the back of a post-war baby boom, immigration programs and a booming economy.

Places that were small, isolated or non-existent have developed into major centres, drawing the city outwards.

Midland Junction, as it was known back then, was home to the train station, rail yards and not a lot more. Armadale and Gosnells were little enclaves, so far away the consensus was that you needed a cut lunch to go out there.

Rockingham and Mandurah were beachside holiday towns and Carine, Coogee and Spearwood were dominated by market gardens.

Wanneroo was a small town travellers passed through on their way north.

Joondalup didn't exist.

Luckily for the burgeoning city, authorities had seen the writing on the wall in the 1950s. They employed Professor Gordon Stephenson, from the University of Liverpool, to work with Town Planning Commissioner Alistair Hepburn.

The task: to come up with Perth's first real metropolitan plan, to guide how the city would grow between the natural barriers of the ocean and the Darling escarpment.

That plan set about reserving parkland and industrial areas, quarantining prime agricultural land and directing urban growth along corridors that would mirror transport routes, spreading towards hubs on the outskirts of the metropolitan area.

The prevailing desire of the community, including baby boomers and new migrants from Europe, was for a quarter-acre block and there was plenty of land, so the suburbs grew and grew.

Perth from the air in 1965. Picture: National Archives of Australia

The plan has, in essence, guided Perth's development to this day, WA Planning Commission chairman Eric Lumsden says.

"While we have the extension of the urban area, it hasn't just blown out in a circle," he said.

"We have been lucky in that regard, because that plan has enabled the development of Perth to at least be directed and, in some cases, consolidated, rather than just having urban sprawl around one centre."

John Wheatley has seen the growth of the suburbs.

He started as a bus driver in 1963, when the Narrows Bridge had been opened only a few years and the Kwinana Freeway stopped at Canning Highway.

He grew up near the tram workshops in East Perth and worked at just about every metropolitan bus depot before he retired last year.

"Perth used to be a sleepy little hollow, but it's not any more," Mr Wheatley said.

"It's hard to know it now. It's so big. There are suburbs I have never even heard of, places north of Two Rocks. It's hard to imagine there are houses up there because back when I started, that was just bush."

Mr Lumsden said one of the major changes since 1965 was the transformation of the city into a place to live and the outer suburbs into business hubs.

In the 1950s, the City of Perth had a policy that all office development should be in the CBD and housing in the suburbs, not in the city.

Today, it encourages inner-city living and there has been a big increase in residents, while major office and commercial areas have sprung up in areas including Joondalup, Midland and Rockingham.

Perth from the air in 1965. Picture: National Archives of Australia

That decentralisation had been important to the city's growth, Mr Lumsden said.

As planning for the next 50 years proceeds, Mr Lumsden said more focus was needed on public transport and different types of housing to allow the existing metropolitan area to be in-filled, rather than expanded.

Anecdotal evidence was that younger people and new migrants, particularly from countries such as China and India, were not wedded to a big block. They did want to live in vibrant urban areas, whether Perth or Midland.

"The 'easy to develop' land is largely gone. But I think the old model based on the quarter-acre block and extending north and south to Geraldton and Bunbury is not only not sustainable, it's not wanted," Mr Lumsden said. "We need to make sure we continue to have clean air for people, good amenity with parks and well-planned neighbourhoods, while protecting the natural and built environment.

"Those issues are far more critical now because we have reached those thresholds."