Imagining Suburbia as the Roots of Sea-Change and Tree-Change: A Study of Sydney and Melbourne Media

摘要: Steve Harfield and Jason Prior ike all places, suburbs do not exist a priori but are constructed through social and cultural processes. 1 This does not refer simply to how these environments are materialized through planning and building, but rather emphasises the way that they are represented through books, maps, film, literature, art, and, of crucial importance in contemporary society, a range of media sources, including newspapers, websites and television. 2 Such representations are what give different localities their particular identities. Consequently, places, including the various manifestations of suburbia, cannot be experienced and interpreted apart from their circulated images. 3In this brief paper we explore how Sydney’s and Melbourne’s ‘suburbia’is imagined as a place in a range of popular media. Particular attention is paid to how suburbia is imagined in the context of the recent demographic shifts known as ‘sea-change’and ‘tree-change’. The commentaries analysed are taken from popular media sources widely