As elsewhere, life had been tough for many workers and their families during the Depression, with mass unemployment and some major riots in Perth, including one on St Georges Terrace involving thousands of unemployed men, but the post-war period was characterised by a greater general prosperity fuelled by the lifting of the rationing of building materials, the removal of the White Australia policy and the spread of the city away from its riverine base. Perth is a city that has been built largely during the past fifty years, and the majority of this growth has been suburban. Many of the city’s suburban buildings were constructed during the 1950’s, largely by English tradesmen and Italian and Slav grano-workers, such as those in Floreat Park and City Beach, adhering to the American auto-centric model of garden cities with their wide boulevards. This period is also characterised by the efforts of the state government, in an attempt to clear the population dense inner city areas of East Perth and Northbridge, to provide more state housing by establishing suburbs such as Innaloo and the satellite cities of Mirrabooka, home to Nollamara and Balga, where five thousand public housing units were quickly developed. The East Perth based Coolbaroo League was established in 1947 by two former Aboriginal servicemen, as well as Helena Murphy, among others, to promote a culture of racial tolerance and understanding. What is remarkable about this organisation is that the League was formed despite the state government refusing to reward indigenous servicemen with the same land grants and entitlements as their non-indigenous counterparts, during a period when the Native Affairs Department still banned Aboriginal people from the city after curfew, or unless they carried a ‘pass.’ The league was the forerunner of many contemporary indigenous organisations, and survived well beyond the policies that aimed to control every aspect of indigenous life. With the rescinding of the pass laws in 1954, the League was able to hold its first dance within the curfew line – at the Perth Town Hall.