The Making of Australia’s Gold Coast: A Historical Perspective

Blackman draws on original material and the work of many earlier researchers to paint a verbal picture of the evolution of a remarkable city. In an easy-to-read style, he highlights some of the conditions, key events, and individuals that have led to the development of Australia’s Gold Coast.

The story of the City of Gold Coast is more than just any story. It describes the growth of Australia’s sixth-largest city, the nation’s most populous city that is not a state capital. A city of more than 600,000, it has grown at a rate of four per cent yearly since the 1950s. It sustains a growth rate well ahead of its infrastructure and its economy’s capacity to provide full-time employment to the many new arrivals. A city heavily reliant on tourism and construction, it is regularly subjected to the boom and bust of a fickle world economy. But it continues to expand and evolve. And, like so many coastal towns worldwide, this Gold Coast may soon be threatened by the tides.

This book is essential for students, researchers, anyone interested in industry and urban development and those seeking to understand the city where they live, work, and play.

A Churchill Fellow, Alan earned Master of Business Administration and Master of Law degrees from Bond University in 1991 and a PhD from Griffith University in 2003. From 1992 to 2011, he managed Gold Coast management consulting and research business, the ’Centre for Independent Business Research’, an organisation he founded. In 2014, he was appointed an Academic Fellow of the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes and an Emeritus Member for Life of the Australian Institute of Management Consultants. Alan’s research interests include the history of the City of Gold Coast and its economy, and the impacts of entrepreneurs’ attributes and the firm’s organisational psychology on business performance.

In 2011, Alan took on a full-time academic role at Griffith University. Until his retirement at the end of 2018, he convened and directed Griffith Business School’s work-integrated learning program in Australia and internationally.

Alan has also been an active member of his local community. In 2010, he received the ’Queensland Sport’s Volunteer of the Year Award for services to Cricket, and on Australia Day 2011, he was recognised as Scenic Rim Region’s ’Citizen of the Year’. He has four children and lives with his wife, Karyn, on the Gold Coast. This book is his fourth.