Competing processes of border-making: compact city planning and residents' everyday territorialisation of home

This chapter provides an alternative position, recognising that opposition to higher-density housing is anchored in resident attachment to home. It argues that a better understanding of the practices of home-making underpinning the achievement of lower-density suburbs will help to produce more effective planning tools recognising that objectors have a significant investment in, and plans for, their homes and neighbourhoods. The chapter draws on qualitative data to explore the relationship between residents’ practices of home-making and opposition to higher-density dwelling. It explores the distribution of objection and appeal at the metropolitan scale, flagging the potential for urban elites to push-back with their own processes of boundary-making, compromising compact city and participatory planning goals. In lower-density cities, compact city planning, revises the borders and boundaries of suburban housing development, including allotment sizes, building heights and neighbourhood density. Wealth and socio-economic effects are also relevant to competing processes of border-making.