Obliterating History? The Transformation of Inner City Industrial Suburbs 1 JENNY GREGORY In all cities there are suburbs close to the heart of the city that have become degraded over time. The planned transformation of such areas has been a phenomenon of the de- industrialisation of cities in the 1980s and 1990s, much of which has occurred on the waterfront. A prime example is London’s Docklands. Today in Australia each state capital boasts inner suburbs that have been transformed. Industrial wastelands of derelict buildings, shattered windows, and graffiti are no longer. In their place are chic suburbs of designer homes and apartments for the well-to-do. This article focuses on East Perth as a case study of an inner city industrial suburb that has been transformed. East Perth today is an up-market inner city suburb in a prime position on the Swan River, just east of the Central Business District (CBD). Many of its new architect-designed homes and apartments have expansive river views. The suburb houses the Holmes a ´ Court Art Gallery and the stylish Lamont’s restaurant, as well as cafes and boutiques. Its desirability is mirrored by its land and house prices. Its story has much in common with stories of other recent housing developments on industrial land close to the city in a number of cities throughout the world. With a biblical flourish the marketing spin-doctors have labelled the East Perth development ‘The Renewal’. The past history of East Perth bears little relationship to the place that it has become. In the 1880s East Perth was residentially mixed. On the highest point overlooking the river to the east was a small enclave of wealth. Two-storey stone and brick Victorian houses were flanked, on the western side, by a scattering of small, brick villas and weatherboard cottages as the land fell away towards the city centre and, on the northern side, by a church, the colonial cemetery, and market gardens on the flats where Claise Brook fed into the Swan River. 2 During the gold rushes of the 1890s the proximity of the area to the city and the railway resulted in a sudden population surge in East Perth. By then the route of the main railway line for both passenger and goods trains had bisected the western part of the suburb. A tent city of diggers en route to the goldfields sprang up on the flats, lodging houses and hotels were built near the city, and vacant land was subdivided for housing. In 1904 there were 1,066 houses, shops, and shanties in East Perth, 73 per cent of which were rented. The social composition of the suburb as a whole was middle- and skilled working-class, but 1 This article is based on research first presented at the Australian Historical Association conference in 2002. Some aspects of this research have been published in Jenny Gregory, City of Light: A History of Perth Since the 1950s (Perth: City of Perth, 2003). 2 See Meredith Thomas, ‘East Perth 18841904: A Suburban Society’, in eds J. W. McCarty and C. B. Schedvin, Australian Capital Cities (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1978), 14458. ISSN 1031-461X print/ISSN 1940-5049 online # 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/10314610701837250 91 Australian Historical Studies, Month 2008; 39(0): 91106 :