Imagining Albury-Wodonga

On its instigation in 1973, the Albury-Wodonga National Growth Centre project was hailed as novel, experimental and imaginative. It was 'a pilot scheme' which involved three governments entering on an 'exciting adventure' in cooperative federalism. It was a 'brave attempt' to solve a long-standing problem and a 'bold venture' in selective decentralisation expected to influence the urban settlement pattern in Australia. This paper examines how and why the experiment was imagined and, then, re-imagined. It explains how Albury-Wodonga was grown and promoted and makes assessment of the impact the experiment had at the local and national levels. It explores how the experiment is remembered, tracking how traces of the experiment fit within the current thinking about the nature and purpose of heritage that emerges from discussions of an Australian Heritage Strategy and the increasing body of work emanating from critical heritage scholars. It argues that the heritage of the experiment is precarious.