Rarely in the modern world have two big cities competed so strenuously, so evenly and for so long as Melbourne and Sydney. While other cities in other nations have engaged in strenuous competition for the leadership, it is difficult to find another pair of cities which for more than a century have sought supremacy and not been far apart. Perhaps the steadiest rivals have been the Indian cities of Calcutta and Bombay and the Canadian cities of Toronto and Montreal, but even their rivalry has not persisted so long as that of the two big Australian cities.

Early in the gold rushes Victoria gained a large lead over New South Wales, and Melbourne leaped ahead of Sydney too. Every census held in that long period from 1861 to 1947, however, showed New South Wales growing at a faster rate than Victoria. The swing towards New South Wales, with its coal and other natural resources, seemed permanent. Melbourne, while holding its own more successfully than did Victoria, eventually was passed by Sydney. In the late 1940s, however, both Melbourne and Victoria began to revive.

The swift growth of Melbourne after the Second World War owed much to the growth of factories. The elegant oil refinery and chemical plants built amongst the thistles and rocks of Altona, the nylon-spinning plant at Bayswater and other such factories quickly made Melbourne throb in a way in which it had not throbbed for a century. The unveiling of the first Holden car at Fishermen’s Bend in November 1948 was another landmark in Melbourne’s challenge. It continued to outpace its northern rival. In the 1970s some statisticians, assuming the trend would continue, began to predict that Melbourne would overtake Sydney by about the year 2000.