City of Millside — Small World meets Political Affiliation

Abstract

The City of Millside, formed in 1994, covers just 32 square kilometres west of Melbourne’s CBD and is home to 60,000 residents. Historically the Millside area has served as one of Melbourne’s key industrial centres, with a strong focus on manufacturing, chemical production, textiles, food processing and defence industries. In the late 1930s, following a steady recovery from the Great Depression, the city’s expanding industrial base led to predictions that the area would soon become the ‘Birmingham of Australia’. Throughout this period, local government in the area actively encouraged industrial expansion by opening up new land for development and by providing new roads and infrastructure. The onset of the Second World War accelerated this development dramatically with the area becoming an important centre for munitions production. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, industrial-driven prosperity continued on the back of the post-war boom and a rapidly expanding Australian population, providing a stable and prosperous economic base for the municipality.