Is it all about the middle class

This weeks seminar was by Adam and myself and was on a reading by Susan S. Fainstein called New Directions in Planning Theory.

Susan Fainstein is a world renowned planner and is currently a Professor of Urban Planning at Harvard University, her outlook mainly focuses on the political and economic side of planning.

The reading spoke about communicative planning and how it is designed to initiate planning at a local level. This makes the planner an essential element of discussion, meaning planners have to communicate with other actors in their daily practice, through face to face interactions or through planning documents.

New Urbanism is also a significant talking point and how it is the revival of the design focus of cities.  It attempts to reduce any inequalities through successful design which is similar to the Garden City ideals. This idea creates a strong city that interconnects, that is to say that everything is within a ten minute walk no matter what part of the city you live in.

Susan Fainsteins "Just City" puts planners in the role of advocates and allows them to accept the conflictual view of society. One of the main concepts of this is the need to embody the middle-class, not just the poor and disadvantaged.

This idea of supporting the middle class is seen in the Illawarra, which as experienced a shift from a predominately blue collar area to increased middle class working. The area is now moving away from the mining and steel industries towards increased middle class demographics. This can be seen in the area of Shellharbour which has seen an explosion of middle class development of housing and infrastructure.

This is seen in the continuing developments of areas such as Flinders and Shell Cove, both of which were subject to intense promotion and advertising through television, radio and social media. Five years ago these areas did not exist and were predominately farming land and had no housing developments.
The Shellharbour city centre has transformed into a hub of accounting firms, lawyer firms and several medical centres, a significant change from what it was five to ten years ago.