Bruce Judd

Community renewal and large public housing estates

Abstract The extent of social disadvantage in local neighbourhoods has come to the fore in recent years, partly as a result of the problems that State Housing Authorities have faced in managing the concentrations of socially marginalised populations on larger public housing estates. However, a wider understanding of the processes at play in these neighbourhoods is needed to inform policy development. We consider the evolution of local renewal policy in New South Wales at the present time and suggest potential policy options for the future.

Qualitative Methods and the Evaluation of Community Renewal Programs in Australia: Towards a National Framework

The emergence of public housing estate renewal programs in Australia in the last decade has been one of the most prominent developments in social housing policy. These programs have undertaken a broad mix of renewal activity, ranging from outright physical redevelopment and stock replacement for sale, to community development type initiatives to improve social and employment outcomes for residents. However, while a number of evaluations of these programs have been undertaken, the development of evaluation methodology has lagged behind that of other countries. This in part is due to the lack of federal government interest or involvement in these programs which are essentially state specific. The article reviews the evaluations that have been undertaken in the last 10 years in Australia and assesses the relative importance of qualitative methodologies in these evaluations. Despite a strong focus among policy makers on value-for-money aspects of renewal, the authors show that qualitative methods have been commonplace, if limited in range, and argue this is a result of both the difficulty of obtaining comparative quantitative information especially when comparing dissimilar programs between states. In this context, qualitative methods are more easily managed by researchers and offer more insightful assessments than quantitatively based approaches. The article concludes by arguing for a national evaluation methodology to assist in more rigorous evaluations and the extension of qualitative evaluation methods.

Feeling at Home in a Multigenerational Household: The Importance of Control

Abstract The importance of property ownership for feelings of control and ontological security has received significant academic attention. Yet tenure may not be the only indicator of control over one’s dwelling. This paper considers the importance of control within the household in relation to household members’ feelings of home and highlights the importance of one’s relationship with other household members and their relative control over decision-making and the use of space. It draws upon research on multigenerational households in Australian cities, including a survey (n = 392), diaries (n = 21) and interviews (n = 21). Individuals’ feelings of home were influenced by their sense of control over their dwellings, which varied for different household members. This has significant implications for research on the meaning of home, and suggests that important synergies are possible between researchers concerned with the form and nature of social interactions within the family and housing researchers concerned with the meaning of home.

Changing perceptions of family: A study of multigenerational households in Australia:

Many people around the world live in households with multiple generations of related adults (multigenerational households). While more prominent in certain cultures, multigenerational living is also an important part of the lives of millions in societies where this arrangement has not been seen as ‘the norm’. Australia is one such case, where one in five people live in a multigenerational household. This article presents findings of a research project on multigenerational households in Australia, including a survey of 392 people, 21 diaries and 21 follow-up interviews to explore how multigenerational household members understand their own experiences of living together. It focuses particularly on whether they feel multigenerational living is a socially accepted living arrangement. The article concludes with a discussion about how these experiences and understandings of multigenerational family members may reflect changing social norms regarding the form and role of families in Australian society.

Adaptive reuse of industrial heritage for cultural purposes in Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing

With the dramatic transformation of China’s industrial landscape, since the late 1990s, adaptive reuse of industrial heritage for cultural purposes has become a widely occurring phenomenon in major Chinese cities. The existing literature mainly focusses on specific cases, yet sees heritage conservation similarly at both national and regional scale and rarely identifies the main factors behind the production of China’s industrial-heritage reuse. The purpose of this paper is to examine the differences in heritage reuse outcomes among three Chinese mega-cities and explore the driving factors influencing the differences.,This paper compares selected industrial-heritage cultural precincts in Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing, and explores the local intervening factors influencing differences in their reuse patterns, including the history of industrial development, the availability of the nineteenth and/or twentieth century industrial buildings, the existence of cultural capital and the prevalence of supportive regional government policy.,The industrial-heritage reuse in the three cities is highly regional. In Beijing, the adaptation of industrial heritage has resulted from the activities of large-scale artist communities and the local government’s promotion of the city’s cultural influence; while in Shanghai, successful and more commercially oriented “sea culture” artists, private developers in creative industries and the “creative industry cluster” policy make important contributions. Chongqing in contrast, is still at the early stage of heritage conservation, as demonstrated by its adaptive reuse outcomes. Considering its less-developed local cultural economy, Chongqing needs to adopt a broader range of development strategies.,The paper contributes to knowledge by revealing that the production of industrial-heritage cultural precincts in Chinese mega-cities is influenced by regional level factors, including the types of industrial heritage, the spontaneous participation of artist communities and the encouragement of cultural policy.

Older marginalised people: pathways into and out of a marginal housing situation

This study1 explores the situation of marginally housed older people in NSW, Victoria and SA. It investigates pathways into homelessness and the importance of interventions and support to ensure that older, vulnerable people retain their accommodation. The research is based on 59 in-depth interviews with older people who were all clients of the Assistance with Care and Housing for the Aged (ACHA) program; a national survey of 46 ACHA agencies; and interviews with 15 ACHA managers.2 A key finding is that those older people in private rented accommodation who are dependent on income support are particularly prone to finding themselves battling to avoid homelessness. The death of a spouse, rent increases and eviction are common precipitators of an accommodation crisis. A lack of social and family networks and the breakdown of the extended family are also important. The virtual freeze on the building of social housing and the resultant scarcity of affordable and adequate accommodation and support services are another key factor. Intervention by outside agencies was found to alter dramatically the lives of vulnerable older people. The key intervention was helping to find adequate, affordable and secure accommodation. However, ongoing support usually is also critical to ensure successful and sustainable housing outcomes for older people.

Challenges in transitioning to low carbon living for lower income households in Australia

ABSTRACT In the move towards low carbon living, the challenges faced by lower income groups are often overlooked. Recent rises in electricity costs disproportionate to income make this a more critical issue. Based on findings from focus group discussions with 164 lower income households and 18 stakeholders across 4 different climate zones in Australia, this paper reveals the barriers that lower income households face in improving their residential energy efficiency and in achieving low carbon living. While limited financial capacity is generally understood as a significant barrier preventing lower income households from taking up technologies to achieve greater energy efficiency and transition to low carbon living, our findings show that a mix of financial and non-financial barriers exist. These include their ability to afford energy efficient household products, control over thermal comfort and energy efficiency levels of their homes, and lack of access to reliable information. These barriers are revealed to have significant impacts on the household finances, health, and social well-being of these lower income households. The concluding discussion puts forward policy suggestions on how some current assistance and incentive programmes encouraging low carbon living could be adjusted to ensure more equitable access, encourage uptake, and improve low carbon outcomes.

Learning from lived experience for the improvement of health-supportive built environment practice

ABSTRACT This paper presents “lessons” for the planning, design, construction and management of built environments to be supportive of the health of residents and other users. These lessons are an outcome of a cross-disciplinary study of four developing residential areas in New South Wales, Australia and which sought to understand the actual experience of what comprises a health-supportive built environment. An integral, mixed methods approach was adopted and involved site audits, discussions with professionals working in development processes, and interviews and workshops with residents. A key finding was that to ensure effectiveness physical built environment features need to be complemented by broader actions, in particular: (i) a more diligent approach by built environment professionals to ensure well intentioned designs are actioned and managed to achieve original health goals, and (ii) inclusion of supportive programs reflective of resident needs and aspirations in order to encourage and stimulate use of the built environment features. To assist this endeavour the study translated the “raw” academic findings into a series of instructive guides (titled “lessons”). They are expressed in lived experience terms so as to best resonate with practitioners (and others), and thus facilitate uptake.

Large Housing Estates: Ideas, Rise, Fall and Recovery: The Bijlmermeer and Beyond

The case of the Bijlmermeer is one of critical importance in the story of large social housing estates in Europe, and in particular their failures and recovery attempts. Together with Pruitt Igoe in the USA, Toulouse-Le Mirail and Les Minguettes in Lyon, France; Ballymun in Ireland; Castle Vale in Birmingham, England; and The Gorbals in Scotland, Bijlmermeer epitomizes the failures of the grand CIAM-inspired high-rise housing vision of the post-war period – each of which ended up with large-scale demolitions. Tragically, yet ironically, it was also the victim of a cargo plane crash in 1992 during the early period of its renewal. There are many lessons to be learned from studying such a case in detail which are relevant elsewhere in, and beyond, the European context. Frank Wassenberg is well positioned to unravel the complex factors leading to the establishment, decline and recovery of this important example, having undertaken a large number (22 in all) of research projects on the Bijlmermeer over the past 20 years, initially with the OTB Research Institute for the Built Environment at Delft University of Technology and later as a researcher with the Nicis Institute/Platform31 in The Hague, while maintaining his links with OTB. The book is actually Wassenberg’s published PhD thesis, a point which is clearly made in the preface, however not in the conventional form – described rather as a “hybrid” approach including a collection of published journal articles from 2004 to 2012 interspersed with introductory, reflective and concluding commentary, attempting to tie together these documents into a coherent whole. It is, however, somewhat confusing and disconcerting, due to the varying dates of the contributions, resulting in conflicting past/future references and considerable overlap and repetition. This makes reading somewhat hard work and sometimes frustrating. This may be acceptable as a form of PhD by publication, but does not lead to a tightly coherent book. Only rarely can a PhD thesis be published successfully without considerable adaptation, and this book could have benefited from such, to eliminate repetition and improve the flow of the argument. Nevertheless, despite these reservations about the structure and continuity of the book, it does contain a most valuable documentation of the origin, demise and rehabilitation of one of the largest social housing estates in Europe, with some reference also to other comparable cases in Europe – albeit somewhat superficially. Book Reviews 123

Whose public space? International case studies in urban design and development

deals with the dialectical interaction obvious in the contest between Indigenous peoples and (European) planning in the production of space. Porter uses the term ‘spatial cultures’ to frame her theoretical premises to understand the production of space throughout time. This works well in supporting her claims. In which the book captures well the tensions between colonial spatial cultures within the production of (post)colonial spaces. The author cites Lockean theory of property (Tully 1980) which supports understanding of how colonial spatial culture’s thought and behaviours lead to the dispossession and appropriation of Indigenous land. The book suggests that Lockean theory of property is regarded as human obligation to fulfil land betterment in the deployment of labour, as it is a God-given law to self preserve. The book recounts various colonial writings from stakeholders that facilitated the production of space in colonies. The overarching theme in the writings concludes that the land was seen as barren and needed to be improved through Western conceptions of land use. Porter raises an important concern, which in many ways is relevant for planning discourses today, in that Indigenous peoples are viewed as blending in with nature and this has led to Indigenous land erasure. The book suggests that the decolonialisation of planning could occur by an orientation toward love as a form of ethical practice. Whilst the author points out it is not of a romantic or intimate love but one regarding humility and compassion it does not sit well in planning discourses. Since it would be hard to apply ‘love’ in planning, given the multiplicity of society, the process of planning means some groups of people will inevitably be dissatisfied with the final decisions made. Moreover, love as radical practice would be undermined by neo-liberalism evident in planning practice. The book would have been strengthened by addressing the question, ‘How to address plurality in planning practice?’ This is a tough question but one that would enrich discussion. However, the book’s strengths include effectively questioning collaborative planning in the (post)colonial context. The writer raises concern in the post(colonial) setting with planning denying Indigenous involvement in planning decisions. The book makes use of two cases that highlight this problem in Gariwerd (the Grampians) and Nyah. In the case of Nyah forest (in Western Victoria), the integrity of the forest has been challenged by timber harvesting, grazing and tourism. Porter explores how in both Gariwerd and Nyah there was evidence of colonial domination over Indigenous peoples in leaving them out of management decisions and that there is a presence of racial stereotypes. Overall, the book provides a good historical overview and deals with the complexity in the colonial and (post)colonial environment. This book is recommended for understanding the Indigenous struggle in planning discourse, and it raises key issues for planning theorists in advancing research. It is written effectively and supported by well-researched documentation and includes an extensive bibliography. The book would be useful as a research reference in all planning history courses.