Palmerston Street 'slums', 1930s (photo: F. Oswald Barnett collection)
The ABC and CAN member Renate Howe have made an excellent radio programme aired this afternoon on Radio National.
Hindsight is Australia’s only feature radio programme dedicated to social history. It airs at 2pm on Sundays.
Today’s programme examined the compulsory acquisition and demolition of ‘slum’ areas in inner Melbourne up to the 1960s, including Carlton and other nearby suburbs such as Richmond and Fitzroy.* The Ministry of Housing replaced these dwellings with the high-rise public housing towers we have today.
Many voices and memories of those who lived through these tumultuous times give a vivid picture of the pain and upheaval involved, all supposedly for the good of those Melburninans affected.
One commentator acknowledged the criticisms often levelled at the design of the high-rise public estates, but said that few people recognised the great errors of social planning; the failure to ascribe value to the social fabric of communities as they existed prior to ‘slum clearing.’
Carlton residents will find this compelling listening. The programme will be repeated on AM radio 621 on Thursday 26 March at 1pm. After that, the programme should also be available for download, podcasting or listening online through the Hindsight website.
Renate Howe
Renate Howe (pictured) is a distinguished historian and long-time member of the Church of All Nations. Her many books include Slums and Suburbs: A Social History of Urbanisation (Oxford University Press, Melbourne 1982).
* For more photos of Carlton’s ‘slums’, see the online collection of F. Oswald Barnett a 1930s-era campaigner for slum clearance.
