Institute of Australian Geographers Conference

CALL FOR PAPERS

Institute of Australian Geographers Conference
University of Tasmania, Hobart
29 June - 3 July, 2008
http://www.geol.utas.edu.au/iag/home.html


URBAN RESIDENTIAL TRANSFORMATIONS
(Sponsored by the Urban Geography Study Group)

The transforming socio-spatial structure of metropolitan areas is a dominant
theme in urban geographical research internationally. Processes of
globalisation, economic restructuring, along with governance, demographic and
socio-cultural transformations continue to generate reconfigurations of urban
structure, built form, social and spatial organisation. These reconfigurations
demand our ongoing attention. The drivers and outcomes generated by diverse
socio-political and geographical contexts present a fertile ground for urban
empirical and theoretical research.

Urban residential environments are a key domain in which drivers of
metropolitan change intersect, reflected in the increased pace, extent and
complexity of established and emergent urban residential forms: private
residential estates, master-planned estates, brownfield residential
redevelopments, high-rise apartment blocks, new-build gentrified developments,
caravan parks and more. The impacts of this proliferation of residential forms
play out at the individual, household, neighbourhood and city scale. They both
reflect and drive changes in the nature of the development industry,
mechanisms of urban governance, patterns of urban sociability, neighbourhood
functioning, and understandings of home.

This session invites papers to generate discussion on the empirics and
theorisation of urban residential transformations. It aims to bring together
papers examining how emerging residential forms are impacting on cities and
citizens in Australia, the Asia-Pacific region and more broadly. Further, it
aims to generate reflection on how to productively theorise and critique these
changes. Papers for this session may address, but are not limited to, the
following themes:

* The empirical scope, extent and nature of transformation to urban
residential form
* Mechanisms and implications for urban governance
* Residential form and urban sociability
* Structures of residential provision
* Cultural values, meanings of home and urban residential transformation
* Methodological approaches for understanding the lived realities of new
residential forms
* Implications for theorising the urban

Abstracts of approximately 250 words should be sent to the session convenors
by Monday March 10th.

Session convenors:
Therese Kenna, University of NSW: t.kenna@student.unsw.edu.au
Pauline McGuirk, University of Newcastle: pauline.mcguirk@newcastle.edu.au
Robyn Dowling, Macquarie University: rdowling@els.mq.edu.au

UGSG: http://www.iag.org.au/iagstudy.html#urban