Criticism of suburbia

Suburbs in the United States have often been criticised for instituting explicitly racist policies to deter people deemed as other.[2]

Suburban housing in Griffith, New South Wales

Despite the fact the majority of Australians still live in the suburbs, or maybe because of it, negative discourse about suburbia, often termed "suburbia bashing", perseveres in the mainstream media.[7] Dame Edna Everage typifies this as she demonstrates both "nostalgia and disdain for the Australian suburb and suburban life".[5]

Prominent journalist Allan Ashbolt satirised the suburb that represented Australian nationalism, rooted in the post-World War II era, as passive and uninspired, inscribed strongly in spatial terms. In 1966, he described Australian reality accordingly:

"Behold the man – the Australian of today – on Sunday morning in the suburbs when the high decibel drone of the motor-mower is calling the faithful to worship. A block of land, a brick veneer, and the motor-mower beside him in the wilderness – what more does he want to sustain him."[8]

Ashbolt, among others, represent a "tradition of abuse of the suburbs and of the majority of Australians" in Australian mainstream media.[9]

Suburbia bashing is entrenched in questions of national identity. Disparaging commentary about the suburbs often appears in contrast to the national mythology of the Australian bush. The landscape that is portrayed in the tourism advertisements, by poets and painters, does not represent the experience of the majority of Australians. The suburb and the bush are counterposed, "the bush (cast as the authentic Australian landscape) with the city (regarded as blighted foreign import)".[10] The bush landscape is a masculine construction of a more "authentic notion of Australian national identity" exemplified by the poetry of Henry Lawson.[4] Conversely, the suburb is feminised, epitomised by Dame Edna for more than fifty years, and more recently, by comedic team Jane Turner and Gina Riley in Kath & Kim.[4]

Architect and cultural critic, Robin Boyd, also criticised suburbia, referring to it as the "Australian ugliness".[1] Boyd observed a "pursuit of respectability" in suburban spaces.[1] Boyd writes of a contrived and superficial sense of place, centered on a "fear of reality":

"The Australian ugliness begins with fear of reality, denial of the need for the everyday environment to reflect the heart of the human problem, satisfaction with veneer and cosmetic effects. It ends in betrayal of the element of love and a chill near the root of national self-respect."[11]

The ugliness that Boyd describes is qualified as "skin deep".[12] However, in the tradition of suburbia bashing, he proposes that there is an emptiness of spirit that can be read through an uninformed appreciation for aesthetics.

More recently there has been suggestion of a "new Australian ugliness".[13] New suburban developments have seen the proliferation of what have become known as "McMansions". McMansions epitomise the suburbia that is attacked by Boyd for both its monotony and "featurism"[1] Journalist Miranda Devine refers to an elitist perception that those who live in such suburban assemblages display a "poverty of spirit and a barrenness of mind" that is derived from a politics of aesthetics and taste, as expressed by Boyd fifty years ago.[7] In this "new Australian ugliness" some commentators attribute a rise in consumer culture: "There’s a concern about over-consumption. But there’s little thought of why – beyond advertising-driven gullibility".[13] Academic Mark Peel has rejected notions of gullible "consuming" residents of new suburbs by explaining his own "choice" to move to Melbourne's outer suburbs.[13]

Peel alludes to a discourse of suburbia that is elitist, and is based on matters of taste which have translated into a socio-cultural divide. When Miranda Devine refers to the elites, she refers to an inner-city population.[7] The divide is between the urbanites and the suburbanites, and the conflict is over national identity.