Master planned estates offer package dreams of homeownership to those wanting to live among others who share their lifestyle aspirations. Yet we show in this paper how divisions can arise between housing tenure types, with owner-occupiers constructing private rental tenants as a problem. Extending Bauman’s concept of the flawed consumer using Rose’s writings on ethopolitics, we show how renters are viewed as failing in three domains of social life: aesthetics, ethics and community by undermining the aesthetic value of the neighbourhood and by failing to demonstrate an ethic of care for themselves and others. As a result, the homeowners in this study try to avoid living among rental properties and are disappointed to find that, contrary to expectations, moving to a master planned estate does not guarantee this.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) (2007 a) Housing Occupancy and Costs, Australia, 2005-06. Catalogue no. 4130.0.55.001. Canberra: Government of Australia
2.
ABS (2007b) 2006 Census of Population and Housing: The Estate. Canberra: Government of Australia.
3.
Allen, C. ( 2008) Housing Market Renewal and Social Class. London: Routledge.
4.
Allen, C., Powell, R., Casey, R. and Coward, S. ( 2007) ‘Ordinary, the same as anywhere else’: notes on the management of spoiled identity in ‘marginal’ middle class neighbourhoods, Sociology, 41(2), pp. 239-258.
5.
Arthurson, K. ( 2008) Australian public housing and the diverse histories of social mix, Journal of Urban History, 34(3), pp. 484-501.
6.
Atkinson, R. and Kintrea, K. ( 2000) Owner-occupation, social mix and neighbourhood impacts , Policy and Politics, 28(1), pp. 89-108.
7.
Bauman, Z. ( 2005) Work, Consumerism and the New Poor. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
8.
Baumgartner, M.P. ( 1988) The Moral Order of a Suburb. New York: Oxford University Press.
9.
Beck, U. ( 1992) From industrial society to the risk society: questions of survival, social structure and the ecological enlightenment, Theory, Culture and Society, 9, pp. 97-123.
10.
Beer, A. ( 1999) Housing investment and the private rental sector in Australia , Urban Studies, 36(2), pp. 255-269.
11.
Bislev, S. ( 2004) Privatization of security as governance problem: gated communities in the San Diego region, Alternatives, 29, pp. 599-618.
12.
Bourdieu, P. ( 1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
13.
Costley, D. ( 2006) Master planned communities: do they offer a solution to urban sprawl or a vehicle for seclusion of the more affluent consumers in Australia?, Housing, Theory and Society, 23(3), pp. 157-175.
14.
Dean, M. ( 1999) Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society . London: Sage.
15.
Dodson, J. ( 2007) The ‘roll’ of the state: government, neoliberalism and housing assistance in four advanced economies, Housing, Theory and Society, 23(4), pp. 224-243.
16.
Dowling, R. and McGuirk, P. ( 2007) Understanding master-planned estates in Australian cities: a framework for research, Urban Policy and Research , 25(1), pp. 21-38.
17.
Duncan, J. and Duncan, N. ( 2004) Landscapes of Privilege: The Politics of the Aesthetic in an American Suburb. New York: Routledge.
18.
Dupuis, A. and Thorne, D. ( 1998) Home, home ownership and the search for ontological security , The Sociological Review, 46(1), pp. 24-47.
19.
Flint, J. ( 2003) Housing and ethopolitics: constructing identities of active consumption and responsible community, Economy and Society , 32(3), pp. 611-629.
20.
Flint, J. ( 2004) The responsible tenant: housing governance the politics of behaviour, Housing Studies, 19(6), pp. 893-909.
21.
Flint, J. and Rowlands, R. ( 2003) Commodification, normalisation and intervention: cultural, social and symbolic capital in housing consumption and governance , Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 18(2), pp. 213-232.
22.
Forrest, R. and Kearns, A. ( 2001) Social cohesion, social capital and the neighbourhood , Urban Studies, 38(12), pp. 2125-2143.
23.
Forrest, R. and Kennett, P. ( 1997) Risk, residence and the post-Fordist city, American Behavioral Scientist, 41(3), pp. 342-359.
24.
Foucault, M. ( 2003) The ethic of the concern of the self as a practice of freedom, in: P. Rabinow and N. Rose (Eds) The Essential Foucault: Selections from Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, pp. 25-42. New York: The New Press.
25.
Giddens, A. ( 1991) Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press .
26.
Gurney, C. ( 1999a) Lowering the drawbridge: a case study of analogy and metaphor in the social construction of home ownership, Urban Studies, 36(10), pp. 1705-1722.
27.
Gurney, C. ( 1999b) Pride and prejudice: discourses of normalisation in public and private accounts of home ownership, Housing Studies, 14(2), pp. 163-183.
28.
Gwyther, G. ( 2005) Paradise planned: community formation and the master planned estate, Urban Policy and Research, 12(1), pp. 57-72.
29.
Holdsworth, L. ( 2005) Just renting: implications of renting, community, place and identity: an empirical inquiry. Conference proceedings of the Australian Sociological Association, December, University of Tasmania, Hobart.
30.
Hulse, K. ( 2008) Shaky foundations: moving beyond housing tenure , Housing, Theory and Society, 25(3), pp. 202-219.
31.
Johnson, L. ( 1997) The oracles of Delfin: women and suburban development , Urban Policy and Research, 15(2), pp. 103-114.
32.
Kemeny, J. ( 1986) The ideology of home ownership, in: J. McLoughlin and M. Huxley (Eds) Urban Planning in Australia: Critical Readings , pp. 251-258. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.
33.
Kemp, P. and Keoghan, M. ( 2001) Movement into and out of the private rental sector in England, Housing Studies, 16(1), pp. 21-37.
34.
Kenna, T. ( 2007) Consciously constructing exclusivity in the suburbs? Unpacking a master planned estate development in western Sydney, Geographical Research, 45(3), pp. 300-313.
35.
Knight, D. ( 2001) Are we home yet?Paper presented at the Housing Studies Association Autumn Conference, University of Wales , Cardiff, September.
36.
Lipman, N. ( 2007) Best of both worlds, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 May, p. 1.
37.
McIntyre, Z. and McKee, M. ( 2008) Governance and sustainability in Glasgow: connecting symbolic capital and housing consumption regeneration, Area , 40(4), pp. 481-490.
38.
Merry, S. ( 1993) Mending walls and building fences: constructing the private neighbourhood, Journal of Legal Pluralism, 33, pp. 71-90.
39.
Osborne, T. ( 1997) Review article: The aesthetic problematic, Economy and Society, 26(1), pp. 126-140.
40.
O’Sullivan, E. and Decker, P. de (2007) Regulating the private rental housing market in Europe, European Journal of Homelessness, 1, pp. 95-117.
41.
Perin, C. ( 1977) Everything in its Place: Social Order and Land Use in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
42.
Randolph, B. ( 2008) The changing Australian city: new patterns, new policies and new research needs, Urban Policy and Research , 22(4), pp. 481-493.
43.
Richards, L. ( 1990) Nobody’s Home: Dreams and Realities in a New Suburb . Melbourne: Oxford University Press .
44.
Rose, N. ( 1996) The death of the social? Refiguring the territory of government , Economy and Society, 25(3), pp. 327-356.
45.
Rose, N. ( 1999) Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
46.
Rose, N. ( 2000) Community, citizenship and the third way, American Behavioral Scientist, 43(9), pp. 1395-1411.
47.
Rowlands, R. and Gurney, C. ( 2000) Young people’s perceptions of housing tenure: a case study in the socialization of tenure prejudice, Housing, Theory and Society, 17(3), pp. 121-130.
48.
Saunders, P. ( 1980) Urban Politics: A Sociological Interpretation. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
49.
Saunders, P. ( 1990) A Nation of Homeowners. London : Unwin Hyman.
50.
Savage, M., Barlow, J., Dickens, P. and Fielding, T. ( 1992) Property, Bureaucracy, and Culture: Middle-class Formation in Contemporary Britain. London: Routledge.
51.
Wulff, M. and Maher, C. ( 1998) Long term renters in the Australian housing market , Housing Studies, 13(1), pp. 83-98.
