From Prisons to Penthouses: The Changing Images of High-Rise Living in Melbourne

Abstract

The high-rise housing market in Melbourne has been undergoing dramatic growth in the last ten years. This emerging housing style is in stark contrast to the familiar traditional low-density suburban dwelling scouring Australian metropolitan cities. This paper traces the representations of high-rise housing since its first appearance in the 1960s to today. Discourses of high-rise housing that have seen this housing type change from one characterised by urban decay and family disorganisation to that which unproblematically glorifies this new housing form will be explored. These new and inviting images of high-rise living today are juxtaposed with the understandings of high-rise public housing that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. High-rise public housing was once seen as a solution to housing the impoverished and arresting the spread of slum conditions. High-rise housing today is being celebrated amongst government, developers, planners and occupiers as saving the inner city from decay and indicative of a re-vitalised CBD.

Keywords:

• High-rise housing
• discourse
• Melbourne

Notes

1 The CBD of Melbourne had in place rigorous height restrictions on buildings for the first 50 years of the 1900s. According to Davison (1991) the height limit was 132 feet, however during the 1950s Melbourne City Council withdrew these height restrictions due to the expansion of the city centre. The lifting of building height limitations resulted in the widespread construction of high-rise commercial office blocks in Melbourne's CBD in the 1960s and beyond. The modernist architectural style reflected that found in larger American cities – glass and concrete. These buildings, though, were not envisaged as residential spaces but as a method of displaying Melbourne's corporate prominence through its elevating skyline.

2 The regulation of high-rise housing is largely absent from planning policies in Victoria and there is no suggestion in this paper that the State Government (current and previous) were alerted to the mismatch argument and therefore promoted high-rise housing in response. In fact, the opposite has occurred where planning for high-rise has largely gone unattended and by mere coincidence it seems that high-rise housing might become one method of ‘pushing and/or pulling’ the underutilisers into apartments (for example empty-nesters and young, childless, carefree professionals).

3 These qualitative interviews were undertaken during 2000 and 2001.

4 The term Othering (and Others) describes a process whereby a person, group or thing is constituted as different. The terms aim to provide points of distinction between dominant (Self) and non-dominant (Other) subjects. Subjects for example can be delineated on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age and ability.

5 Lewis (1989) suggests that many of the houses that were cleared during the slum-clearance program were ‘pleasant old houses – scarcely slums’ (p. 12).

6 Quite the contrary, as can be seen by the decision by the Kennett Government in 1998 to demolish some high-rise public housing. The then Premier Jeff Kennett argued that these towers ‘detracted from the city's skyline and encouraged anti-social behaviour’ (McKay & Donovan, 1998: 8) . Ironically according to Millar (2001) ‘property developers covet the position and views’ offered by these high-rise public housing estates and it is estimated they are worth $300 million (p. 15).

7 Discussed previously was the notion of mismatch in housing and empty-nesters are just one group who fit into the category of housing underutilisers and underoccupiers. In contradictory ways this group was not directly demonised through the mismatch argument, nor are they considered to be selflessly promoting better use of resources through their shift into smaller apartments in the CBD.

8 The luxury high-rise market that exists today is centrally located and marketed as being situated in prime city spaces in contrast to that of the 1960s. This distinction might allude to a changing political-economy of housing, but this paper aims to investigate the narratives of representation that exist in the high-rise housing sector. For example public housing of the 1960s was situated in areas that are now considered ‘in-demand’ residential real-estate. Indeed the public housing high-rise located in inner Melbourne is considered wasted on the poor.