Harvest of the suburbs : an environmental history of suburban food production in Perth and Melbourne, 1880-2000

[Truncated] This thesis is an historical study of environmental interaction in everyday action and perception in the habitat of the majority of Australians - the metropolitan suburbs. The narrow focus on food production allows for the construction of a history in which the aims and concerns, as well as the methods, of social and environmental histories can be coherently combined: the breadth and landscape-centredness of environmental history and the specificity and people-centredness of social history. The aim is to produce a history which fleshes out, for one aspect of the urban environment, the complex and often ignored web of connections that exist between environments and human social, political and cultural formations.

On a more specific, pragmatic level, this study also seeks to contribute to the debate over urban consolidation. Presently, the lack of detailed historical examination of activities carried out in the open space around the home means that w e are in a poor position to understand exactly what potentials might be (and are being) lost with diminishing private open space, what the implications of such loss are likely to be, and how we can best plan for the mitigation of any detrimental effects.