The (re)enchantment of suburbia: Mediation of the production and consumption of Melbourne’s outer suburbs
研究了墨尔本远郊新郊区生产与消费的中介作用，通过分析114块广告牌和38个住宅开发项目，揭示标准化生产与多样化居民消费如何在象征层面调和，对城市理论和方法有贡献。
Contemporary suburban landscapes have developed at scale, in variety, at speed and with ethnic concentrations or superdiversity. These complexities call for the reworking of urban theory and method. In this paper we contribute on both fronts. We develop an interpretative framework that emphasises the mediation of the production and consumption of new suburbs. Methodologically, we analyse on-site billboards as ‘technologies of enchantment’ that provide insight into the symbolic mediation of the production and consumption of new suburbs. We visually inspected 114 billboards and 38 active residential developments in the City of Wyndham – a rapidly growing suburban municipality in Australia. Our research sheds empirical light on how increasingly standardised production and consumption by an increasingly varied profile of residents are reconciled in the symbolic (re)enchantment of suburbanism as a way of life. Our findings indicate the value of future research into: ways of life in systemically produced suburbs; the agency needed to fashion community in extensive mass produced suburbs; and new forms of consumer society-related alienation in suburbia.