History
Most public housing in Australia was built between 1945, when the first Commonwealth State Housing Agreement was signed, and 1980, with governments in recent decades less willing to build and provide for new mass public housing estates. The majority of Australia's public housing programs were originally initiated to house returned soldiers and their new families after World War II; a period of chronic housing shortages across the country. However the construction of high-rise estates in Melbourne and Sydney during the 1950s and 1960s was aimed more at improving the living conditions of inner-suburban residents living in sub-standard housing.
During the late 1970s, as local community resistance grew to inner suburban high-rise estates, public housing programs were severely curtailed. In addition to the reaction to large high-rises in the inner city was the social stigmatisation following the creation of sizeable enclaves of a single, negatively perceived socio-economic group. From the 1980s onwards, the focus was on small-scale infill projects and 'spot-purchase' of existing dwellings in appropriate locations.
Read more about this topic: Public Housing In Australia
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