Contains biographical information.

Includes bibliographical references (page 269-306) and index.

1. Artists: the panorama and the printing press -- 2. Scientists: Stanley Jevon's survey of Sydney -- 3. Slummers: the colonial city from below -- 4. Snobs: the colonial city from above -- 5. Suburbanites: the search for space -- 6. Anti-suburbans: the war on sprawl -- 7. Poets: the city and the bush -- 8. Pessimists: saving the city child -- 9. Exodists: the drift to the city -- 10. Motorists: the tide of automobilism -- 11. Moderns: driving forwards, looking backwards -- 12. Planners: Hugh Stretton's ideas for Australian cities -- 13. Nationalists: Canberra and national identity -- 14. Cosmopolitans: the European city in Australia.

City Dreamers examines the main currents in Australias urban culture from the early colonial period to the present day by looking at the ways in which artists, social scientists, poets, writers, reformers and engineers have imagined Australian cities over the last 200 years. Graeme Davison examines a range of these observers and thinkers, and argues that theres a particular twist to the ways in which Australians think about cities. Rather than focus on disembodied ideas on cities, Davison excavates the cultural history of the Australian city by focusing on dreamers such as Henry Lawson, Charles Bean and Hugh Stretton.

Also available online.