Doing Justice to Disadvantage

Abstract

I tend to approach cities from and through their margins because this is the path that makes most sense to me. I grew up on the urban fringe in Elizabeth, a ‘satellite town’ north of Adelaide. Founded along the lines of the British new towns, Elizabeth was named for a queen who, to her credit, always popped out for a visit whenever she was around. By 1960, Elizabeth had a car factory, 30, 000 British migrants and a path into the future that would come to haunt it as its factories were downsized and its public housing was turned first into welfare housing and then — in the picturesque language of new prejudices — into ‘housing of last resort’ for the people no one wanted.