On The Homefront: Growth & Development

After marginal growth in the greater Ipswich area during the war years, the population expanded by a little more than 15% over the decade after the war, much of this in the urbanised areas of Ipswich City and surrounding shires. In January 1949 the City of Ipswich boundaries were expanded with the addition of part of the Moreton Shire, bringing the entire urbanised area under the one local authority and more than doubling its area.

The 1949 “Report on the Master Scheme for the Town Planning of the City of Ipswich” acknowledged the need to promote and expanded industrial base while also creating residential conditions to encourage people to live in Ipswich whether they worked in Ipswich or elsewhere. The past “haphazard growth” of the city was acknowledged in the report, resulting in stagnation or decline of residential areas, dilapidated shopping areas, and “unprepossessing” entrances to the city. A new zoning scheme was seen as the antidote to these issues, at least for new developments, and for other potential changes such as the movement of heavy industry out of the city environs.