The Australian Good Life: The Fraying of a Suburban Template

Abstract

Since European settlement in the late eighteenth century, Australia has embraced a suburban lifestyle with considerable enthusiasm. Despite continuing attempts to promote a more compact and cosmopolitan form, detached living in suburban settings remains the preferred housing type and setting of most Australians. And in the face of a host of 'clichés of suburban doom', to modify slightly Ruth Glass's expression, developers continue to build suburban estates further into the peri-urban hinterland and to sell them successfully. But what is the experience of those who buy into and live in these contemporary suburban enclaves? Do they get to live the dreams set out in full colour in the developers' brochures, or is the reality different? And how might these pioneers cope in a dystopian future in which the benefits of living in 'the countryside' begin to be outweighed by the costs of living a long way from business districts, shopping precincts and service hubs and centres of culture? This article draws on exploratory research among a group of peri-urban pioneers in South East Queensland, one of the fastest growing regions of Australia, to explore these questions and to examine how the lifestyles imagined in the developers' brochures are experienced in practice.

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