Cities have been the focus of utopian thinking since early capitalist industrialisation manifested as rapidly expanding urban slums. From around 1750, disenfranchised rural populations flocked to cities, taking up work in unregulated, overcrowded factories or on dangerous construction sites. The vast majority experienced extreme poverty and were forced to live in crowded, unsanitary housing. Australia’s nineteenth-century cities were not as industrialised as those in Europe or the USA, but the inadequacy of housing and sanitation, along with not infrequent economic depressions, meant urban conditions were often comparable to those in the northern hemisphere.