Paradise Planned: Community Formation and the Master Planned Estate

Abstract

The popularity of master planned estates with prospective settlers and planner-developers alike has burgeoned in the past 20 years. Stimulated by the settlers' desire for product assurance, and the developer's search for a marketing advantage, movements such as new urbanism and neo-communitarianism have underpinned large-scale planned suburban tract developments in both Australia and the USA. The marketing of such developments together with quality of design and physical and social infrastructure, commonly includes the promise of ‘community’. Such promises strike a chord with residents driven by security concerns. Drawing on recent qualitative research on two planned housing estates on Sydney's south-west fringe, this article examines two interrelated processes that underpin the notion of community in the contemporary master planned community. Firstly, it investigates the influence that design and development practices can have on community formation and community outcomes. It also examines the nexus between community association and economic interests in the drive to shape a secure, status-oriented residential environment. During a time when community is perceived as a scarce resource, and a goal to be achieved, ‘community’ becomes a resource deployed by both the planner-developer and residents to differentiate one residential area from another.

Keywords:

• Master planned estate
• community
• social captial

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Dr Michael Bounds and the anonymous reviewers at Urban Policy and Research for their helpful comments. The fieldwork was originally undertaken as part of the author's PhD research, with industry funding from Landcom.