تغییرات پویای موج دوم در داخل شهر سیدنی

There are few processes more central to the social and cultural transformation of the inner city in the past half century than gentrification. The social and economic changes that have engendered gentrification have transformed its character and meaning; it has become principally a strategy for redevelopment of brown field sites by the state and capital interests. Based on research in the formerly derelict harbour-front Sydney suburbs of Pyrmont and Ultimo, this paper shows how economic restructuring, state intervention, developers and cultural change have combined to totally transform the area. Drawing on [Wyly, E K and Hammel, D J (2001) Gentrification, Housing Policy, and the new context of Urban redevelopment, in Critical perspectives on Urban Redevelopment, 6 pp. 211–276], we have termed this second wave gentrification.

The character of gentrification has changed dramatically in the past two decades (Butler and Robson, 2001, Hackworth, 2002 and Phillips, 2004). Several inter-related factors lie behind this transformation, including economic restructuring; urban consolidation or compact city policies; state intervention in the development of brown field sites using principally the housing demand of the new middle class; the rent gap of rust belt zones and the windfall profits of private developers who restructure and redevelop inner-city areas. This paper examines the decline and revitalization of Pyrmont Ultimo in inner city Sydney and compares this experience with recent developments in other “postindustrial” cities. We briefly review Wyly and Hammel’s (2001) argument regarding three waves of gentrification and conclude that although the gentrification process in Pyrmont Ultimo cannot be neatly captured by Wyly and Hammel’s periodization, it does have components of what they have described as second wave gentrification. We show that gentrification no longer invariably means the displacement of an industrial working class and its replacement by a wealthy, young middle class who restore traditionally working class housing. Rather, it is now a multi-class phenomenon and the accommodation offered is often in apartment blocks built by major developers that differ significantly in quality, prestige and view.

Like other global cities, Sydney is rapidly moving toward the social and economic character of a post-industrial service city (Hamnett, 2000). The gentrification process in Pyrmont Ultimo reflects a global phenomenon underpinned by these economic structural changes. Like Hackworth (2002) observations of New York it reflects a coalition of the state and private developers mobilising gentrification as a strategy for redevelopment, escalating property values and declining resistance to redevelopment. First wave gentrification typically involved the revitalisation of 19th century housing by young professionals seeking to capitalise on the depressed values of inner working class areas. In Sydney throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the invasion of these areas by the new middle class baby boomers stamped them with a new aesthetic and culture. The gradual transformation of the urbscape, the revitalisation of local centres with coffee shops, restaurants and boutique stores and the development of an active sense of place and spirit or genius loci reflected the aspirations of the new middle class. Three decades of gentrification have secured the image and desirability of this middle-class lifestyle in inner areas, creating what Ley (1996, p. 82) has called “a common structure of feeling” and largely exhausted the stock of unrenovated 19th and early 20th century housing available for redevelopment. The stock that remains no longer offers the advantage of realising significant capital gain from renovation. Unlike the example of the US, there is no apparent cleavage in the early and mature forms of developer led gentrification in Sydney. Pyrmont Ultimo is probably closest to Wyly and Hammel (2001) second rather than third wave of gentrification, in that it is an inner-city neighbourhood whose fortunes were directly tied to the restructuring of the global economy. The gentrification process was orchestrated by the local, state and federal government in collaboration with major developers as a part of an active policy of urban consolidation, the revitalisation of the inner city and the realisation of rustbelt government assets. This developer-led gentrification, in collaboration with the state, can best be labelled second wave gentrification. The analysis of the decline and revitalisation of Pyrmont Ultimo has shown that second wave gentrification differs from first wave in that it • is state and developer led; • involves new medium to high density housing on redeveloped sites; • creates a more diverse tenure and demographic mix than first wave gentrification. As our review of the literature and the case of Pyrmont Ultimo illustrates, gentrification is an economic and cultural phenomenon. Its form is contingent on historical aspects of the local urban form and the social and economic conditions prevailing at a national urban and intra urban level. This being the case, there is no hegemonic model of gentrification. What is apparent from the global literature is that gentrification – be it second or third wave – has become an active redevelopment strategy of the state in Sydney, London and New York. We have remarked in the case of Pyrmont Ultimo over the past decade that displacement, one of the principal concerns of early gentrification research, was minimal. In the next twenty years, seventy percent of new housing in Sydney will be raised on the redevelopment of existing residential areas. Such radical state intervention in encouraging urban consolidation will shift from the inner city to the low income, middle distance suburbs and in Sydney, displacement may once again become what Wyly and Hammel call a “new and troubling” issue in gentrification.