Inner-city Suburb Research Articles

Speaking of Hunger: Food Shortages, Poverty and Community Assistance in Urban South Africa

ABSTRACT How people speak of hunger extends beyond statements about food adequacy; people’s remarks may reflect experiences of poverty and feelings of vulnerability, and may be used to request help. In this article, we build on the idea of idioms of distress to conceptualize hunger talk as expressing more than an empty belly. We draw on ethnographic data gathered in two settings in South Africa: one a peri-urban area under traditional jurisdiction in the Eastern Cape Province; the other an inner-city suburb of the largest city, Johannesburg, in Gauteng. Hunger-related idioms of distress help illustrate the complex interplay of social, economic, and cultural factors, and allow people to speak of various affective and material aspects of their lives.

Reassigning kerbside parking to cycling lanes: Is Robin Hood planning good for business?

ABSTRACT In built-up areas, creating segregated bicycle lanes involves trade-offs with other modes, such as repurposing existing kerbside parking. Can parking be eliminated without financially impacting local businesses? This study answers this question empirically, employing as a case study Boundary Street – the high street of a gentrifying inner-city suburb in Brisbane, Australia. It seeks to elucidate (1) the current use of on-street parking along Boundary Street; (2) the necessity for driving to Boundary Street, based on distances travelled; and (3) Boundary Street patrons’ spending habits and visitation patterns. Three sets of primary data are used, including a public forum, an intercept survey, and a series of systematic field observations. The results show that most visitors reach the area on foot; parking spaces are generally available along the street, contrary to local perceptions. Nearly a third of private car users travel less than 3 km to Boundary Street and more than half travel less than 10 km (in other words, they come from the inner city). Therefore, they do not need to travel by car – if distance was the only consideration. Based on these findings, it is concluded that reassigning at least one row of kerbside parking to cycling along Boundary Street would be appropriate.

Design considerations in the activation of a temporary playspace for children and families: perspectives of council, architects and designers

ABSTRACT Child-friendly cities are places that support opportunities for children’s play and community connection in safe urban environments. A dominant practice in urban planning and design has been to separate people and their activities spatially (i.e., residential zones, learning zones, play zones) and this coincided with the remaking of cities around private vehicular travel which together necessitated carving out safe spaces for children play. This has meant that children’s play has been geared towards permanent equipment in fenced-off playgrounds or more formal educational settings. However, the inclusion of temporary play spaces in cities to support community engagement in the local environment is growing to combine urban design, play and community wellbeing initiatives. This paper documents the experiences of stakeholders of a temporary play space in an inner-city suburb of an Australian city. This work includes key perspectives of the architects and designers and local council members to evaluate how a 12-week activation of a temporary play space came into being and what can be learnt from this collaboration.

Using ethnography to understand the lives of street sex workers

This article examines the value of using ethnographic methodology in research with women involved in street sex work in an inner-city suburb of Melbourne, Australia. The aim is to draw attention to the importance of three fundamental elements of this type of research with marginalised populations: 1) researchers’ immersion into the field over a sustained period of time, 2) ethical considerations about informed consent for people with cognitive impairment as a result of chronic drug use, and 3) reflexivity and positionality in qualitative research. Data collected from two and a half years of ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation and semi-structured interviews with women involved in street sex work, emphasises the importance of adopting these participatory methods to ensure authenticity, rigour and credibility of research findings with marginalised populations.

Extra-interior

This article responds to the challenges facing creative practitioners whose work engages with aspects of ‘public’ provoked by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The temporary physical closures of established creative infrastructures such as galleries, museums and festivals have disrupted the traditional dynamics of production and reception. This presents both challenges and opportunities for artists and designers to develop new forms of creative engagement with public audiences and spaces. The confinement of people to a 5-kilometre radius during extended lockdowns in Melbourne, Australia in 2020 prompted a reflection on the opportunities of the ‘local’ as a particular context for creative practice. This restriction imposed a perimeter that brought people’s day- to-day lives into an enclosed loop and produced what could be thought of as a form of interior. In this period, ordinary domestic and local spaces — for example the home office or studio gained manifold functions for many creative practitioners, including as a space for self- initiated public presentations of their work. In several cases, windows, balconies, and doorways became thresholds for interaction with passers-by. This self-broadcasting situation provided an opportunity for practitioners to play an active role in cultivating new relations and forms of publicity from a localised setting. In this article, these shifts in practice are investigated through a critical reflection on a series of spatial interventions within a street-facing window of a studio space in Brunswick, Melbourne, an inner-city suburb where residential streets mix with spaces of industrial and creative production. The liminal space of the window became a way to speculate on the concept of thresholds between diverse conditions, including public and private, art and the everyday, urban and local, and interior and exterior. These investigations engaged with a ‘makeshift’ mode of practice, leading to the production of extra-ordinary interior conditions.

The impact of the Queensland Government's Tackling Alcohol-Fuelled Violence Policy on live music performances in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia.

The Queensland Government's Tackling Alcohol-Fuelled Violence (TAFV) Policy was met with concern from live music venue owners who feared decreased patronage and associated revenue. This study investigates the impact of the TAFV Policy on live music venues and performances in Fortitude Valley, an inner-city suburb of Brisbane, Australia recognised as a hub of live music performances. Data relating to live music venues and performances in Fortitude Valley for the 2000-2018 financial years were obtained from the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA AMCOS), who maintains an online data portal allowing artists to enter performance details to collect royalty payments. These data were supplemented with six precinct mapping audits of live music venues operating in the Fortitude Valley Safe Night Precinct between July 2016 and September 2019. APRA AMCOS data show increases in the number of reported live music performances and venues in Fortitude Valley between 2000 and 2019. Precinct mapping audits show minimal changes in the operation of live music venues in Fortitude Valley between 2016 and 2019. As the first study to independently document the impact of licenced venue trading hour changes on live music, this study shows the number of live performances reported to APRA AMCOS and original live music venues trading in the Fortitude Valley Safe Night Precinct were unchanged by the introduction of the TAFV. The study highlights the value of using performance returns and venue audits to track live music in a contested policy space.

Perth … About the launch of Alf Taylor's God, the Devil and Me

Perth …About the launch of Alf Taylor's God, the Devil and Me Per Henningsgaard (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Centre for Stories is a literary arts and cultural organization with its office in Northbridge, an inner-city suburb of Perth perhaps best known as a nightlife hub and multicultural melting pot. Centre for Stories fits well in this environment since its focus is on empowering people whose experiences and perspectives are often marginalized. The organization feels young, hip, and diverse, and its office reflects this identity. The elegant Queen Anne home that served as the launching pad for Centre for Stories in 2015 has since been extensively renovated; it now includes an airy courtyard and a trendy cafe, Lulu Lala, overlooking the footpath. On February 25, 2021, it was a balmy summer evening, and the Centre for Stories courtyard was the venue for the launch of the Nyoongah writer Alf Taylor's memoir God, the Devil and Me. Contrary to the venue's overall vibe, Taylor is not young; he recently celebrated his seventy-fourth birthday. Furthermore, while Centre for Stories is no stranger to collaborating with Aboriginal writers, it is perhaps better known for its support of projects focused on the Indian Ocean, LGBTQIA+ stories, and migrant communities. And while Taylor lives in Perth, his book's publisher (Magabala Books, Australia's leading Indigenous publishing house since it was established in 1987) is located in the far northwest corner of Western Australia, in the small town of Broome, so its staff rarely has reason to rub elbows with staff from Centre for Stories. All of which means it could very well have felt like an uncomfortable fit—the wrong venue for the launch of this particular book by this particular author. It was, therefore, a pleasant surprise when Taylor's book launch ended up feeling like a wonderful family reunion. Taylor's [End Page 383] nephew greeted the crowd with a performance on the didgeridoo. Then, Taylor's brother, the well-known local activist and Nyoongah elder Ben Taylor, delivered the Welcome to Country. Children played on the ground and wandered through the audience as Kim Scott, a Nyoongah writer and two-time winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, delivered a speech launching God, the Devil and Me into the world. Scott mentioned that Taylor had published three books prior to God, the Devil and Me: two books of poetry, Singer Songwriter (1992) and Winds (1994), as well as a collection of short stories, Long Time Now: Stories of the Dreamtime, the Here and Now (2001). It has, therefore, been two decades between books by Taylor. Scott remarked, "The book took twenty years to write because it hurt to go back there." This is undoubtedly true since God, the Devil and Me relates the story of Taylor being taken into the New Norcia Mission at a young age and being raised by the monks there, as his father had been before him. Despite the book's challenging content about Australia's Stolen Generations, when it came time for Taylor to read aloud from his memoir, he chose to highlight the humorous moments. He read from a scene in which he and a few other boys were looking at a magazine containing a photo of a woman in a bathing suit. He tore the photo from the magazine and shoved it into his front pants pocket. However, a nun witnessed his transgression: "[She] moved towards us and put her hand inside my pockets, grabbing this picture and my doodle at the same time and she tried to yank this picture out of my pocket still holding onto my doodle. She gave one hard pull and just about ripped my doodle off its mooring" (93). The crowd laughed uproariously, but this scene called to mind something Scott had said earlier: "Alf's a funny man, but he's a gutsy, courageous man, too." The night ended with Taylor signing books. The line to get a book signed was long because Taylor wanted to have a proper yarn with just about everyone, but no one seemed the least bit bothered by the wait. After all, it was...

Geophysical and social vulnerability to floods at municipal scale under climate change: The case of an inner-city suburb of Sydney

Assessments of vulnerability to flooding can generate useful data for planners and policy makers. To the best of the authors knowledge, no flood-vulnerability study has combined geophysical modelling of floods with socio-economic assessments of vulnerability at finer municipal or household scale. In addition, the extent to which vulnerability assessments actually feed into flood adaptation policies remains largely unknown.A new flood vulnerability index, and associated methodology, is proposed, combining high-resolution hydrological-hydraulic modelling with built-environment and socio-economic indicators at the smallest spatial scale at which socio-economic data is available. The main advantage of the methodology is its ability to incorporate place-specific data, hence yielding more refined simulations of floods and the capacity to make projections into climate futures at local scale. The index is built and applied to the inter-city suburb of Marrickville in Sydney and used to assess the effects of future climate change on vulnerability mapping in the suburb. Finally, the results of the assessment are presented to, and discussed with, the local government authority responsible for implementing flood adaptation policies for Marrickville.Locally specific modelling of floods, combined with socio-economic and built-environment mapping, has yielded a rich set of information on flood vulnerability and significant variability within a single suburb. Flood duration is projected to increase by more than 100% under some climate change scenarios, as a result of reduced drainage caused by sea level rise. Feedback from municipal council has highlighted the potential usefulness of the knowledge generated by the assessment, especially for emergency services.

Regionalism, Well-Being, and Domestic Violence in Tony Birch’s “The Red House”

It is generally accepted that the creative arts make a positive contribution to regional well-being and a diverse range of actors (government bodies, commercial entities, artists, researchers) are active in this space. Given this, it is concerning that the voices of creative artists themselves are sometimes not heard in the conversation. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s work on “resistant speech” is important here for the strategic recourse it offers to a range of subalternate populations, including regional artists, women and children, and for its solidarity with modes of being reliant on qualitative research engagements. Admittedly, examples of creative work that dramatize and interrogate the problem of well-being across the divide between urban and regional areas are comparatively rare. One standout is Tony Birch’s short story “The Red House” (2006), in which a storyline of well-being under threat from domestic violence is interwoven with a peripatetic narrative of the characters’ movements within the city of Melbourne and between the regional community of Clunes and Melbourne. As the lead piece in Birch’s collection of linked stories, Shadowboxing, “The Red House” is a significant literary exploration of how a variety of human relationships and responses to place (regional and urban) might bring about, but also help to alleviate, the circumstances of domestic violence as a threat to the well-being of women and children. Even as it posits a link between regional life and well-being, “The Red House” eschews a simple binary opposition between bucolic Clunes and the inner-city grime and unease of Fitzroy. Some of the violence and threats to well-being sourced from Melbourne re-appear in Clunes, while certain props of well-being first experienced in Clunes are subtly reincorporated back into the red house in Fitzroy. The relationship between medical well-being (health) and well-being as a more general index of happiness, comfort and security is also explored. Birch’s story is a valuable, fine-grained creative analysis of well-being (extending from happiness, comfort and security to the negative well-being that is domestic violence), which is matched to an equally fine-grained engagement with multiple modalities of place. It contests certain more reductive definitions of the regional and challenges the reader to creatively re-think how regionalism and well-being might align.

Reflections on Black African Subjectivity and Rethinking Johannesburg as a Postcolonial and Diaspora City

A postcolonial and decolonial study of Johannesburg, South Africa vis-à-vis black South Africans and black African immigrants that occupy mostly its margins in townships and inner city ghettoes, is important to reveal its absurdity and pain as a diaspora. Characterising Johannesburg as an African city, has tended to ideologically hide a history of capitalist exploitation and pain for both South African citizens and Africans immigrants who, due to unequal distribution of opportunities in the global economy, consider living in the continent's richest city close to living a ‘good life'. The idea of an ‘African Diaspora' on African soil has been denounced for its subtle suggestion that there are spaces where Africans can be aliens on African soil (Mbembe, 2015). The African Diaspora in South Africa is therefore seen as arising out of a painful history of colonisation (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2018). The reality of an African Diaspora in Johannesburg, South Africa's commercial capital, as characterised by xenophobia, on one hand; and cultural creolisation, on another, has, however, largely not been interrogated. As an experiment in decolonial political economy studies, this presentation aims to ask questions around the ways in which Johannesburg is a postcolonial city, where the racist inequitable, apartheid spatial malice survives under neoliberal globalisation, and what this means for the black African population, both African migrants and South African citizens. Using the concept of sub-imperialism (Bond, 2013), I seek to locate the migrations from the rest of Africa to South Africa in the context of global migrations that have been traced back to colonialism and European conquest of the rest of the world (Nicholson and Sheller, 2016). I argue that xenophobia, which is mostly Afrophobia (Warner and Finchilescu, 2003: 36; Nicholson and Sheller, 2016: 5), covers up the fact that similar to the apartheid era, where they were mostly restricted to the Bantustans (Biko, 2017:88), under neoliberal globalisation the fate of South African citizens is not different from that of African migrants. Johannesburg is a Diaspora for all black Africans, a place they come to for work and better opportunities. It is a fate of exploitation and violence. The presentation uses a combination of textual and ethnographic methods. A close study of the media, other literature and observation and qualitative interviews with both African migrants and South African local citizens in Hillbrow, an inner-city suburb in Johannesburg, is used to collect data. The collected data is then subjected to a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Titscher, Meyer, Wodak and Vetter, 2000) to make sense of black African subjectivity in Johannesburg in the postcolonial moment.

Built Form and Community Building in Residential Neighbourhoods: A Case Study of Physical Distance in Subiaco, Western Australia

With physical and social aspects being inseparable within urban environments, design for sustainability needs to include the link between the distance and sense of community. However, only a few studies examine residential suburbs and specifically focus on the physical and social interactions occurring within the streets and adjacent to them spaces, such as verges, sidewalks and front yards. Using a case study method, including observation and a perception-based survey in the inner-city suburb of Subiaco in Perth, Western Australia, this investigation opens up a new understanding of physical distance and social interaction. It develops a novel typology of physical distances and social closeness within a residential neighbourhood which allows better conceptualising the sense of community for achieving integrated sustainability.

Understanding the Importance of Front Yard Accessibility for Community Building: A Case Study of Subiaco, Western Australia

The residential built form, including open space, provides the physical environment for social interaction. Understanding urban open space, including semi-public and public domains, through the lens of physical accessibility and visual permeability can potentially facilitate the building of a sense of community contributing to a better quality of life. Using an inner-city suburb in Perth, Western Australia as a case study, this research explores the importance of physical accessibility patterns and visual permeability for socialising in semi-public and public domains, such as the front yard and the residential streets. It argues that maintaining a balance between public and private inter-relationship in inner city residential neighbourhoods is important for creating and maintaining a sense of community.

Blood-borne virus transmission in an urban, culturally diverse neighbourhood: results from a cross-sectional bio-behavioural survey using innovative outreach methods in a hard-to-reach population.

In August-September 2014, community health workers recruited people who inject drugs (PWID) from a local needle and syringe program. Participants were tested for hepatitis C virus (HCV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), HIV and syphilis and completed a bio-behavioural questionnaire. In total, 128 PWID participated in the study. Serological evidence of exposure to HCV and HBV was detected among 118 (93%) and 57 participants (45%) respectively. Five participants were HIV positive. Independent risk factors for needle sharing were Aboriginality (AOR=6.21, P<0.001), attending health care for mental health problems (AOR=2.79, P=0.023) and inability to access drug treatment in the previous 6 months (AOR=4.34, P=0.023). BBV prevalence in this sample was much higher than reported in other recent Australian studies. This local population is at high risk of further BBV transmission, particularly Aboriginal PWID. Individual and service-related factors associated with risk in the context of a dynamic urban drug culture and HIV outbreak suggest an urgent need for tailored harm-reduction measures.

\u201cHoney, Milk and Bile\u201d: a social history of Hillbrow, 1894\u20132016

This commentary constructs a social history of Hillbrow, an inner-city suburb in Johannesburg, South Africa, based on a review of relevant published historical, anthropological and sociological texts. We highlight the significant continuities in the social structure of the suburb, despite the radical transformations that have occurred over the last 120 years.Originally envisaged as a healthy residential area, distinct from the industrial activity of early Johannesburg, Hillbrow was a prime location for health infrastructure to serve the city. By the late 1960s, the suburb had been transformed by the rapid construction of high rise office and apartment buildings, providing temporary low cost accommodation for young people, migrants and immigrants. In the 1980s, Hillbrow defied the apartheid state policy of racial separation of residential areas, and earned the reputation of a liberated zone of tolerance and inclusion. By the 1990s, affected by inner-city decay and the collapse of services for many apartment buildings, the suburb became associated with crime, sex work, and ungovernability. More recently, the revitalisation of the Hillbrow Health Precinct has created a more optimistic narrative of the suburb as a site for research and interventions that has the potential to have a positive impact on the health of its residents.The concentration of innovative public health interventions in Hillbrow today, particularly in the high quality health services and multidisciplinary research of the Hillbrow Health Precinct, creates the possibility for renewal of this troubled inner-city suburb.

Fractional Characteristics of Heavy Metals Pb, Zn, Cu, and Cd in Sewer Sediment from Areas in Central Beijing, China

To identify the distribution of heavy metals in sewer sediments and assess their potential harmfulness to the environment and human health, the occurrence of Pb, Zn, Cu, and Cd in the sewer sediment of six functional areas and two streets in an inner-city suburb of Beijing, China, was investigated by using a sequential extraction procedure. Results show that the concentrations of Cu, Zn, Cd, and Pb vary between 50 and 175, between 80 and 180, between 0.75 and 2.5, and between 20 and 110 mg/kg, respectively, and Fe-Mn oxide fraction is significant for all metals in sampling areas. Pollution assessment shows that 1–2% of Cu at Chegongzhuang Street and 1–3% of Zn at Fuwai Street in the exchangeable fractions are of low risk. 10–25% of Cd at six functional areas indicates medium risk. 40–60% of Pb at Fuwai Street existing in the exchangeable fractions is of high to very high risk. The sum of these metals associated with exchangeable, carbonate bound, and Fe-Mn oxide fractions is quite high; however, these three fractions represent the proportion of heavy metals that can be remobilized by changes in environmental conditions.

Neighbourhood context and social cohesion in Southernwood, East London, South Africa

This paper examines the relationship between neighbourhood context and social interactions in Southernwood, an inner-city residential suburb in East London, South Africa. Based on interviews with selected residents and community leaders, the paper identifies six contextual variables which influenced neighbourhood social cohesion in the suburb. Contrary to expectations, interview data showed benign effects of racial diversity while social disorganisation accounted for much of the reported low levels of social cohesion in the neighbourhoods. The paper observes that while neighbourhood context has a bearing on the nature of neighbourhood social cohesion, multiple contexts within proximate spaces of neighbourhoods create variegated forms of intra- and inter-neighbourhood social cohesion.

Public injecting and public amenity in an inner-city suburb of Melbourne, Australia

Background: Public drug markets and injecting impose significant burden on individuals and the community. This study aimed to document public injecting and amenity in North Richmond, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne, Australia.Methods: A rapid assessment methodology was employed. Data comprised: secondary data on drug use indicators, structured observations and interviews with key stakeholders. Primary data were collected from May to October 2012. Quantitative data are summarised using descriptive statistics. Basic content analysis was performed on interview transcripts.Results: An average of 1843 needle–syringes (NS) were collected per month from syringe disposal bins and street-sweeps in the period January–December 2012. Discarded NS and other injecting paraphernalia were observed in a variety of locations. Stakeholder interviews indicated substantial concerns over the presence of NS and witnessing injecting and overdose.Discussion: Public injecting is widespread, frequent, and highly visible in North Richmond and has a substantial negative effect on public amenity. The research identified two main priorities: (1) enhance access to harm reduction services and materials; and (2) improve public amenity. Among other responses, the study findings support the introduction of a supervised injecting facility (SIF) as a viable component of a comprehensive harm reduction response to illicit drug use in this area.

Gender, Class and Sporting Opportunity: Working-Class Women and Sport in Early Twentieth-Century Australia

This paper addresses a major blind spot in the history of Australian sport by investigating women's participation in sport with relation to social class. This is a question that has been largely overlooked in the current literature on the history of women's sport, but stands out as an issue deserving of further attention. The paper considers whether the obstacles faced by Australian sportswomen have been irrespective of social class and status, or if working-class women faced a double burden of both gender and economic barriers to sporting activity? Drawing upon an in-depth examination of sport and identities in an inner-city working-class Australian suburb, the paper examines and analyses the sporting experiences of local women in the early part of the twentieth century. Based on an extensive evaluation (and critique) of the local, city and sporting press and local histories, the paper argues that not only did working-class women have far fewer opportunities to participate in sport than their working-class male counterparts, but that they also had much less access to sport than middle- and upper-class women. It concludes that issues relating to class were the most significant deterrent to sporting involvement amongst local women.

Housing Shadow Prices in an Inundation-prone Suburb

For flood-prone urban areas, the prospect of increasing population densities and more frequent extreme weather associated with climate change is alarming. Proactive adaptation can reduce potential flood risks in theory. However, there is limited empirical economics exploring this issue, without which convincing residents within exposed areas to participate in adaptation is challenging. In this paper, a hedonic model is presented of property prices for a flood-prone inner-city suburb of Brisbane, Australia. The study defines a continuous flood-risk variable based on the vertical distances of properties relative to a flood level that occurs on average once every 100 years. The results show significant property-price discounting of 5.5 per cent per metre below the defined flood level. Detailed hedonic characteristics also provided shadow price estimates of housing characteristics and distances to amenities (such as bus-stops, train-stations, parks and bikeways) and these hedonics need to be considered when holistically assessing the dynamics of suburbs for adaptation planning.

Does a primary care practice pharmacist improve the timeliness and completion of medication management reviews?

To describe the effect of integrating a pharmacist into the general practice team on the timeliness and completion of pharmacist-conducted medication reviews. A pharmacist was integrated into an Australian inner-city suburb general practice medical centre to provide medication reviews for practice patients. A retrospective analysis of medication reviews with two time periods was conducted: pre-integration of the practice pharmacist and post-integration of the practice pharmacist. In an effort to obtain a measure of external validity the data were compared to data from the Division of General Practice in which the medical centre is located. There were 70 patients referred for medication review in the pre-integration phase and 314 patients referred in the post-integration phase. The time to complete the medication review process was significantly reduced from a median of 56 days to 20 days with a practice pharmacist. Prior to having a practice pharmacist 52% of patients did not have the service billed by the general practitioner, which was reduced to 6% during the post-integration phase. The results from this trial show that the integration of a pharmacist into the general practice team was associated with an increase in the timeliness and completion rate of medication reviews.