:: P E R T H :: Capital city of Western Australia

      A delightful city which "feels" like a large country town.

Introduction
Perth has changed dramatically in the last few decades. With a population around the million mark Perth, quite correctly, sees itself as a modern, dynamic city. Perth is known for its great personal charm and beauty. The elegant riverside parks, the network of freeways and the languid beauty of the Swan River all combine to give the city grace and distinction. Today the city is a pleasant mixture of colonial and modern architecture. The city is noted for its fine parks and gardens many of which run along the banks of the Swan River allowing both sightseers and the ubiquitous joggers pleasant views across the river.

St George's Terrace Palace 'Hotel' with modern skyscrapers behind

The city¹s economic function within the state has changed since its inception. In 1832 it had a smaller population than Fremantle. It enjoyed a minor boom in the 1830s and 1840s when the area around it started producing substantial amounts of wool and wheat. Another boom occurred in the 1890s with the goldrushes at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. In the 1950s a number of industrial suburbs grew up on the outskirts of the city and in the 1960s and 1970s a property boom occurred as an indirect result of the iron and nickel booms of the time.
In this sense it is probably the only Australian capital city which is dependent on the economic well being of the state. In his novel City of Men Gavin Casey astutely observes:When the crop fails the city fails. Townies who ask how the wheat-belt is looking aren¹t just making conversation. They want to know. It¹s a wheat-growing city, if you can understand the term. It doesn¹t make anything. It just buys and sells things, and the only places to which it can sell anything except the wheat and wool and gold are the goldfields, the wheat-belt and the grazing areas. The industrial development of the city in the 1950s partly changed this image but it still has more than a germ of truth. Even today the image of the Perth businessman is one of an entrepreneur not an industrialist, not a producer of goods.

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