‘Fear the hose’: an historical exploration of sustainable water use in Perth gardens in the 1970s
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Abstract
Most of Australia’s capital cities and towns have been on water restrictions since at least 2007. As metropolitan and regional water supplies continue to dwindle in the southern regions of the continent, water managers will impose tighter conditions on the use of limited resources. It is thus important to examine human attachments to their outdoor spaces to better understand how residents will potentially respond to such policies. For policies designed to reduce the domestic consumption of limited resources to succeed, Australians must perceive them as equitable in both their design and outcome. An historical perspective on contemporary sustainability issues such as water scarcity is useful to explain how present-day values and behaviours towards resource use have been formulated, shaped and renegotiated by those experiences of preceding generations. As outdoor water use is an important focus of current water efficiency measures, a more nuanced understanding of the meanings historically invested in certain gardens can provide insights into how residents can react to disruptions in their watering routines. Using 1970s Perth, Western Australia as a case study through which to analyse such reactions, I argue that the water efficiency measures enacted by the then Metropolitan Water Board overlooked the variety of socio-cultural meanings attached to suburban gardens and as a consequence, affected households unequally.
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References
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Askew, L. E. and McGuirk, P. M. (2004) 'Watering the suburbs: distinction, conformity and the suburban garden', Australian Geographer, vol. 35, no. 1. https://doi.org/10.1080/0004918024000193702
Badcock, B. (1995) 'Towards more equitable cities: a receding prospect?', in P. N. Troy (ed.), Australian Cities: issues, strategies and policies for urban Australia in the 1990s, Melbourne, Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511597183.011
Bolton, G. (1988) Spoils and Spoilers: Australians make their environment 1788-1980, Sydney, George Allen and Unwin.
Bosworth, M. (1991) 'Conversations with Italian women: close encounters of a culinary kind', Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 7.
Boyd, R. (1970) The Australian Ugliness, revised ed., Ringwood, Vic., Penguin Books. Brennan, D., Tapsuwan, S. and Ingram, G. (2007) 'The welfare costs of urban outdoor water restrictions', Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, vol. 51, no. 3.
Brown, S., Gaynor, A. et al. (2008) 'Can environmental history save the world?', History Australia, vol. 5, no. 1. https://doi.org/10.2104/ha080003
Caldicott, E. (1997) 'Gardening Australian style- the Adelaide example', South Australian Geographical Journal, vol. 96.
Daily News
Davison, A. (2006), 'Stuck in a cul-de-sac? Suburban history and urban sustainability in Australia', Urban Policy and Research, vol. 24, no. 2. https://doi.org/10.1080/08111140600704137
Dovers, S. (1994) 'Sustainability and "pragmatic" environmental history: a note from Australia', Environmental History Review, vol. 18, no. 3. https://doi.org/10.2307/3984708
Dovers, S. and Handmer, J. (1992) 'Contradictions in sustainability', Environmental Conservation, vol. 20, no. 3.
Fiske, J., Hodge, B. and Turner, G., (1987) Myths of Oz: reading Australian popular culture, Sydney, Allen and Unwin.
Freestone, R. (2000) 'Planning, housing, gardening: home as a garden suburb', in P. Troy (ed.), A history of European housing in Australia, Oakleigh, Vic, Cambridge University Press.
Gaynor, A. (2001) 'Harvest of the suburbs: an environmental history of suburban food production in Perth and Melbourne, 1880-2000', PhD Thesis, UWA.
Gaynor, A. (2006) Harvest of the Suburbs: an environmental history of growing food in Australian cities, Crawley, WA, UWA Press.
Girling, C. L. and Helphand, K. I. (1994) Yard. Street. Park. The design of suburban open space, New York, John Wiley & Sons.
Gleeson, B. (2007) The endangered state of Australian cities: climate threat and urban response, Urban Research Program, Brisbane, Griffith University.
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Gleeson, B. (2008b) 'Waking from the dream: an Australian perspective on urban resilience', Urban Studies, vol. 45. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098008098198
Grafton, R. Q. and Ward, M. B. (2008) 'Prices versus rationing: Marshallian surplus and mandatory water restrictions', Economic Record, vol. 84, Sept. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2008.00483.x
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Head, L. and Muir, P. (2007) Backyard: nature and culture in suburban Australia, Wollongong, NSW, University of Wollongong Press.
Heeps, D. P. (1986) 'Summary of the regulations, restriction and design mechanisms', in Proceedings of the National Workshop on Urban Water Demand Management, Perth, Western Australian Water Resources Council.
Hogan, T. (2003) 'The "nature strip": Australian suburbia and the enculturation of nature', Thesis Eleven, no. 74.
Holmes, K. (2000) 'In her master's house and garden', in P. Troy (ed.), A history of European housing in Australia, Oakleigh, Victoria, Cambridge University Press.
Holmes, K. (2003) '"In spite of it all, the garden still stands": gardens, landscape and cultural history', in H-M. Teo and R. White (eds), Cultural history in Australia, Sydney, UNSW Press.
Hoskins, I. (1994) 'Constructing time and space in the garden suburb', in S. Ferber, C. Healy and C. McAuliffe (eds), Beasts of suburbia: reinterpreting cultures in Australian suburbs, Carlton, Vic, Melbourne University Press.
Hughes, N., Hafi, A., Goesch, T. and Brownlowe, N. (2008) Urban Water Management: optimal pricing and investment policy under climate variability, ABARE research report 08.7, Canberra.
Hunt, H. E. (1975) 'Address', Proceedings of Seminar H2O: Domestic extravagance, Perth, University of Western Australia, 27/2/1975.
Hussey, K. and Dovers, S. (2006) 'Trajectories in Australian water policy', Journal of Contemporary Water Research & Education, vol. 135. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1936-704X.2006.mp135001005.x
Karksens, G. (2007) 'Water dreams, earthen histories: exploring urban environmental history at the Penrith Lakes Scheme and Castlereagh, Sydney', Environment and History, vol. 13.
Kirkpatrick, J. B., Daniels, G. D., and Zagorski, T. (2007) 'Explaining variation in front gardens between suburbs of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia', Landscape and Urban Planning, vol. 79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2006.03.006
Knight, S. (1990) The selling of the Australian mind: from First Fleet to third Mercedes, Port Melbourne, Vic, William Heinemann.
Latreille, A. (1993) 'Behind the front fence: gardens and gardening', in J. O'Callaghan (ed.), The Australian dream: design of the fifties, Haymarket, NSW, Powerhouse Publishing.
Loh, M. and Coghlan, P. (2003) Domestic water use study in Perth, Western Australia 1998-2001, Perth, Water Corporation.
Lullfitz, G. (1978) Grow the West's Best Native Plants, Perth, West Australian Newspapers Metropolitan Water Authority (MWA), (1985) Domestic water use in Perth, Western Australia, Leederville, WA, Metropolitan Water Centre.
Mirmohamadi, K. (2004) '"There will be the garden of course": English gardens, British migrants and Australia', in K. Darian-Smith et al. (eds), Exploring the British world: identity, cultural production, institutions, Melbourne, RMIT Publishing.
Peel, M. (2000) 'Between the houses: neighbouring and privacy', in P. Troy (ed.), A History of European Housing in Australia, Oakleigh, Victoria, Cambridge University Press.
Roberts, C. (2000) 'A history of dry arguments', The Source, Issue 8, June, , (accessed: 6 June 2008).
Seddon, G. (1995) Swan Song: reflections on Perth and Western Australia 1956-1995, Nedlands, Centre for Studies in Australian Literature, University of Western Australia.
Seddon, G. (1997) Landprints: reflections on place and landscape, Oakleigh, Vic, Cambridge University Press.
Sofoulis, Z. (2005) 'Big water, everyday water: a sociotechnical perspective', Continuum, vol. 19, no. 4. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304310500322685
Spearritt, P. (2008) 'The water crisis in southeast Queensland: how desalination turned the region into a carbon emission heaven', in P. N. Troy (ed.), Troubled waters: confronting the water crisis in Australia's cities, Canberra, ANU E-press.
Syme, G. J. and Kantola, S. J. (1981) 'Investment in private bores: underground water usage from a household perspective', in B. R. Whelan (ed.), Groundwater Resources of the Swan Coastal Plain, Perth, CSIRO.
Syme, G., Kantola, S. and Thomas, J. (1980) 'Water resources and the quarter-acre block', in R. Thorne and S. Arden (eds), People and the man made environment, Sydney, University of Sydney.'
Troy, P. N., Holloway, D. and Randolph, B. (2005) Water use and the built environment: patterns of water consumption in Sydney, Kensington, City Futures Research Centre, University of New South Wales.
Viska, J. (2007) A guide to conserving and interpreting gardens in Western Australia, Perth, WA Branch of the Australian Garden History Society, Wahlquist, A. (2008) Thirsty Country: options for Australia, Crows Nest, NSW, Allen & Unwin.
West Australian
Askew, L. E. and McGuirk, P. M. (2004) 'Watering the suburbs: distinction, conformity and the suburban garden', Australian Geographer, vol. 35, no. 1. https://doi.org/10.1080/0004918024000193702
Badcock, B. (1995) 'Towards more equitable cities: a receding prospect?', in P. N. Troy (ed.), Australian Cities: issues, strategies and policies for urban Australia in the 1990s, Melbourne, Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511597183.011
Bolton, G. (1988) Spoils and Spoilers: Australians make their environment 1788-1980, Sydney, George Allen and Unwin.
Bosworth, M. (1991) 'Conversations with Italian women: close encounters of a culinary kind', Studies in Western Australian History, vol. 7.
Boyd, R. (1970) The Australian Ugliness, revised ed., Ringwood, Vic., Penguin Books. Brennan, D., Tapsuwan, S. and Ingram, G. (2007) 'The welfare costs of urban outdoor water restrictions', Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, vol. 51, no. 3.
Brown, S., Gaynor, A. et al. (2008) 'Can environmental history save the world?', History Australia, vol. 5, no. 1. https://doi.org/10.2104/ha080003
Caldicott, E. (1997) 'Gardening Australian style- the Adelaide example', South Australian Geographical Journal, vol. 96.
Daily News
Davison, A. (2006), 'Stuck in a cul-de-sac? Suburban history and urban sustainability in Australia', Urban Policy and Research, vol. 24, no. 2. https://doi.org/10.1080/08111140600704137
Dovers, S. (1994) 'Sustainability and "pragmatic" environmental history: a note from Australia', Environmental History Review, vol. 18, no. 3. https://doi.org/10.2307/3984708
Dovers, S. and Handmer, J. (1992) 'Contradictions in sustainability', Environmental Conservation, vol. 20, no. 3.
Fiske, J., Hodge, B. and Turner, G., (1987) Myths of Oz: reading Australian popular culture, Sydney, Allen and Unwin.
Freestone, R. (2000) 'Planning, housing, gardening: home as a garden suburb', in P. Troy (ed.), A history of European housing in Australia, Oakleigh, Vic, Cambridge University Press.
Gaynor, A. (2001) 'Harvest of the suburbs: an environmental history of suburban food production in Perth and Melbourne, 1880-2000', PhD Thesis, UWA.
Gaynor, A. (2006) Harvest of the Suburbs: an environmental history of growing food in Australian cities, Crawley, WA, UWA Press.
Girling, C. L. and Helphand, K. I. (1994) Yard. Street. Park. The design of suburban open space, New York, John Wiley & Sons.
Gleeson, B. (2007) The endangered state of Australian cities: climate threat and urban response, Urban Research Program, Brisbane, Griffith University.
Gleeson, B. (2008a) 'Waking from the dream', Griffith Review: Cities on the Edge, Winter.
Gleeson, B. (2008b) 'Waking from the dream: an Australian perspective on urban resilience', Urban Studies, vol. 45. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098008098198
Grafton, R. Q. and Ward, M. B. (2008) 'Prices versus rationing: Marshallian surplus and mandatory water restrictions', Economic Record, vol. 84, Sept. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2008.00483.x
Griffiths, T. (2007) 'The humanities and an environmentally sustainable Australia', Australian Humanities Review, vol. 43,
Head, L. and Muir, P. (2007) Backyard: nature and culture in suburban Australia, Wollongong, NSW, University of Wollongong Press.
Heeps, D. P. (1986) 'Summary of the regulations, restriction and design mechanisms', in Proceedings of the National Workshop on Urban Water Demand Management, Perth, Western Australian Water Resources Council.
Hogan, T. (2003) 'The "nature strip": Australian suburbia and the enculturation of nature', Thesis Eleven, no. 74.
Holmes, K. (2000) 'In her master's house and garden', in P. Troy (ed.), A history of European housing in Australia, Oakleigh, Victoria, Cambridge University Press.
Holmes, K. (2003) '"In spite of it all, the garden still stands": gardens, landscape and cultural history', in H-M. Teo and R. White (eds), Cultural history in Australia, Sydney, UNSW Press.
Hoskins, I. (1994) 'Constructing time and space in the garden suburb', in S. Ferber, C. Healy and C. McAuliffe (eds), Beasts of suburbia: reinterpreting cultures in Australian suburbs, Carlton, Vic, Melbourne University Press.
Hughes, N., Hafi, A., Goesch, T. and Brownlowe, N. (2008) Urban Water Management: optimal pricing and investment policy under climate variability, ABARE research report 08.7, Canberra.
Hunt, H. E. (1975) 'Address', Proceedings of Seminar H2O: Domestic extravagance, Perth, University of Western Australia, 27/2/1975.
Hussey, K. and Dovers, S. (2006) 'Trajectories in Australian water policy', Journal of Contemporary Water Research & Education, vol. 135. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1936-704X.2006.mp135001005.x
Karksens, G. (2007) 'Water dreams, earthen histories: exploring urban environmental history at the Penrith Lakes Scheme and Castlereagh, Sydney', Environment and History, vol. 13.
Kirkpatrick, J. B., Daniels, G. D., and Zagorski, T. (2007) 'Explaining variation in front gardens between suburbs of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia', Landscape and Urban Planning, vol. 79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2006.03.006
Knight, S. (1990) The selling of the Australian mind: from First Fleet to third Mercedes, Port Melbourne, Vic, William Heinemann.
Latreille, A. (1993) 'Behind the front fence: gardens and gardening', in J. O'Callaghan (ed.), The Australian dream: design of the fifties, Haymarket, NSW, Powerhouse Publishing.
Loh, M. and Coghlan, P. (2003) Domestic water use study in Perth, Western Australia 1998-2001, Perth, Water Corporation.
Lullfitz, G. (1978) Grow the West's Best Native Plants, Perth, West Australian Newspapers Metropolitan Water Authority (MWA), (1985) Domestic water use in Perth, Western Australia, Leederville, WA, Metropolitan Water Centre.
Mirmohamadi, K. (2004) '"There will be the garden of course": English gardens, British migrants and Australia', in K. Darian-Smith et al. (eds), Exploring the British world: identity, cultural production, institutions, Melbourne, RMIT Publishing.
Peel, M. (2000) 'Between the houses: neighbouring and privacy', in P. Troy (ed.), A History of European Housing in Australia, Oakleigh, Victoria, Cambridge University Press.
Roberts, C. (2000) 'A history of dry arguments', The Source, Issue 8, June,
Seddon, G. (1995) Swan Song: reflections on Perth and Western Australia 1956-1995, Nedlands, Centre for Studies in Australian Literature, University of Western Australia.
Seddon, G. (1997) Landprints: reflections on place and landscape, Oakleigh, Vic, Cambridge University Press.
Sofoulis, Z. (2005) 'Big water, everyday water: a sociotechnical perspective', Continuum, vol. 19, no. 4. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304310500322685
Spearritt, P. (2008) 'The water crisis in southeast Queensland: how desalination turned the region into a carbon emission heaven', in P. N. Troy (ed.), Troubled waters: confronting the water crisis in Australia's cities, Canberra, ANU E-press.
Syme, G. J. and Kantola, S. J. (1981) 'Investment in private bores: underground water usage from a household perspective', in B. R. Whelan (ed.), Groundwater Resources of the Swan Coastal Plain, Perth, CSIRO.
Syme, G., Kantola, S. and Thomas, J. (1980) 'Water resources and the quarter-acre block', in R. Thorne and S. Arden (eds), People and the man made environment, Sydney, University of Sydney.'
Troy, P. N., Holloway, D. and Randolph, B. (2005) Water use and the built environment: patterns of water consumption in Sydney, Kensington, City Futures Research Centre, University of New South Wales.
Viska, J. (2007) A guide to conserving and interpreting gardens in Western Australia, Perth, WA Branch of the Australian Garden History Society, Wahlquist, A. (2008) Thirsty Country: options for Australia, Crows Nest, NSW, Allen & Unwin.
West Australian