EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - Suburban scars: Australian cities & socio-economic deprivation

Suburban scars: Australian cities & socio-economic deprivation

Introduction

In the past decades, social disparities in Australia have increased. Policy aimed at decreasing social deprivation is often directed towards individuals, but space and place are also important factors. Especially Australian suburbs bear the scars of social and economic change. In this paper, Scott Baum focuses on Australia's metropolitan suburbs, and uses most recent census data. The paper offers a critical analysis of contemporary debates on the socio-spatial structure of cities and develops an index of relative deprivation. It proposes both an analytical framework and an empirical base for policy debate regarding social inclusion. The paper is part of Griffith's University 'Urban Research Program'.

Description

Australian cities used to be relatively homogeneous working class communities. However, the economic and social processes of post-Fordism have resulted in a more complex socio-spatial patterning:

There has been a suburbanization of poverty into Australia's middle ring and old outer suburban areas;
There has been a movement of an inspirational class of households to opportunties in new outer suburbs;
The old working class communities have been divided up into several groups of new disadvantaged communities with a diverse range of characteristics;

Scott Baum analyses the spatial dimension of socio-economic deprivation. Additionally, he creates a General Deprivation Index (GDI) in order to test the spread and the degree of (relative) deprivation in the metropolitan suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Canberra and Darwin.

The author states that the interpretation of the pattern of deprivation and the divides that are seen to exist should help to sharpen policy thinking about traditional and more recent policy approaches.

Methodology

This paper uses Principal Components Analysis and the resultant factor scores to develop a range of deprivation indicators and a General Deprivation Index (GDI).

Conclusions

In his research, Scott Baum analysed the following cities:

Sydney: has both the highest and the lowest scores of relative deprivation of the country;
Melbourne: is known as Australia's most liveable city, but its prosperity does not translate into spatially equal outcomes. However, the city also does not have the extreme polarised structures of Sydney. Nonetheless, Melbourne has suburbs at both extremes of the General Deprivation Index;
Brisbane: is one of the sun-belt capitals and is on the up-side of Australia's two-speed economy. The city does not have any extreme deprivation, and can generally be described as a low deprivation city;
Perth: is the other sun-belt capital and its distribution of relative deprivation is similar to Brisbane. It has less extreme deprivation than would be statistically suspected;
Adelaide: is one of the so-called 'rust-belt capitals' because of declining populations and economic fortunes. The city is characterised by extremely high deprivation and relatively few suburbs of low relative deprivation;
Hobart: is the other 'rust-belt capital'. Just like Adelaide it has many areas that belong to the 'highest relative deprivation suburbs';
Canberra: is one of the public service towns, which generally translates into less deprived outcomes;
Darwin: is the other public service towns. The deprivation outcomes are similar to those in Canberra.

A big picture view of suburban scarring suggests that there exists a complex geography of deprivation across the Australian metropolitan regions. The divisions identified in the research are most noticeable at the extremes. The group of suburbs identified as having the lowest relative deprivation are clearly differentiated from other localities and are establishing themselves as spaces of privilege in the global age. At the other extreme, suburbs identified as having the highest relative deprivation, show the negative impacts of economic restructuring
and other social and demographic processes. These suburbs main be seen as Australia’s equivalent of the urban ghettos in the United States.

Contact info

Griffith University - Urban Research Program
Nathan, Queensland, Australia
Phone: +61 (0)7 3735 3742
Fax: +61 (0)7 3735 4026
urp@griffith.edu.au
Scott Baum (Associate Professor), tel. +61 (0)7 373 55430

Publication date

Project finished

/02/2008

Researcher

Scott Baum

Links

Visit the Griffith University - Urban Research Program website

Download the paper 'Suburban scars: Australia's cities and socio-economic deprivation' (PDF, Eng, 2MB)

Document type

research

Themes

Urban Policy

Keywords

Social inclusion & integration

Institutional characteristics
Academic/Research