Beginning in 2001, Tim Murray and his colleagues created a forward-looking project to examine and interpret the large collections of artefacts excavated from Australia’s urban sites. The implications of this project, ‘Exploring the Archaeology of the Modern City’, are far reaching and significant because the goal is to expand the intellectual purview of the urban archaeologist beyond the site level. The design of linking the material culture found at one Australian urban center with that found at other large urban areas both inside and outside the country provides a sensible and uniquely insightful direction for future research into the creation of urban identities, the globalization of mass-produced material culture, and many other topics of major importance to contemporary historical archaeology.