Imagining Suburbia: The Imaginative Production of Traditional and Post-Suburban Forms in Auckland

Abstract

Auckland’s suburbs are undergoing a range of changes. From an emphasis on a wider variety of transport options, to the rise of denser, more diverse forms of housing, these changes have been fuelled by growing concerns about the viability and desirability of traditional suburbia. In many ways, these changes resonate with recent literature on post-suburbanisation, a growing body of commentary describing the increasingly diversified nature of suburban forms and functions (Wu & Phelps, 2008; Charmes and Keil, 2015; Phelps, 2015). Rather than proclaiming the end of the suburbs, this thesis treats post-suburbanisation as a multiplication of suburban spaces beyond the traditional low density, dormitory suburbs of the post-War era. In order to do this, the thesis moves beyond the common material framing of post-suburbanisation, which focuses on its economic dimensions (Dear, 2004; Phelps & Wu, 2011), and focuses on the role and character of imaginative practices in the production of traditional and post-suburban space. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s (1991) notion of the ‘production of space’ as an analytical framework, the thesis traces how Auckland’s suburbs have been imaginatively positioned and problematised in debates about the city’s development. The thesis traces the historical development of Auckland’s suburbs and, in particular, the central Auckland suburb Three Kings, to demonstrate how a range of imaginaries have been central to the production of traditional and post-suburban space. Following this historical account, the thesis focuses on contemporary developments in Three Kings to reveal how imaginative practices are implicated in the promotion of, and resistance to, suburban change at the local level. Based on this analysis, it is shown that imaginative practices are intertwined in the production of traditional and post-suburban space across multiple spatial and temporal scales, materialising locally in lived experiences. In doing so, the thesis reveals how post-suburbanisation does not mark an end to traditional suburbia but rather a multiplication and hybridisation of ‘the suburb’ that is shaped by historical processes as well as competing contemporary discourses about urban futures.