page_title: Melbourne city centre
section_title: Hoddle Grid
hierarchical_section_title: Melbourne city centre / Boundaries and geography / Hoddle Grid
caption_attribution_description: English: Melbourne CBD aerial
context_page_description: Melbourne city centre is the central built up area of the city of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, centred on the Hoddle Grid, the oldest part of the city laid out in 1837, and includes its fringes. It is not to be confused with the larger local government area of the City of Melbourne which includes this area and the inner suburbs around it.
  The boundaries are not precise as it is not currently an official area, but the area of boundaries of the Australian Bureau of Statistics Statistical Area Level 2 'Melbourne' represents the commonly understood area of what is usually meant by 'the CBD' or 'the city'; this includes the Hoddle Grid, plus the area of parallel streets just to the north up to Victoria Street including the Queen Victoria Market, but not the Flagstaff Gardens, and the area between Flinders Street and the Yarra river.
  The Central City is the core of Greater Melbourne's metropolitan area, and is a major financial centre in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. It is home to Melbourne's famed alleyways and arcades and is renowned for its distinct blend of contemporary and Victorian architecture, and home to five of the six tallest buildings in Australia.
context_section_description: The Hoddle Grid is the rectangular grid of the streets in the centre of the city laid out in 1837 by government surveyor Robert Hoddle. All major streets are one and half chains (99 ft or 30 m) in width, while all blocks are exactly 10 chains square (10 acres, 201 m × 201 m). It is one mile (1.6 km) long by half a mile wide (0.80 km), bounded by It is bounded by Flinders Street, Spencer Street LaTrobe Street and Spring Street. The grid's longest axis is oriented 70 degrees clockwise from true north, to align better with the course of the Yarra River. Most of the arterial streets outside the Hoddle Grid were aligned almost north–south, Melbourne, at 8 degrees clockwise from true north–noting that magnetic north was 8° 3' E in 1900, increasing to 11° 42' E in 2009.
  Hoddle's survey did not include any public squares or piazzas, reputedly to avoid any facilitation of protests or public loitering, though colonial government practice did not generally include public squares other than land set aside for government buildings or markets.
  The whole town was at first accommodated within the Hoddle Grid, but the huge surge in immigration brought about by the Gold Rush in the 1850s quickly outgrew the grid spreading into the first suburbs in Fitzroy and South Melbourne (Emerald Hill), and beyond.
  The Hoddle Grid and its fringes remained the centre and most active part of the city into the mid 20th century, with retail in the centre, banking and prime office space on Collins Street, medical professionals on the Collins Street hill, legal professions around William Street, and warehousing along Flinders Lane and in the western end. Government buildings like GPO, State Library, Supreme Court, and Customs House occupied various blocks with Parliament House and the railway  stations on the edges.
  Residential uses, most notably the slums of Little Lonsdale Street, were largely replaced by commercial uses by the 1950s, with residential not making a return until the 1990s with the conversion of older buildings. Since the 2000s this has accelerated with numerous high rise apartment buildings and student housing projects.
  With the loss of residents, restricted retail and pub hours, the central city became dominated by 9-5 business uses, with one commentator remarking that in the 70s, the city was "as deserted as war-torn Berlin”.
caption: Aerial view of the western end of the CBD. The far right of the image is Flinders Street station and the Yarra River.
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