Consciously Constructing Exclusivity in the Suburbs? Unpacking a Master Planned Estate Development in Western Sydney

In Australia, master planned estates are emerging as a favoured form of residential development, finding support from urban planners and government. The proliferation of master planned estates has led urban researchers to comment on the socially exclusive nature of many of these new developments and their potential contribution to socio-spatial polarisation in the urban landscape. Do master planned estates purposefully inculcate an image of exclusivity, and do these constructions result in socio-spatial polarisation? A case study of the contribution of master planned estates to polarisation in the urban landscape is examined here. This research analysed the intentions, imagery and outcomes of a specific master planned estate in suburban Sydney – Glenmore Park. The established, socially constructed, and in some ways negative image of western Sydney has been used as a mirror against which an alternative – albeit exclusive and distinct – identity for Glenmore Park has been advanced. The intended image was for an exclusive and prestigious estate for white nuclear families. The developers and place marketers played a key role in the construction of this exclusivity, which ultimately superseded some of the more socially inclusive planning objectives for the area. The overriding conclusion from this research is that, in this case, there is an explicit connection between intentions and imagery, which encourages socio-spatial polarisation.     

Experiences of ‘Community’ in a Gated Residential Estate

Gated residential estates have become common features of the landscapes of cities around the world. The proliferation of these estates has attracted significant critical attention from urban scholars who have focused in particular on their contribution to urban segregation. Many commentators also question the possibility and existence of the neighbourhood‐based community that is promised to potential residents by estates developers. They argue that it cannot be delivered primarily because meaningful community does not form in circumstances of privatism. In this paper, we examine what community means to the residents of Macquarie Links, a gated residential estate in the Australian city of Sydney. To this end, the paper traces the interplay of contradictions that define the expectation and experience of community and argues that rather than being in conflict, the experience of community for many in this gated estate is actually underpinned by the structures of private governance that define the estate. In other words, not only is community said to exist in this neighbourhood, but also it is not homogeneity and everyday neighbouring that are pivotal but the governance structure of the estate.     

现代中国城市居住空间分异机制的理论研究

通过住宅市场空间分异研究体系的建立,认为城市居住空间分异是社会阶(层)级分化结果通过市场宏观控制、个体择居行为心理的局部调整而实现的空间化过程。因此,居住空间分异机制可以从对住房市场空间分化及个体择居行为机制两个方面来理解。从五个方面具体分析影响城市住宅市场分化的机构、各种机构对城市居住空间、社会空间分异的影响力:(1)政府作为土地所有者及其作用形态;(2)城市建筑商、地产开发商的发展方式;(3)金融信贷业对社会空间和物质空间的空间非均衡的影响;(4)地产物业机构对邻里的操纵和强化;(5)城市规划思想与方法的影响。并认为影响我国城市社会地理空间分异的宏观背景是:(1)国内自1978年以来的政治经济体制改革,它确定我们的主要研究框架;(2)自80年代末期开始强化的经济全球化与区域集团造就的新国际劳动分工;(3)信息技术革命为核心的知识经济及其影响下的经济结构变化。     

Selling surf and turf: throwntogetherness and real estate advertising on the suburbanising east Australian coastline

New residential development is transforming coastal places in Australia. This paper untangles perceptions of coastal change by analysing representations of nature and lifestyles in marketing new residential developments on the New South Wales (NSW) coastline. We focus specifically on master-planned estates (MPEs). In this context MPEs are primarily a consequence of housing affordability and supply dilemmas in capital cities. Their form and character is derided as ‘suburbanisation by the sea’: vandalism of ‘authentic’ coastal cultures. We draw on Massey’s theorisation of place as ‘event’ and a relational politics termed ‘throwntogetherness’ to understand the role of real estate advertising in blending coastal places and MPEs. Our insights are drawn from visits to 19 MPEs for sale on the NSW coast, and discourse analysis of 76 advertisements collected in situ (billboards, signs, banners and brochures). Advertising narratives for new MPEs both sustain and contradict the idea of coastal suburbanisation: portraying permanent settlement by young families as a culture shift and implicating ‘sea change’ configurations of coastal places to do so. This makes lifestyle expectations with coastal nature perplexing. In the throwntogetherness of contemporary coastlines, marked by landscape change and development pressures, real estate advertisements are pivotal in establishing, grounding and guiding change.     

Portuguese West Coast tourism resorts: an unfinished landscape of territorial liabilities

The research focuses on Portuguese West Coast tourism resorts and addresses the problem of unfinished estates as territorial liabilities left by the Global Financial Crisis on residential tourism and tourism-driven urbanization. After a significant expansion during the golden age, resorts have suffered drastic consequences under the crisis, financial imbalance and stagnation of the real estate market. This situation brings additional problems to land management and adequate responses have not been provided yet. Focusing on the municipality of Óbidos, this paper aims to describe the territorial changes induced by the development of resorts, criss-crossing a morphological analysis with the understanding of the context of the Global Financial Crisis and the assessment of the regulatory framework.     

Neoliberal privatisation? Remapping the public and the private in Sydney's masterplanned residential estates

The analysis of neoliberalism has become a key point of departure in critical urban studies and political geography. Its application in theorising new forms of residential environments is no exception. Common interest developments, gated communities and, in the Australian case, masterplanned residential estates (MPREs) are cast as vehicles of neoliberalist privatisation, extending private property rights and embedding market logics and neoliberal modes of privatised governance. This paper is a critical theoretical and empirical engagement with the interpretation of these residential developments as iconic expressions of urban neoliberalisation. We bring poststructuralist thinking on neoliberalism as an assemblage of diverse practices and projects together with poststructuralist conceptions of the public and private as contextual and enacted political constructions, to provide an alternative analytic—an analytic of assemblage—for investigating putative pathways of neoliberal privatisation. We suggest the purchase of this extended framework through an exploration of MPRE development by Sydney's largest MPRE developer. In this framework, MPREs become contingent productions in which multiple and overdetermined projects, practices and paradigms of governance are at work including, amongst others, social sustainability and interventionism. Rather than producing neoliberal privatisation, we explore how MPRE developments involve the complex constitution of new forms of public and private that exceed coding as neoliberal. We conclude that the framework engaged with here can enable productive advances for urban theorising. Its emphasis on practice, enactment, multiplicity and assemblage can resist a tendency to reify urban neoliberalism and nurture the development of new conceptions and discourses of urban governance less bound to the neoliberal imaginary.     

居住生态社区的内涵及其指标体系初探

本文对居住生态社区的内涵进行了分析,建立了居住生态社区的测度指标体系。指标体系涉及生态住区的硬件、软件和心件(文化)等方面的内容。作者认为,居住生态社区并不是某个单一指标的完善,而是多个指标协同发展的社会-经济-自然复合生态系统。     

城市规划视角下西安市主城区住宅空间结构演变研究

近年来,住宅市场的空间分异逐渐受到学界关注。本文以西安市主城区为研究区域,以2003年至2009年区内住宅资料为基础数据,分析了西安市主城区住宅空间结构的动态演变规律,并从城市规划视角对住宅空间结构演变机制做以探究。结果认为:西安市主城区内住宅空间结构呈现出数量上向轴线和板块集聚、价格上向多核均衡演变的趋势。住宅空间结构的演变受城市规划的空间战略、产业布局、交通建设和设施配套等影响较大。科学的城市规划能够引导住宅结构逐步优化,使之从单一极化结构向多极多层次的网络化均衡结构演变。     

Developing,designing and managing mixed tenure estates: implementing planning gain legislation in the Republic of Ireland1

This article reports the results of research on the implementation of recent legislation which enables Irish local authorities to require that up to 20% of new residential developments must be employed for social housing and for “affordable housing” for sale at below market value to low income households. The legislation will mean that most new residential developments will include several housing tenures. A survey of the number of mixed tenure estates constructed prior to its enactment indicates that, that without this legislation, few estates of this type would have been constructed in urban areas. Furthermore case studies of existing mixed tenure estates indicate that the prospects that this legislation can be successfully implemented are good. Opposition to tenure mixing among home buyers is less than some interest groups have claimed; there is little conflict between the residents of the different tenures in these estates and social housing managers and property developers hold similar views on the most appropriate design of these estates. However successful implementation of the legislation will require some reforms to arrangements for the planning and management of the developments subject to its provisions.     

1992年以来我国城镇居民居住消费的变化趋势

1992年之后,我国明确了建立社会主义市场经济体制的目标,城镇住房制度改革取得了实质性突破,城镇居民居住消费发生了深刻变化。居民购房公平自由,私有住房的比重急剧攀升,住房设施日益完善,居住环境不断优化,居住开支迅猛增长,城镇居民居住水平获得了前所未有的提高。然而受不正确的思想观念的影响,在居民居住消费过程中,一些诸如住宅私有率过高、住宅面积过大、一房伴终身等严重脱离实际需要和基本国情的问题日益突出。     

Stages of agricultural improvement in the uplands of Scotland's Grampian region

Studies of the improving movement in North Scotland have revealed a sharp contrast between agricultural holdings on the east and west coasts. This paper suggests that in the Grampian uplands a transitional pattern is evident, with a period of planned village development followed by greater emphasis on smallholdings as the prospects for rural industry declined through the nineteenth century. Evidence is drawn from an extensive study area embracing the upland parts of the Gordon and Moray districts of the Grampian region. But particular attention is given to the former Gordon estates in the parishes of Inveravon and Kirkmichael, for the planned village of Tomintoul (celebrating its bicentenary in 1976) in Kirkmichael parish and the legacy of nineteenth-century smallholdings in Glenlivet and Inveravon provide very clear illustrations of the two stages. Research is facilitated by the survival of many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century estate maps for these two parishes as well as the availability of census enumeration books for the late nineteeth century. Criteria affecting the siting of planned villages are considered and the significance of these growth centres for current rural planning strategies is brought out.     

Wildfire risk,salience, and housing development in the wildland–urban interface

As wildfires increase in both severity and frequency, understanding the role of risk saliency on human behaviors in the face of fire risks becomes paramount. While research has shown that homebuyers capitalize wildfire risk following a fire, studies of the role that risk saliency plays on residential development is limited. This paper aims to fill this gap by studying the link between wildfire risk saliency and the rate of residential development in wildfire-prone areas, by treating recent wildfires as conditionally exogenous shocks to saliency. Using geospatial data on residential development in Colorado, we show that saliency shocks due to wildfire lead to statistically significant reductions in the rate of new development in wildfire risk zones that last upwards of 5 years, a result that is robust to a number of alternative explanations. We explore the policy implications of these findings, noting that education on fire risks may curtail some but not all of the development in these high wildfire-risk areas due to the rapid growth of development in these regions.     

Partnership,Master Planning and State Provision: a Case Study of ‘Actually Existing Neoliberalism’ on the Central Coast of New South Wales

Over the past decade neoliberalism has come to represent the dominant policy discourse and ideology in the majority of western economies. Following the attention given to this phenomenon at a global (and national) scale, there has been a recent rise in interest in its regional implementation and expression and in how these are mediated through the embedded institutional associations of context dependent localities. Using Brenner and Theodore's (2002a) notion of ‘actually existing neoliberalisms’, this paper explores the hybrid nature of the residential property market. Using one of Greater Sydney's fastest growing regions as an example, this paper shows how residential developments are hybrid constructions, framed by institutional and policy resonances constituted by both state and market actants. Key factors here are the processes of partnership (a process of joining the market and the state), master planning (a process of recognising and pursuing the goals of both the market and the state) and negotiation and provision of state infrastructure (a process of direct state construction of the market).     

1949年以来中国城市居住区空间演变与机制研究--以河谷盆地型城市兰州为例

河谷盆地型城市是一类地貌条件特殊的城市,本文就以兰州为例,讨论中国城市,包括河谷盆地型城市居住区的分异、空间演变与机制,并对未来中国城市居住区分化的趋势和方向进行了预测。     

From local economic initiatives to marriages a la mode?: Western Australia and Tasmania in comparative perspective

This paper presents a model of United Kingdom local economic development characterised by a grassroots orientation and partnership between public and private actors—marriages à la mode. It then offers research findings on the emergence of Local Economic Initiatives (LEIs) from Western Australia and Tasmania. Factors in the structure of their respective political economies appear to have made for a speedier adoption in Western Australia than Tasmania of such alternative policy characteristics as a grassroots participatory approach to policy design and implementation, which is underwritten to a considerable extent by non earmarked public funds. Over and above the structural factors, an Australia‐wide network of LEI enthusiasts, within and outside government, has encouraged imitation of the Western Australian policy innovation in Tasmania. The marriages a la mode model has not been fully replicated in Australia, however, by virtue of the relatively low profile of business organisations in LEIs.     

The Urban Village,Agrarian Transformation,and Rentier Capitalism in Gurgaon,India

Gurgaon, India's “millennium city”, is today synonymous with India's embrace of global real estate capital and private sector‐led urban development. This paper asserts that Gurgaon's spectacular urbanisation has been fundamentally underpinned by an uneven process of land acquisition, exemption and agrarian transformation. Shifting away from dispossession‐centred analyses of contemporary urbanisation in India, this paper explores Gurgaon's “urban villages” to consider the uneven integration of agrarian classes into emerging urban real estate markets. Through an examination of differential experiences of land acquisition and agrarian social change among Gurgaon's landowning classes, the paper seeks to trace complex and nonlinear processes of agrarian transformation which make possible landscapes of global accumulation.     

Cold War heritage and the planned community: Woomera Village in outback Australia

The heritage of the Cold War is attracting increasing international interest. Much of that revolves around technological legacies; less attention has been paid to the community infrastructure which supported defence research, weapons testing and military installations. Security and operational logistics meant that research and development was conducted not only in restricted settings but also in often geographically remote situations. An archetypal example is the Woomera Rocket Range in outback South Australia, where long-range weapons were trialled from 1947 under a joint project between the British and Australian governments. Woomera Village, established as a planned residential facility to support personnel employed on the Range, survives today in a similar role, but with a population greatly diminished from its late-1960s heyday. This paper introduces the Village against the backdrop of Cold War heritage and spatial planning ideology, surveys its raison d’être and growth as a Cold War town, and considers its modern-day status as a heritage place and sustainable community.     

南京居住空间分异的特征与模式研究——基于南京主城拆迁改造的透视

城市居住空间的地域分异是城市社会分化最直接的体现。本文以城市的拆迁改造为独特的切入视角,以南京市主城区为研究范围,调查获取了南京主城区所有街道近三年的拆迁改造数据,通过ArcGIS、SPSS等手段进行了数据分析,并以此为基础对近年来南京市主城区的居住空间分异模式进行了总结。文章认为,南京主城区的居住空间目前已呈现结构多元化的雏形,居住空间结构为"圈层"与"扇形"相混合模式,有从单中心向多中心发展的趋势。     

On wine,rent and regions: labour market change and housing market processes in non‐metropolitan South Australia

This article reports on research into the relationship between labour market change and the private rental market in non‐metropolitan South Australia for the period 1990–2000. Using Small Area Labour Market data, Census data and records from the Residential Tenancy Tribunal the study investigates the capacity of the private rental market to respond to labour market and population growth. The article finds that there is considerable ‘stickiness’ within the private rental market in regional South Australia and that there has been a limited supply response to changing levels of demand. This has contributed to housing and labour shortages in some regions and over supply in others. Each circumstance has generated considerable dilemmas for public policy. The reasons underlying the imperfect market response are considered and the implications for the future development of the regions are discussed.