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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

suburbia « Previous | |Next »
September 14, 2011

Suburbia has come to constitute a cultural fault-line in Australia over the last 100 years. Since the 1950s suburbia is a term of contention and a focus for fundamentally conflicting beliefs in the Australian national imaginary whose connotations continue to oscillate between dream and suburban nightmare.

The word “suburbia” is almost automatically associated with homogeneity and dullness. Australian suburbs have been associated with spiritual emptiness, the promotion of an ersatz, one-dimensional consumer culture, the embourgeoisment of the working-class, as promoting the alienation of women and the unequal sexual division of labour, and more recently, as giving rise to large outer-suburban homes on new housing estates — McMansions — that are seen as being environmentally unsustainable and emblematic of middle-class over-consumption.

In Right to the City, Desire for the Suburb? in M/C Terry Flew says that the critiques of suburbia have been a staple of radical theory in Australia from the turn of the 20th century to the present day. He adds:

The problem with this tradition of radical critique, which is perhaps reflective of the estrangement of a section of the Australian critical intelligentsia more generally, is that most Australians live in suburbs, and indeed seem (not surprisingly!) to like living in them. Indeed, each successive wave of migration to Australia has been marked by families seeking a home in the suburbs, regardless of the housing conditions of the place they came from: the demand among Singaporeans for large houses in Perth, or what has been termed “Singaperth,” is one of many manifestations of this desire (Lee). Australian suburban development has therefore been characterized by a recurring tension between the desire of large sections of the population to own their own home (the fabled quarter-acre block) in the suburbs, and the condemnation of suburban life from an assortment of intellectuals, political radicals and cultural critics.

So we have an entrenched urban/suburban binary. However much h talk there is about the “return to the city,” the fastest rates of population growth are still in the outer suburbs of Australia’s major cities.

Flew remarks:

The assumption that the creative industries are best developed in cities by investing heavily in inner urban cultural amenity runs the risk of simply bypassing those areas where the bulk of the nation’s artists, musicians, filmmakers and other cultural workers actually are, which is in the suburbs. Moreover, by further concentrating resources among already culturally rich sections of the urban population, such policies run the risk of further accentuating spatial inequalities in the cultural realm, and achieving the opposite of what is sought by those seeking spatial justice or the right to the city.

While there is a much rehearsed imagined geography of the creative industries that points to creative talents clustering in inner city precincts, it is actually at odds with the reality of where people in these sectors choose to live and work, which is as often as not in the suburbs.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:22 PM |