Advanced urban marginality in Australia: The case of public housing

Since the 1990s a shift in government policy in Australia has resulted in a marked decline in the number of public housing dwellings and demand far exceeding supply. The limited availability means that in order to be eligible for public housing, new entrants usually have to be in ‘greatest need’. This paper argues that the shift in the eligibility criteria for accessing public housing, means that public housing estates increasingly reflect what Loic Wacquant calls ‘advanced urban marginality’. The paper draws on existing quantitative data and in-depth interviews with 33 older (65 plus) public housing tenants in Sydney, Australia to analyse the residualisation of public housing using the features of advanced marginality identified by Wacquant - ‘wage labour as a vector of social instability and life insecurity’; ‘functional disconnection from macroeconomic trends’; ‘territorial fixation and stigmatization’; ‘spatial alienation and the dissolution of place’; ‘loss of hinterland’ and ‘social fragmentation and symbolic splintering’. The study concludes that although Wacquant’s analysis captures much of what has occurred in public housing estates in Sydney, in many instances public housing remains a source of pride for its tenants and provides them with the basis for a ‘good’ life.