Under-supply of schooling in the gentrified and regenerated inner city

Abstract

Governments and planners in the Global North are increasingly faced with the challenge of providing services for growing numbers of families in the inner city. Rather than quitting the city, couples are staying to raise children in gentrified, working class housing or in new medium and high density developments built pursuant to policies of urban consolidation and renewal. Difficulties have arisen when parents discover that inner city schools do not meet their expectations either in terms of quality or quantity. Problems with quantity are a consequence of government failing to anticipate the presence of families in new high density developments, particularly marked in Australia where apartments have never been considered appropriate housing for families. This article explores the actual and projected presence of children in inner Sydney and the pressure this has placed on school places. The government's ability to anticipate school demand is complicated by neoliberal education policies of rationalisation and ‘school choice’, which have reduced the number of inner city schools and created unpredictable movement of families between schools. Parent lobby groups have now forced the government to plan new schools, which is proving a complicated and expensive exercise in the high density, high value urban core. The conclusion of the research is that inner urban redevelopment must include sufficient public space and infrastructure not only for schools in the immediate future, but also for adaptive reuse for other, perhaps equally unanticipated, needs in the longer-term.