Urban Residential Transformations, IAG Hobart 2008

[i]Call for Papers[/i] The transforming socio-spatial structure of metropolitan areas is a dominant theme in urban geographical research internationally. Processes of globalisation, economic restructuring, along with governance, demographic and socio-cultural transformations continue to generate reconfigurations of urban structure, built form, social and spatial organisation. These reconfigurations demand our ongoing attention. The drivers and outcomes generated by diverse socio-political and geographical contexts present a fertile ground for urban empirical and theoretical research. Urban residential environments are a key domain in which drivers of metropolitan change intersect, reflected in the increased pace, extent and complexity of established and emergent urban residential forms: private residential estates, master-planned estates, brownfield residential redevelopments, high-rise apartment blocks, new-build gentrified developments, caravan parks and more. The impacts of this proliferation of residential forms play out at the individual, household, neighbourhood and city scale. They both reflect and drive changes in the nature of the development industry, mechanisms of urban governance, patterns of urban sociability, neighbourhood functioning, and understandings of home. This session invites papers to generate discussion on the empirics and theorisation of urban residential transformations. It aims to bring together papers examining how emerging residential forms are impacting on cities and citizens in Australia, the Asia-Pacific region and more broadly. Further, it aims to generate reflection on how to productively theorise and critique these changes. Papers for this session may address, but are not limited to, the following themes: * The empirical scope, extent and nature of transformation to urban residential form * Mechanisms and implications for urban governance * Residential form and urban sociability * Structures of residential provision * Cultural values, meanings of home and urban residential transformation * Methodological approaches for understanding the lived realities of new residential forms * Implications for theorising the urban Abstracts of approximately 250 words should be sent to the session convenors by Thursday March 20th.