At home with strategic planning: Reconciling resident attachments to home with policies of residential densification

Abstract

This paper explores participatory planning approaches in the context of owner-occupiers' opposition to policies and practices of residential densification in suburban neighbourhoods. Drawing on a case study from Melbourne, it shows that residents value lower-density homes for a range of (interrelated) economic, social and practical reasons. While these attachments to home help to explain opposition to policies and practices of residential densification, they also contribute to a range of 'everyday' territorialisations that unsettle formal processes of border-making associated with compact city planning. The paper concludes by highlighting the challenges that tensions between housing and home generate, in terms of participatory planning approaches in the context of residential densification. © 2013 Copyright Planning Institute Australia.