Canberra in the 50s, 60s and 70s (some things change and some stay the same)

marty62 said :

These images appear to have been taken from my Flickrstream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/canberrahouse/

marty62 said :

These images appear to have been taken from my Flickrstream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/canberrahouse/

That’s a fantastic collection marty62!

Agreed, thanks for sharing.

Me no Fry@18 Yup it’s a Triumph TR4.

BicycleCanberra @13 I’m not convinced by that argument. I was in Toronto recently (pop 5.5 million) and Vancouver (2.5M) and both cities have largely retained vehicular access in the downtown areas. My impression is that while it seems potentially safer to keep the vehicles out, the experience is that people seem to adapt and develop habits around co-existence. Having viable alternatives to cars is obviously also a factor and density is another. I tend to agree with breda, the outcome of years of town planning for Civic has yet to deliver a thriving downtown environment, but it has given us the Canberra Centre…

Did you notice – not one fat person and some nice mini skirts.

#15 warmonga: it’s ok, I’m not that fussed. The more people that see them the better. The photos on Flickr are mostly old postcards, family photos, photos I’ve bought or taken myself.

MsCheeky said :

At the bottom left of the last photo is a silver Datsun sports car. I suspect that it’s the very same car I became the proud owner of a few years later!

Pretty sure that’s not a Datsun. It’s a Triumph, or some sort of pommy sports car I think.

Interesting photos – wish it was possible to travel back in time.

marty62 said :

These images appear to have been taken from my Flickrstream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/canberrahouse/

That’s a fantastic collection marty62!

BicycleCanberra said :

More areas of Civic should be pedestrianized,whats wrong with a car free city centre? like Copenhagen and many other European cities which hasn’t seen a decline patronage.

The problem with pedestrianising more of Civic is that primary access to Civic is by car. I suspect the European cities you mention have public transport systems that allow convenient access to the car-free zones from other parts of the city.

marty62 said :

These images appear to have been taken from my Flickrstream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/canberrahouse/

Hi there, I received them in a forwarded email, so sorry if they were lifted from your account.

I would be happy to delete them from imgur, and ask RiotACT to forward people to your flicker account instead if that’s what you would prefer. Your Flickrstream has many many more great photos! Where did you get them all!

At the bottom left of the last photo is a silver Datsun sports car. I suspect that it’s the very same car I became the proud owner of a few years later!

breda said :

When I first lived here, from 1972 (as a student) Garema Place was alive and buzzing – one of the few places that was.

Thanks to the cringing conformity to planning fads that has characterised this town, and others, more and more roads were closed, parking was decreased, and we are left with empty, crime ridden, windswept plazas. The same thing happened in Parramatta, a place I know well. They closed off the roads and created a concrete desert where junkies and drunks hang out and no one else wants to be there. The only safe place to be is Westfield. Sound familiar?

Every year the ACT government unveils a new plan, often involving large sums of public money, to do something to the paving or street furniture that will ‘revitalise’ Civic. They haven’t got a clue. No amount of repeated failures deters them from their determination to believe that they just need to do more of the same.

Civic is just Parramatta on a smaller scale. Utopian urban planners do their best to turn it into a social experiment, while the malls just gobble up the real estate. Seeing these old photos reminds me of how comprehensively and systematically Civic has been stuffed up.

There was a need to close off these roads to traffic as these roads were becoming increasingly dangerous for pedestrians and car congested. If you see the film Canberra: A city Album, even in the 80’s and 90’s this area were bustling with people. The expansion of the Canberra centre has killed off the city walk for now.
More areas of Civic should be pedestrianized,whats wrong with a car free city centre? like Copenhagen and many other European cities which hasn’t seen a decline patronage. It is poor planning decisions like building enclosed shopping malls close to these areas which was the problem in Parramatta and in Newcastle.
Who would want to sit in a cafe inside a shopping mall? why not be out in the fresh air