ABSTRACT
Like many first world cities, by the 1980s central Melbourne had taken itself to the very edge of anonymity as a functioning centralized metropolis. Private interests, poor planning strategies, the pull of suburbia, the dominance of the motor vehicle and the migration out of the central area of key central city activities, such as retailing, had resulted in a city close to achieving the ‘doughnut syndrome’ – a city without a strong central core.
