eing the Victorian Railways opening the Ballarat North Workshops in April 1917. The Great Depression proved a further setback for Ballarat, with the closure of many institutions and causing the worst unemployment in the city's history, with over a thousand people on the dole queue.
The city's two municipalities East Ballarat Town Council and Ballarat West Town Council finally amalgamated in 1921 to form the City of Ballarat.
Since the 20th century
While deep, the depression was also brief, the interwar period proved a period of recovery for Ballarat with a number of major infrastructure projects well underway including a new sewerage system. In 1930, Ballarat Airport was established. By 1931 Ballarat's economy and population was recovering strongly with further diversification of industry although in 1936 Geelong displaced it as the state's second largest city. During World War II an expanded Ballarat airport was the base of the RAAF Wireless Air Gunners' School as well as the base for USAAF Liberator bomber squadrons.
In the Post-war era, Ballarat's growth continued, expanding significantly to the northwest and an acute housing shortage was eased with the establishment of an extensive Housing Commission of Victoria estate on the former Ballarat Common (today known as Wendouree West). The estate was originally planned to contain over 750 prefabricated houses. Whilst planning for the estate began in 1949, main construction occurred between 1951 to 1962. During the 1970s a further 300 houses were constructed. Private housing in the adjacent suburb of Wendouree closely matched and eventually eclipsed this by the mid-1960s. The suburb of greater Wendouree and Wendouree West had evolved as the suburban middle-class heart of the city.
The 1950s brought a new optimism to the city. On 17 April 1952 it was announced that Lake Wendouree was to be the venue for rowing events of the 1956 Summer Olympics, work soon began on an Olympic
