Constructive Discussion and City-Making: discursive dynamics and opportunities to influence housing outcomes in Sydney, Australia.

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-4845661/v1

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Constructive Discussion and City-Making: discursive dynamics and opportunities to influence housing outcomes in Sydney, Australia.

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4845661/v1

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This paper offers a transdisciplinary and socio-cultural exploration into the way cities are planned and governed. It focuses on the concept of “constructive discussion” and uses the housing system of Sydney, Australia as a case study. Mobilising qualitative analysis of interview data with people that influence, or represent, key sectors of the public in relation to housing, the paper has two aims. First, it presents an analysis of how constructive discussion appears to relate to housing issues in Sydney. Doing so shows how constructive discussion can be an avenue for new ways to consider and conceptualise what influences the ‘housing system’. In our case, a focus on constructive discussion enabled ideation of social interventions and democratic innovations that complement technical and policy responses. We document both the diagnosis, and potential responses, in the paper. Most broadly, the paper shows that a focus on constructive discussion can offer new insights for researchers and practitioners seeking to achieve transformative system change in urban and democratic contexts. Our research emerged from a transdisciplinary collaboration between university academics and civil society actors in Sydney, Australia and we propose the ongoing integration of systems science, socio-cultural perspectives and transformative agendas can benefit from such endeavours.

constructive discussion

social innovation

sustainability transformations

urban transitions

transdisciplinarity

“Constructive Discussion” is a boundary concept that can invite nuanced discussion and new perspectives on social issues in Australian democracy.
Constructive Discussion helped orient researchers and interview participants in ways that helpfully identified dynamics occurring in a complex system and potential opportunities for transformative change.
Our diagnosis, based on qualitative and co-produced research, identified a series of issues and potential interventions that could improve systemic resilience in Australia’s housing system and improve the level of Construction Discussion in decision-making about urban futures.
Further research is required to test and validate potential interventions and Constructive Discussion could benefit from further conceptual development and co-produced exploration and experiments.

A lack of Constructive Discussion is expressed in structural, institutional and communicative issues. These issues are influencing the quality of social outcomes produced by Australia’s housing system.
A long list of potential interventions are available to help build Constructive Discussion and improve how housing is being discussed and governed in Sydney and in Australia.
Most importantly, Australia’s approach to housing lacks a clear narrative about its overarching goals –we need to define the purpose of the housing system and there are systemic, institutional, cultural, and communicative interventions that might help to bring this about.

Urbanisation, writ large, is now widely recognised as a megatrend that sits in the nexus of social and ecological ambitions for just and sustainable futures (UN-Habitat, 2022). With urban expansion projected to account for almost all of the world’s future population growth to 2050 (UNDESA 2019, p.11), the trend toward living in cities carries cultural and material dimensions. Cities are locally meaningful places that occur on the scale of everyday life. As such, they have long presented a starting point for deeper examination of the politics and values of sustainability and social change that are stirred by human relationships to cultural concepts of space, nature, and landscape (Cresswell, 2004; Tuan, 1977). Cities are also a materially significant forum for the physical dimensions of sustainability; through their development and the kinds of lifestyles they support, cities play a major role in shaping our socio-cultural values and humanity’s impact on the Earth.

Goal 11 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aims to “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. This broad conceptualisation of sustainable development offers the potential for a breadth of topics that span physical impacts such as landscape modification, resource use, and climate change (Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen et al., 2015), as well as social factors such as equity and human development (Crane et al., 2021; Khmara & Kronenberg, 2023; Seto et al., 2012). Resilience theory emphasises the importance of factors such as diversity, local autonomy, feedbacks, learning and social cohesion (Suárez et al., 2020).

Theories of change with relevance to urban sustainability can be found across a range of disciplines and fields. Some of these focus on the system level, including research framed around social-ecological systems (Balvanera et al., 2017), sustainability transitions (Loorbach et al., 2020) and transformation pathways (Ely, 2021). Other approaches focus on personal changes in values and individual capabilities (Horcea-Milcu et al, 2019; Waddell et al., 2015; Berzonsky & Moser, 2017; Kagan, 2011). Attempts to bring these levels together include the Multi-Level Perspective (Rip & Kemp, 1998; Geels 2005) and O’Brien and Syngna’s (2013) Three Spheres of Transformation (i.e., Personal, Political, and Practical). Across these bodies of literature, cities have proven to be fruitful research sites due to their density of human activities and interactions across multiple scales (Crane et al., 2021; Frantzeskaki et al., 2017; Khmara & Kronenberg, 2023; Gaziulusoy and Ryan, 2017).

In this article, we take up the call from Asadzadeh et al. (2023) to identify ways to “catalyse transformative resilience in urban governance and planning systems”, using a case study of housing in Sydney, Australia. Housing has become an increasing topical issue of social and political debate in Australia, with the past two decades seeing substantial rises in housing costs and homelessness, with commensurate declines in housing affordability, home ownership rates amongst younger Australians, and the provision of social housing by governments (Morris 2023; Kohler 2023). While these dynamics are reflective of trends and implications in many other corners of the world (Wetzstein, 2021; Lima, 2023), Sydney has emerged as one of the world’s least affordable cities for housing and the epicentre of the housing debate in Australia (Gurran et al., 2022).

Housing has many meanings. In SDG Goal 11, housing provides shelter and plays an essential role in making cities “safe”. Furthermore, the affordability of housing for different sectors of society is critical to making a city “inclusive”. In capitalist economies, homes are also assets (Morris, 2023). In Australia, as in many other developed countries, home ownership has become an increasingly salient indicator of socio-economic advantage, with rising inequality leading to claims of new class divisions based on home ownership in a nation that has long prided itself on egalitarian ideals (Adkins et al., 2019; Power & Mee, 2020). Intersections between housing inequality and demographic factors such as gender, race, and age also have the potential to impact on social cohesion (O’Donnell, 2023).

Causal factors cited for Sydney’s housing issues include both demand factors such as high immigration levels and tax incentives that promote property investment, and supply factors such as government’s stepping back from the direct provision of housing and restrictive zoning rules that prevent sufficient new homes being built (Gurran et al., 2022; Kohler, 2023). Other researchers have highlighted the roles played by shifting values, worldviews and beliefs about housing, such as the impact that neoliberalism has had in changing perceptions of housing from a form of shelter that should be broadly accessible as a public good to a financial asset and vehicle for wealth creation that should be allocated based on an individual’s capacity to invest (Morris 2023; Wetzstein, 2021). Embroiled in these debates are questions about the role of the state, the market, and the citizen in determining how housing is best governed, by whom, and toward what ends.

1.2 Trends in urban governance and planning studies

A common dichotomy in urban planning is between rational planning, which emphasises logic and technical expertise (Faludi, 2013), and democratic or communicative planning, which emphasises the role of public participation, subjective values, and social norms (Forester, 1982; Healey, 1992). The approach to urban planning in Sydney features elements of both approaches. The 30-plus local councils in Greater Sydney have primary responsibility for assessing small-to-medium scale residential developments and employ rational approaches through land use zoning and place-making activities. The New South Wales (NSW) state government, which provides overarching urban governance across Greater Sydney, practises rational planning through its special approvals processes for “State Significant Development” and its State Environmental Planning Policies (SEPPs), notably used in 2023 to override local council zoning rules to permit higher density development around train stations (NSW Government, 2023). The State Government also has responsibility for the provision of social housing and policies that incentivise the private sector to provide “affordable” housing. Both levels of government also provide avenues for public participation through consultation processes relating to new policies and development proposals but have faced criticism for processes seen as “undemocratic” or “technocratic” (Stone, 2014).

Attempts to move beyond the rational/democratic planning dichotomy include scholarly discussions by Innes and Booher (2010) and de Roo (2016) on collaborative planning and complexity, Healey (2020) on the transformative potential of interactive governance, Getimis (2012) on multi-scalar planning cultures, and Janin Rivolin (2012) on planning systems as institutional technologies. Asadzadeh et al. (2023) extend these perspectives to conceptualise how cities are planned and governed in the context of contemporary pressures like climate change and call for contextual case studies to identify practical pathways and potential interventions that enable transformative resilience.

Figure 1 presents a simplified summary of Janin Rivolin’s (2012) description of planning as an institutional technology, which communicates this perspective. This identifies temporal and cyclical patterns in how planning processes develop and evolve over time (Fig. 1a) through a cyclical process wherein policy aims and priorities (via discourses) are clarified from prior social experiences. Political achievements institutionalise these priorities into government systems via governance structures and specific tools and processes. These policy tools, rules, and settings influence planning practices, creating outcomes across diverse land use contexts and generating new social experiences in land use that (ideally) feed into future cycles of revision and reform. Figure 1b shows the complex feedback loops within these systems and their exposure to external forces.

Work such as that of Janin Rivolin (2012) and Asadzadeh et al. (2023) reflects an exploration of planning regimes in relation to broader socio-cultural, ecological and material systems in society. In doing so, planning studies intersect with a perspective on governance that seeks to explore the role of ‘discourses’, or storylines, which are pursued and mobilised in policy and carry different politics and agendas (Hajer, 1996; Jasanoff, 2004; Leipold et al., 2019). These theoretical perspectives would suggest, for example, that the way we govern and plan for housing outcomes in Sydney is influenced not just by the weight of history and the technical processes in development and land use, but by the prevailing discourses, worldviews and values around the role of government, and what we envision for the city’s future - what Jasanoff and Simmet (2021) term “sociotechnical imaginaries”. Plans for housing, then, draw in verticals of local experiences through to democratic design, and enable consideration of how a diverse group of actors, ideas, and agendas play out in what transpires.

1.3 A case study in Constructive Discussion in Sydney’s housing system

The case study reported here is a response to calls from Asadzadeh et al. (2023), Loorbach et al. (2020), and others that identify a need for transdisciplinary and applied research to understand complex urban systems and to design practical interventions to support sustainability transitions. Our contribution explores social conditions that influence housing, rather than technical factors in the formal planning system. In doing so, our scope includes a broad and complex set of cultural, institutional, communicative, and other factors that influence outcomes in how Australian cities, specifically Sydney, are planned and governed. This interest is aligned with the democratic and communicative side of the traditional urban planning dichotomy (Healey, 1992). Our primary focus is the various ways in which diverse actors come together to discuss and construct urban futures. In particular, we seek to understand how the concept of Constructive Discussion (CD) might provide insights into the prevailing discourses, governance structures, planning tools, and practice innovation influencing housing outcomes in Sydney, and identify areas for change that can support transformation resilience in this system (Asadzadeh et al., 2023).

CD is a concept that is new to this academic discussion. We use it to describe how people can come together to discuss, debate and make decisions about the future of their cities. Our conceptualisation of CD is heavily influenced by the work of [name of organisation redacted for peer review], an Australian think-and-do tank who have partnered with researchers from a variety of academic disciplines and backgrounds to co-author this article. Our working definition of CD, developed through [redacted]’s previous research is:

communication that is of useful and beneficial purpose, creating an environment where decision-making better reflects the shared view of the public interest with respect to the common good

[redacted reference 1]

CD emerged as a concept through a [redacted] project that involved over 50 one-on-one interviews with established and emerging leaders in Australia on various challenges facing Australian society, including issues such as wealth inequality, climate change, escalating pressures in the health system, and urban development [redacted reference 1]. This research identified a perceived lack of CD as a key barrier to addressing these issues, amplified by ongoing trends of distrust towards experts and politicians, limited avenues for public participation in decision-making, and the non-representativeness of Australians in conventional leadership roles. Additional research by [redacted reference 2] into the national referendum on whether to adapt Australia’s constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and establish a “Voice to Parliament” identified factors such as a lack of spaces for exchange, misinformation, acts of performative polarisation, and feelings of emotional risk as barriers to CD [redacted reference 3].

CD is a broad concept that spans multiple scales and dimensions and might be considered as something akin to functional systems of social deliberation. It is highly relevant to political theories of how policy is generated in ways that are both representative in their process and normative in their result (Mouffe, 1999). For this to be successful requires a mix of virtues, norms, systems, and institutions wherein people and groups who promote different discourses about the future can converse (Dryzek, 2013). As an interior capacity, it is linked to what Kagan (2011) described as need to develop “cultures of complexity” to create collective cultural competencies for governing sustainability.

CD involves a pragmatic recognition that many complex decisions are not possible through consensus and are not devoid of argument or conflict. As such, it connects decision-making to forms of discussion that accept diverse viewpoints and disagreement as useful and important for decisions to be appropriate and normative. The ‘constructive’ aspect of CD notes that these exchanges must lead somewhere purposeful or productive - CD is not discussion for discussion’s sake, but instead points to discussions that are functional, helping society to move forward and make decisions in the interests of the long-term common good.

Our ambition is to better understand the dynamics, barriers and opportunities that might be revealed through the use of CD as a framing concept for Sydney’s housing system. Accordingly, our case study involves the following research questions:

To what extent can CD be used to explain the dynamics of governance and decision-making on the topic of housing in Sydney?
How might we design & test interventions in Sydney that can (i) provide opportunities for CD and (ii) make productive contributions to resolving Sydney’s housing crises?

2.1 Research Design & Process

This project was an initial exercise to scope and understand if and how the topic of housing may or may not be influenced by CD (or a lack thereof) in Australian society. We designed the research using a small-scale, qualitative approach that supported rigorous and reflexive engagement with the detailed perspectives of different stakeholders.

Our data derives from interviews with individuals who either formally or qualitatively represent different segments of society (Table 1, Fig. 2) and was co-designed by the research team to test and build upon precedent knowledge.

Table 1

Sectors represented by interview participants and coding used to attribute quotations. *Many interviewees had experience with multiple categories, the main roles of interviewees are described in this table (n = 16). ^Three interviews had current or recent experience as local Councillors, whilst also having other representative roles.
Sector Representation	Code	Description of interviewees*
Business	[B]	● Senior leader at national representative body for property developers. ● Leader at start-up working with older-age homeowners. ● Manager at non-profit developer with social mandate.
Public Servants	[PS]	● Senior leadership in public service related to housing portfolio.
Media	[M]	● Former editor at national media outlet.
Topical Experts	[TE]	● Academic expert in urban planning and policy. ● Practising architect and planner.
Politicians	[P]	● Current/former state politicians (members of each major political party with responsibility for housing portfolio). ● Current or former local government councillors.^
Community Organisations	[CO]	● Founding member of grass-roots organisation supporting development (a “yes in my backyard” or YIMBY viewpoint) ● Founding member of grass-roots organisation opposing development (a “not in my backyard” or NIMBY viewpoint). ● Head of national organisation for homelessness and access to housing. ● Public affairs representative for community and social housing providers. ● Senior leader at advocacy body for tenants and renters.

The selection and recruitment of participants was based on our goal to sample a variety of viewpoints that appear to be shaping decision-making about the future of housing in Sydney. All interviewees participated voluntarily, and the research project was undertaken in accordance with the research ethics approval granted by the University of Technology Sydney (HREC approval: ETH23-8677). The sample size reflects the qualitative focus of our research and our ambitions to obtain rich insights from different viewpoints, rather than seek quantitative representation (Braun & Clarke, 2022; Malterud et al., 2016; Moser & Korstjens, 2018).

To support open dialogue and avoid the potential for impacts on individuals who hold public roles and positions, interview participants are individually de-identified, with descriptions instead focusing on the sectors that they represent (Table 1). The results section will thus attribute quotes according to the sector that the speaker represents.

Interviews were semi-structured and were undertaken in person or via video conference, lasting approximately one hour. They included:

i. the use of a heuristic (Fig. 2) to facilitate discussions about housing and the dynamics of decision-making about Australia’s future between different actors within society,

ii. an exploration of how each respondent related housing to CD and other social issues, and

iii. a series of prompts and follow-up questions, with space for open dialogue.

Two team members led the interviews, with additional team members participating where possible. Each interview used the same templates and process. Interview transcripts were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). A primary coding cycle used descriptive codes (Saldaña, 2021) to understand references to the dynamics influencing housing in the current system and descriptions of CD, such as where participants identified it as a barrier or enabler for change. Secondary coding cycles refined topical discussions that were raised, and supported the interpretation of themes and patterns of meaning that emerged from the process of data analysis (Saldaña, 2021).

Reflexive thematic analysis is a ‘situated interpretive process’ (Braun & Clarke, 2021, p.334) and draws on researcher subjectivity as a resource. Working collaboratively in a transdisciplinary context, thematic analysis was supported by a team workshop which supported our reflection on the perspective and viewpoints of interview participants and involved the use of visual mapping and the exploration of potential intervention points for change.

Qualitative research software nVivo (v12) was used to facilitate the process of collaborative coding, and Figma (v116.18.6) was used to assist sense-making in later stages of thematic analysis, synthesis, and the writing process.

2.2 Analytical framework

Following the reflexive thematic analysis of interview transcripts, the analytical framework of Janin Rivolin (2012), presented in Fig. 1, was used to organise and represent key themes relating to discourses, structures, tools, practices and the various factors influencing them. The potential intervention strategies identified by interviewees were also analysed using the modified version of Janin Rivolin’s framework developed by Asadzadeh et al. (2023), which highlights focal points for action in the areas of (i) structural reorganisation, (ii) tool innovation, (iii) practice expansion, and (iv) discursive reorientation (Fig. 3).

Similar to Asadzadeh et al (2023), we saw renewed potential to revitalise Janin Rivolin’s (2012) conceptualisations. We use them in a more generalised way than they were original conceived (for diagnostic and comparative studies of national planning systems). Contemporary challenges for cities mean planning systems rub up against the need for transformative change. The conceptual frameworks above surface connections between topics of discourse, structures, tools, and practice for examination, helping to bridge the rather abstract world of government and policy to the place-based expressions and social experience of planning. We identified a potential to use Janin Rivolin’s (2012) conceptual framework, and their extension by Asadzadeh et al. (2023), to serve as broad conceptual aids, supporting an analysis of the way that constructive discussion in Australia relates to the issue of housing and the issues being expressed in Sydney, Australia.

From a broad variety of heuristics available to describe systems and their dynamics, two reasons made these frameworks appear promising in their potential to help explore how CD might be present and influence how housing is being managed in Sydney, Australia. First, the heuristics afford a consideration of experiences in locally specific contexts alongside broader socio-cultural dynamics that can transcend spatial boundaries. Given our focus on the theme of CD in relation to housing issues, this creates an opportunity to consider how various scales and expressions of CD (e.g., via national discourse, interpersonal relations, personal virtues, or the structural access to forums and institutions) might be present in the system. Second, as outlined in the introduction, these specific frameworks complement the epistemological, conceptual, and thematic priorities shared by a range of disciplines that were present in our transdisciplinary team and are implicated by our research questions.

The first part of our findings will outline how we found a lack of CD to be influencing the way in which housing is currently managed and governed. This section outlines the main themes that were identified in our analysis of interview data and then situates these themes against Janin-Rivolin’s (2012) conceptual framework to identify systemic insights about how CD relates to housing. A second part of the findings will present a discussion about potential opportunities to improve the current state. It starts by examining ideas raised by the participants, and contextualises them amid trends and insights in academic literature. Together, the section presents a diagnosis of issues related to Sydney’s housing system that were identified by exploring the role (and absence) of CD and presents a set of potential innovations in response. We found that these innovations can be organised as loosely acting in the interrelated spaces that Asadzadeh et al. (2023) described as discursive reorientations, structural reorganisation, tool innovation, and practice expansion.

3.1 Typifying the current state of the system

Overall, our research identified that ‘Constructive Discussion’, as defined by [redacted organisation name], served as a valuable boundary concept (Star & Griesemer, 1989) that generated data-rich discussions about discursive and communicative dynamics influencing housing outcomes in Sydney.

Participants were unanimous in describing the current system as inadequate. Through reflexive analysis of the interview data, five themes were identified to summarise and identify insights into how and why this appears to be the case, prompting important questions and implications for Australia’s governance of housing, which includes the planning system amongst other social functions and institutions.

The narrative below summarises the five themes that were identified during the analysis, drawing on quotations from the interviews. The discussion will then relate how the themes and findings about CD appear to interact with theoretical concepts about broad socio-cultural pressures on planning and managing cities as raised by Janin-Rivolin (2012).

3.1.1 Themes identified in the interviews

Purpose: Australia lacks a clear vision and social contract about housing.

Participants suggested that public and policy discussions about housing issues in Sydney, NSW and Australia have lacked clarity and directionality as to the social aspiration being pursued. This has created a lack of clarity about the role of government and efficacy in the way housing is experienced and managed in Australia. One participant summarised how they saw housing (not) being planned via the following diagnosis:

(Excerpt 1: typifying the current system)

“planning is conceived as development. And so we have a Planning Act, which basically has no policies about public space of a city. It doesn't mention strategic planning in the form of integration with transport, public buildings, public works. It is really the control of private land, blinkered to the exclusion of either a longer-term view or a broader public benefit view. And so I think we don't, in fact, have a “planning” system, because of that major failing.” [TE, P].

This excerpt raises a complex set of factors that are mirrored and reiterated in various comments and frustrations in the sections outlined below.

The lack of purposeful ambition was largely presented as a product of history. Rather than an intentional design of housing governance and planning systems, participants indicated that the current housing crisis stems, in a large part, from a lack of CD about how Australians characterise sustainable and equitable urban futures.

(Excerpt 2: what’s the role of government?)

“ it's difficult to understand the role that government should play in wealth, it gets down to social policy theory, right? What actually is the role of a government? And should we be influencing individual wealth in our system? …like 100 years from now, what will be the divide in our communities?” [PS]

Moreover, the issues facing housing were equated to other broad, often intransigent, social challenges. Here, the compartmentalised structure of government was suggested to limit its ability to manage to deal with big social issues:

(Excerpt 3: A need to update the social contracts and state mission for the housing system)

it goes right to the heart of our social contract… What do we think of is a common entitlement for every Australian citizen? What should the social contract of being an Australian get you access to? [P]

We need to go back to like the theory around what is government, really? In essence. And what role do they play? Because the world has shifted. And I don't know that politics have shifted, in the way they run themselves. [PS]

Discourse: a policy discourse that treats housing as an asset class has emerged to fill the void.

In the absence of normative and publicly debated social purpose, participants described housing as being governed in ways that functionally treat and prioritise homes as tools for private wealth creation. This approach justifies a minimal role of the government in providing social outcomes, such as safe housing, homes, or shelter.

The expression of this discourse was strongly expressed in discussions about the relationship between housing, personal wealth, and the role of the state. This was addressed in numerous narratives. For example:

(Excerpt 4: housing as an asset class and not the job of government)

“[In] our planning scheme, a lot of the so-called ‘values’ of it really are more and more real estate values, rather than city making values “ [TE, P].

[housing] is an important topic, but still a bit of “a nice to have”, and not necessarily essential in the way government sees itself…It doesn't see its role as giving money to build the housing in the same way that it did in the post war era. [PS]

That's the number one way that housing is portrayed in this state–it's all about wealth. You've either got it or you haven't; you know, it's all about haves and have nots. We need to put that to one side and start talking about the specific issues of housing, not housing as equals wealth, which is where we're totally at the moment. [M]

In response to these directions, concerns with inequity and social justice were present throughout the discussions – as indicated in various quotes above, and often addressed directly:

(Excerpt 5: home ownership is a vehicle for inequality)

there's this whole discussion around wealth, and the generation of wealth through a housing system….without realizing it, we've got a greater divide in wealth that's being generated in Australian society. [PS]

Issues of structures, tools, and institutional norms: poor housing outcomes are enabled by a lack of constructive discussion in the design and processes of the planning system.

Participants noted a somewhat contradictory dynamic that sees the formal planning system, and the government’s role in it, as a key influence on how Australians experience a broader social discourse that sees housing as an asset. The system was described as resistant to innovation and change due to an inherited set of burdensome bureaucratic processes. At the same time, as outlined in excerpt 1, there were also issues that arose because planning was conceived as development.

This theme draws together participant descriptions of issues in the current planning system that distributes decision-making about development to empower local government control; while this can enable (or restrict) new developments, it also works against integrated planning and social aspects of housing that need to be managed at large scales. It was also described as creating a context for local confrontation on topics that might better be discussed at state or national levels (such as whether housing is a right, and who ought to be able to live in different parts of the country). Meanwhile, in relation to state governments (where the delivery of housing as part of Australia’s social safety net currently sits), participants pointed to similar issues to those in planning: a loss of clarity and accountability on delivering social outcomes, whilst maintaining an inherited and burdensome bureaucracy.

The relevance of CD in the dynamics of how housing is governed was thus described as a complex bundle of technical discussions about planning (excerpt 6), references to an imbalance of power between those who have a voice in decision-making and those who do not (excerpts 7 and 8), and descriptions of a public debate about housing that is rarely productive and instead relies on interest groups performing adversarial, fear-driven approaches to dialogue (excerpts 9 and10).

(Excerpt 6: inherited complexity)

when we go back and think about affordable housing as a topic, the way we define it currently is very much embedded into the state and environmental planning policies.…[it] talks about proportions of affordable housing that can be delivered and how you regulate it based on income brackets and things like that. And that's not the language every day person uses. [P]

it's more an issue in the time it takes to get to that decision maker, in terms of the background work and the technical studies that need to be done. [PS]

(Excerpt 7: indeliberate and unfair representation)

the system... is unfairly geared towards the already privileged and away from the most vulnerable. I think, just in terms of the system, the planning system, and providing a platform for the community to be heard and involved, it is really backwards, in that sense. It's not doing a good job. [TE]

(Excerpt 8: political obfuscation and confusion)

There's a lot of armchair experts, there's a lot of masked vested interest, there's a lot of knowing mistruths or ignorant mistruths from people who should know better. And I think there's also a lot of frustration and also bewilderment about how we got here.

… Are we talking about homes? Are we talking about housing as an asset class? Are we talking about housing affordability or are we talking about affordable rental accommodation? [P]

(Excerpt 9: adversarial norms in communication)

The tenants' groups and the consumer groups will sit and talk, and the industry will sit and talk... There's not the back and forth…we're pre-empting what we think the [other] is going to say [CO]

(Excerpt 10: a tendency for reactive discussions)

we often get forced into (being) reactive because you're trying to engage on, "Hey, should we do this?" And then suddenly, "Poof, look at this coming left field." [CO]

In addition to these broad concerns, specific social and systemic barriers were identified that were seen to limit how CD was present in the current system and its operation. First, participants described the loss of spaces for long format, complex, and public deliberation and debates about different issues and pathways for Australian society. These were raised as general structural factors for society (discussed below) as well as in relation to a specific need for architects, planners, public servants, and the media to maintain open processes of peer accountability (discussed in the final theme).

Broader challenges in Australia’s representative democracy resist change and reform.

Broad, overarching conditions that create structural barriers for CD in Australia’s political system were also raised in the interviews. First, it was suggested that the full spectrum of people with interests in housing are not adequately represented in forums used for decision-making. This broad point was nuanced by many participants noting that new organisations may have started to emerge to fill this need and some peak-body representatives suggesting they have begun getting more traction with the government.

(Excerpt 11: housing isn’t just for homeowners)

we need to change the way we engage with people about housing … it's not just homeowners that we're talking about... the voice of the renter needs a lot more work [PS]

(Excerpt 12: systemic loss of forums)

We don't really have the forums at the moment because where do they happen? So where do young people or renters or migrant groups, who's got the time? Where's the community spatially, where do you meet and how can you get together either notionally or physically? [P]

(Excerpt 13: emergence of new groups)

I think [Sydney YIMBY] is way to engage younger people in a way that they've never been engaged before. And it's just timing well with the fact that the housing crisis is happening, which is really affecting them. They want to be involved and [Sydney YIMBY] is giving them a vehicle, and that's never happened before. [CO]

Second, the interviews often included critiques of specific features in Australian democratic processes, such as the allocation of power between national, state, and local levels of government. Some of these reflections related to a conceptual mismatch between universal goals and localised management (excerpt 14) while other critiques focused on the short terms of political cycles (excerpt 15). Both have the effect of making it a practically and politically difficult task to act on and deliver big picture agendas:

(Excerpt 14: there is friction when pursuing universal social goals via localised decisions)

to create systemic change, which is what needs to happen, and is slowly starting to happen with the housing sector, you have to accept that you can't–you can't just operate at a micro level to make substantial change [B]

when the objective is delivering social affordable housing … that's a big goal that local politics will play in, and it will stop us reaching these high-level goals. … do we just bypass the council-because they're delaying it? Yes, they have local issues and concerns, but they're not helping us on this big higher-level objective. [PS]

(Excerpt 15: short-term government cycles)

you've probably got 18 months to get some policy frameworks and funding decisions made. And then you're either at the beginning of the government cycle or the election cycle [TE]

A more specific but related critique was levelled at politicians, with some participants alleging a lack of appetite, virtues, and/or competencies to deliver socially normative outcomes on housing.

(Excerpt 16: politicians and their incentives)

People think that a minister's focus is the public, but actually the minister’s focus is their own colleagues so they can keep being the minister. [P]

you actually need multiple portfolios to work together to fix a big challenge…[there is a] difficulty of being able to engage at the political level, to get politicians to understand that [PS]

Social experiences and narratives: Specific actors tend to reproduce the status quo.

Finally, many participants pointed to the power of the media in the national narrative about housing, and its influence on current policy priorities. Overwhelmingly, the media was seen to have a perverse and problematic impact on public perspectives about housing and behaviours in the market, and this put pressure on policy and governance decisions to maintain its focus on treating housing as an asset class.

(Excerpt 17: Media narratives fuel the market, creating the news and issues that they report on)

Media in my opinion, in Australia, should be regulated higher… irresponsible journalism can create peaks and troughs that don't help anyone. [B]

the channels don't even have to go out and do any filming… it's packaged with the talking head, all they have to do is show them a [real estate company’s] logo...I mean, that's a fine line, you know, between news and advertorials.… that's not where we should be. [M]

(Excerpt 18: Housing is in the media- but the discussion isn’t driving change)

now housing is in the news every day, it's a national topic, which is a great thing that everyone is talking about it but I think we need more people to understand that in order to change it properly, you need the system to work effectively. [PS]

(Excerpt 19: Media lacks specialist voices and nuanced efforts)

you know, when was the last time you had a planner or an engineer, or even an academic–and certainly [not] an architect– speaking up in the public domain…about their expertise? [TE]

3.1.2 Connecting case study themes to conceptual frameworks in the literature

The five themes identified from case study participants' descriptions of Sydney’s housing system interconnect strongly with the conceptual framework of Janin Rivolin (2012), presented in the introduction section of this paper (Fig. 1). According to this framework, the way we plan and govern housing is likely to be influenced by conditions within both the government system and the land use system, with change influenced by evolutionary and non-linear dynamics. Each stage of the cycle faces a potential for prior systems to be re-produced, rather than a deeply different new system being developed. Figure 4 adapts this framework by mapping where CD plays a role and identifying relationships between the five themes that emerged from participant responses in our case study.

Two of the case study themes relate to the four central elements from Janin Rivolin’s framework (“Discourses” and “Structures, Tools, and Practices”). The other three case study themes – “Purpose”, “Broader Challenges” and “Experiences and Narratives” – identify influencing factors that shape the discourses, structures and institutional norms within Sydney’s housing system. The lack of a clear purpose for Sydney’s housing system (Theme 1) has allowed a problematic policy discourse around housing as private wealth to emerge (Theme 2). Institutional conditions in the planning system allow this discourse to define the policy agenda whilst also resisting opportunities for reform and change (Theme 3). Similarly, broader structural factors in Australian democracy (Theme 4) and a breakdown in deliberative exchange (Theme 5) cause the system to reproduce its lack of purpose (Theme 1). In this way, the analysis suggests that CD, and a lack of it, is an important feature of how housing is being governed and delivered. In addition to showing how Greater Sydney’s housing system might be interpreted through the lens of CD, it shows a series of points through which a lack of CD resists improved outcomes on the issue of housing.

An obvious priority raised by this diagnosis is to clarify the purpose of the housing system. While housing-as-private-wealth appears to have emerged as the dominant policy discourse according to case study participants, they did not describe it as a discourse that had been normatively debated and selected by society. Similarly, the system they described invites questions about why social experiences are not being translated into productive debates and changes in policy discourse. Like other democracies, various formal and informal institutions and processes might be expected to facilitate this process. One might ask why institutions seem not to be performing this role, and what action could be taken to improve them? As well as generating a diagnosis of how CD relates to housing, participants also shared insights that shed light on how a focus on improving CD might lead to transformative interventions and improvements for society. These are discussed in the following section.

3.2 Potential interventions and their transformative potential

While our discussions with participants painted a complex picture of the current system, it also generated a series of suggestions and aspirations for how things might be improved.

Table 2

outlines a summary of 26 different ideas that were raised in the interviews, organised thematically according to their points of focus or approaches to change.
Approach to change	Potential interventions described by participants
Clarify big picture issues and visions about the future	● Clarify what the public sees as the ‘common entitlement’ that every Australian citizen should be afforded (on housing and other issues).
Use specific narrative interventions and strategies	● Reframe ‘aging’ as part of the housing solution and societal challenge. ● Clarify fears and realities about density and development. ● Support and maintain political pressure that represents younger generations and non-homeowners.
Create forums for deliberative exchange, reflexivity, and learning.	● Revitalise (professional-based) forums for debate. ● Build a culture of urban literacy and cross-sector dialogue to support planning for the long term good. ● Improve general education about urban planning and the planning system. ● Hold urban planning focused events and public forums (e.g., the Festival of Urbanism).
Enhance state-government power in decision-making	● Let decision-making (or governance) on hotly contested issues in state government be done by committees, not the government. ● Encourage state government representatives to use infrastructure grants for housing/development in their electorate.
Demonstrate normative dynamics and futures through specific sites and test-cases	● Focus on large-scale state-led and state-funded redevelopments to demonstrate the benefits of more equitable and dense urban futures that use integrated and holistic planning.
Use specific and targeted actions to enhance representative politics & decision-making	Broad Structural interventions: ● Support politicians to use deliberative democracy methods to ensure they gather representative viewpoints from the community. ● Create and use new forums (Citizen Juries, New Democracy Movement) to influence who holds power in decision making. ● Reform taxation and policy settings that currently enable housing to be used for wealth creation. ● Address Australia’s short term political cycles. Specific innovations in the planning system: ● Record demographic data in local council/community consultations ● Support residents to make use of existing opportunities to influence decisions and urban planning via local government. ● Deliberately design tools/process to improve representation in planning process (empowering future residents and renters). ● Use representative panels to take things out/reduce complexity in the current planning system. ● Address (and de-speculate) value-capture from rezoning. ● Use ‘design charettes’ to allow inclusion and co-design of large-scale, pre-approved (pattern book) approaches to planning, zoning, and social housing.
Train individuals	● Provide training to media and urban planning experts to improve the depth of public discussion. ● Train politicians on how to shift into ministerial roles, and train public sector employees on conflict management, how to deal with stakeholders and how to think about efficiency in the system.
Focus on the media to shift its influence on the housing market	● Ensure the media (continues) to get a diversity of viewpoints to contribute to the public discourse. ● Address perverse incentives and performances that sees media outlets use news reporting to market and drive a culture of speculation in real estate. ● Promote an uptick in ‘solutions-based journalism’ in Australia.

Table 2. Potential interventions described by participants organised by organised themes among their points of focus or approaches to change.

Single interviews with each participant meant that their ideas were generated prior to us presenting our thematic and systemic analysis to typify the current system. Despite this, the interventions raised by participants intuitively addressed a range of points that neatly respond to various issues that have been described. On a surface level, Fig. 5 reflects how it was relatively easy to map groups of interventions, summarised the first column of Table 2, against the four mechanisms identified by Asadzadeh et al. (2023) as presenting different focal points for transformative interventions in planning systems. On closer examination however, the specific details of each intervention also demonstrated a nuanced attention to potential feedback loops (represented by dotted lines). Here, well-considered initiatives were described that sought to create productive input and enabling influences on other parts of both the planning system, as well as broader institutions and structures that influence how housing is governed in Australia.

To finalise our findings and discussion, opportunities for discursive reorientation, structural reorganisation, tool innovation, and practice expansion are outlined in greater detail below. The discussion draws forth reflections and insights about the ideas raised by participants complemented by insights from the team, situating the research findings in contemporary discussions about CD, housing, and city-making in academic literature.

Discursive reorientation

Participants in the case study found the dominant housing-as-private-wealth discourse in Sydney to be problematic and in need of reorientation to recognise alternative discourses around housing as shelter or housing as a right. Gaining social agreement and clarity about the goals of the system was seen as central to any such reorientation, which could provide an important focus area for CD initiatives. Narrative interventions were also suggested, such as elevating the voices of young people and renters, experimenting with alternative narratives around density and development, and reframing “aging” as part of the housing solution (e.g., freeing up housing through downsizing).

Our system analysis and our engagement with literature on social innovation and systems change suggest that focusing on underlying beliefs and values around housing could be an effective intervention point for CD. Clarifying the goals of a system reflects core insights from complex systems science. For example, Meadows (2001) has identified worldviews and values are the most important influence on what a system impacts and achieves. Contextually, it reflects Mariana Mazzucato’s (2013; 2020) influential calls for governments around the world, especially in developed democracies, to reassert their primacy in economic and social change toward bold and ambitious social outcomes.

Most discursive interventions suggested by case study participants aligned with what Simoens et al. (2022) term ‘dynamic discursive change’. This is similar to Janin Rivolini’s suggestion that systems can develop their own pattern of learning and may be enabled through the creation of new and compelling storylines. Participants suggested there may be an opportunity to reframe housing debates that often inspire adversarial generational divides into a solutions-focused discussion about age-appropriate housing. A similar narrative opportunity might lie in decoupling discussions of “social housing”, which speaks to housing as shelter or a right, from “housing affordability”, which focuses on making private home ownership (and capital wealth creation) more accessible to the middle class.

Aside from providing opportunities to reframe potential solutions, discursive interventions can also help communities rethink how problems are described. For example, housing affordability is sometimes framed as a problem of “neoliberalism” (Morris, 2023; Wetzstein, 2019), with government withdrawal from the direct provision of housing leaving individuals to “fend for themselves”. However, others highlight the role of restrictive zoning in creating unaffordable housing and argue instead for “regulatory liberalization” or “upzoning” (Freemark, 2023), which has been linked to improved housing availability and affordability in cities such as Auckland (Greenaway-McGrevy, 2023) and Sao Paolo (Anagol et al., 2022). While academic studies on this phenomenon are limited and results can be highly dependent on context and policy settings (Freemark, 2023), it demonstrates the challenges in framing housing issues around the degree of “liberalism” in policy settings and presents opportunities for experimentation with new narratives and discourses.

While dynamic discursive change can be useful for exposing policy narratives and their politics, or developing new storylines and frames, there is also a risk that these approaches can get stuck in incremental reforms, or that their arguments get ‘coopted’ rather than leading to deep change (Simoens et al., 2022). More radical opportunities for change can be empowered by achievements in broad structural and institutional changes, such as those explored below, to create enabling conditions, cultures and forums for discursive change to occur.

Structural reorganisation

Participants pointed to dysfunctional decision-making structures as a key contributor to Australia’s housing crisis. Australia has a three-tier democratic system where all levels of government play a role in shaping the housing system, from Commonwealth taxation policy and funding support, to state government planning policies, and local government planning and development consent processes. Coordination and alignment between the three levels is frequently poor, hampered by ideological differences, the political need to respond to distinct electoral interests during short election cycles, and the lack of social agreement on the goals of housing policy discussed above. Further, many participants argued that democratic processes at all levels respond more to the lobbying of powerful vested interests and the motivation of politicians to hold power than to the needs of citizens. Constructive discussion is challenging in such a complex and contested environment.

While some participants proposed reform to the overall system of government to concentrate decision-making at a particular level, such as with state government, others saw the potential for various democratic innovations to improve representation of public interests and constructive discussion within the existing governance system. Democratic innovations designed to enhance public deliberation and citizen input to decisions are in widespread use around the world and in Australia (Smith & Setlätä, 2018). Participedia (2024) lists more than 2,000 examples from 159 countries, including citizen juries, citizen assemblies, and participatory budgeting initiatives. One of the most prominent examples is the series of Citizens’ Assemblies in Ireland, since 2012. Each Assembly is an example of a ‘mini-public’, comprising 99 randomly selected citizens and an appointed Chair. They are tasked with considering a policy issue and making recommendations to the government. Since 2016, topics covered have included abortion, same-sex marriage, drug use, biodiversity loss, gender equality and climate change. Participants are given time and support to learn about the issues involved, which promotes deliberation (closely related to CD) and leads to recommendations that have the potential to progress deadlocked policy issues .

In 2023, a group of Crossbenchers in Federal Parliament wrote to the Treasurer and Housing Minister with a costed proposal to establish a national Citizens’ Assembly on Housing Affordability (Spender, 2023). Convening such an Assembly would create an opportunity to work towards social agreement on housing policy in Australia. Because they are made up of randomly selected citizens and not vested interests, citizens frequently trust and support their recommendations, giving governments a stronger mandate to implement reforms. While political agreement on establishment of a housing-focused Assembly at a national scale is a difficult path, there are more feasible options to use similar mini-public processes at other scales and on other issues relating to housing. For example, in 2019, the City of Sydney (CoS) convened a Citizen’s Jury of 50 Sydney-siders to imagine a vision for Sydney in 2050. Among the eight concepts they recommended was ‘housing for all’: “a city providing a wide range of accessible and affordable housing options, being inclusive, promoting social and community cohesion” (CoS, 2020).

Tool innovation

A nuanced set of opportunities for CD were raised that might improve the tools used in the formal planning system. They are related to how processes are designed, how individuals within those processes perform and relate to one another, and in whose interest decisions and processes are enacted.

Some of the participants raised ideas for how CD could be used to qualitatively enhance the NSW state government’s push to increase density and housing development. In this vein, participants suggested that while pursuing ideas like the use of “pattern book” designs to reduce bureaucracy and support faster housing construction (Housing Now, 2023), these reforms could be enhanced using ‘design charettes’ to enable participation and community input in this process (Gaziulusoy & Ryan, 2017). Others called for improving representation and participation in specific processes that sit under local government’s domain, such as changing engagement metrics to ensure a broader diversity of current and potential residents are heard and have influence in the planning processes and decisions. All these ideas align with the democratic lineage of planning theory that emphasises both procedural fairness, and outcomes, that emerge from planning centred on a participatory and deliberative process (Healy 1992; Forester 1982).

Interestingly, participants also addressed the need for planning experts in the housing system, affording space to a rational view of planning. In our interviews, interventions raised under the conceptual frame by CD drew forth an emphasis on the virtues, intentions, and behaviour of individuals tasked with representation or decision-making. These were presented in broad terms, but also in relation to specific tasks like rezoning. Re-zoning processes, which can carry significant dilemmas about public versus private interests, are a particular point of focus identified in the literature and raised by participants in our study. Academic perspectives, for example, have questioned whether sufficient attention is being paid by policy makers to maximise public benefit when rezoning residential land for greater density (Murray & Gordon, 2023) and primary research has pointed to a pattern of self-interest amongst land-owners in the way they engage with re-zoning decisions in Australia (Murray & Frijters, 2016). Participants in our study provided their own anecdotal evidence of these dynamics – e.g., “[there’s] a tomato paddock one year that turns into a $50 million piece of land the next by virtue of rezoning” (CO). They also identified deficiencies amongst politicians and planning experts, as well as the general public, in the way they presented their interests and the rationale for their preferred actions.

Drawing on communicative and procedural aspects that participants saw CD to require, suggestions include a need for training for specific individuals (like new Ministers) to improve how they view their role in relation to the public good, and to elevate the way that debates are held and dilemmas navigated. Planning literature has explored similar critiques through a lineage that focuses on the role of planning cultures and their influence on planning outcomes (e.g., Othengrafen & Reimer, 2018; Keidling & Othengrafen; 2015; Jackson, 2022) including those that question the social benefits and values of those cultures (e.g., Rankin, 2010; Listerborn, 2007). Outside of key decision makers, participants in our study also noted these collective dynamics; a broad need was identified wherein experts such as planners and architects were sometimes failing to hold one another to account. Here, the reinvigoration of (informal) professional forums was raised not just for practitioners to identify specific mechanisms for improvement, but to influence the collective culture of people with an influence and interest in the planning system, entailing a political innovation that can improve housing policy, and improve CD in society, more broadly.

Practice expansion

Participant suggestions corresponding to Asadzadeh et al.’s (2023) category of practice expansion mostly revolved around the role of the media in contributing to a constructive public discourse and the role of the NSW State Government in creating urban development test cases that generate discussion and shift public perceptions. Within both spheres, participants saw opportunities for CD to assist with the kind of radical innovation in planning processes and collective discourses that Asadzadeh et al. (2023) argue is needed to catalyse transformative resilience in urban governance and planning systems.

With regards to the media, participants raised concerns about media companies having a vested interest in driving a culture of real estate speculation. Media training and recruitment strategies offer the potential to enhance CD by promoting ‘solutions journalism’, which has been shown to reduce feelings of negativity towards contentious issues (McIntyre, 2019). Other potential strategies include highlighting positive aspects of news stories that are often cast in a negative light, such as proposals for new public housing or times when house prices fall. Participants also saw a need for great diversity of viewpoints and representation in the media of “people of different ages, people of different ethnic backgrounds and people who don't speak English” [KS]. Connected to the idea of training (discussed under ‘tool innovation’) was the need to expand the ability for specialists like urban planners and architects to have a greater input into public discussions about housing, with a perception that simplistic economic arguments were dominant in the media landscape, such as “Supply is the answer. No matter what the problem is, supply will solve it.” [TE]

In relation to development test cases, participants highlighted that people tend to relate more to tangible projects than to abstract policy. As such, well-designed urban renewal sites of sufficient scale have the potential to shift public perceptions and discourses around contentious topics like density and apartment living. Demonstration sites of this nature have the potential to build a “social licence to operate” for increased density or other forms of urban development by allowing residents to evaluate factors such as distributional fairness (how positive and negative impacts are shared), procedural fairness (how proponents interact with affected communities), confidence in governance (how government rules operate) and, ultimately, trust [redacted reference 4].

Due to the scale required for effective demonstration sites, the NSW State Government was seen by participants as having primary responsibility for their development and promotion. One participant cited an example from Brisbane where a diversity of different housing types was included in a demonstration site that elected officials and staff from local councils were invited to visit. They argued that one of the key insights from that experiment was the role that open space played in perceptions of good housing: “I think sometimes the conversation is less about the housing and more about the broader urban environment in which it's situated” [CO].

Across the variety of interventions and their different points of focus, the above discussion shows that a focus on CD can identify specific reforms and improvements whilst also creating conditions and feedback loops to improve the broader system. For example, improving CD in specific planning process might feed into the way housing is seen, discussed and experienced in society, reflecting the circular influences (feedback loops) identified by Janin Rivolin. Instead of a lack of CD maintaining the status quo, improvements in CD might improve its transformative capacity as a system.

In this article, we have outlined how CD, or a lack thereof, can influence how decisions are made at multiple levels of complex urban systems. Our research explored CD in relation to the housing issues that confront Sydney. Our findings demonstrate CD is a complex topic that addresses broad structural dynamics as well as specific and thematic issues about power and representation. By addressing current deficiencies in CD, our study outlined some specific interventions where CD might lead to improved outcomes on housing, with the potential to influence long-term decision-making for the public good in Sydney and within Australian democracy more broadly.

Conceptually, our work aligns with researchers such as Innes and Booher (2010), Getimis (2012), de Roo (2016) and Janin Rivolin (2012) by showing that issues within housing are interwoven with broader dynamics in society that transcend organisational and spatial boundaries and the technical tasks of planning. It highlights the need to further develop the nexus between democratic theory, futures, and systems research with studies in urban planning and governance. A key challenge and opportunity is to deepen conceptual work into the dynamics that occur in complex socio-cultural systems by using contextual and applied case studies. Transdisciplinary research into issues of social and environmental change routinely makes use of frameworks and heuristics to gain insights into complex systems (Leventon et al. 2021). Our case study has demonstrated that conceptual frameworks like those of Janin Rivolin (2012), Azadzadeh et al. (2023), and [redacted author organisation] can facilitate productive discussions about CD and help to find thematic relationships and patterns that generate new insights about the dynamics of Greater Sydney’s housing system and CD in Australian society.

Constructive Discussion invites a perspective on complex urban systems that extends considerations beyond public participation in planning. Our results, for example, showed a variety of roles that CD can play in supporting urban transformation through the interrelated systems of governance and planning, complementing the conceptual explorations of Asadzadeh et al. (2023). Furthermore, we have shown how CD can also play a role in shaping discourses and narratives amongst system actors who are not directly engaged in either formal planning systems or the formal structures of governance. Here, we identified the important roles played by media, expert commentators and urban residents in shaping social discussions of housing at different scales – from everyday lives to national values and priorities.

The observations of our study have thus demonstrated that CD is a concept and a feature of society that operates on multiple scales – from how we individually treat each other, how our leaders act in meetings, to more structural questions that ask how decisions are made, by whom, and, critically, questioning how these structures might be representative and improved. These insights have the potential to feed back into how CD is conceptualised, applied and adapted by groups such as [redacted organisation name]. While much of [redacted organisation name]’s work on CD to date has focused on societal decision-making [redacted reference 1] and conversations relating to policy proposals [redacted reference 3], this study highlights that there are not only institutional and conversational spheres surrounding CD, but personal and cultural ones too.

As with all research, this case study involved limitations related to the time and place it was undertaken, and the participants involved. Additional perspectives from housing system actors such as renters, landlords, first-home buyers and the homeless community are likely to add to our findings and may challenge some of the views presented by study participants, even when charged with representing such actors. Case studies in other locations could allow for comparisons with Sydney and repeating the study into the future may help to understand how the Sydney housing system changes over time. For example, in the months between interviewing the participants and drafting this article, the NSW Government introduced major planning reforms related to increasing density using rezoning and transport-oriented development, redistributing growth and updating housing targets across the State (NSW Government, 2023; 2024).

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, this study has highlighted the diverse range of interventions that could be implemented in a complex housing system such as Sydney’s. From narrative interventions to citizens’ assemblies to design charettes and media training, our participants offered a wide range of productive opportunities to improve CD in relation to housing, and in Australian society more generally. While this may be outside the remit of any single researcher or research team, identifying the challenges and the priorities is the first part of change. We hope that others find our work valuable and can build on the challenges, priorities and potential responses identified through this case study.

constructive discussion

NSW

New South Wales

SEPPs

State Environmental Planning Policies

SDG

Sustainable Development Goal

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In the context of Australia’s three tiers of government, which all play a role on housing, the ability of a conceptual framework to afford considerations at these various scales was deemed particularly welcome and suitable.

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Constructive Discussion and City-Making: discursive dynamics and opportunities to influence housing outcomes in Sydney, Australia.

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Abstract

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SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

POLICY AND PRACTICE RECOMMENDATIONS

1. INTRODUCTION

1.2 Trends in urban governance and planning studies

1.3 A case study in Constructive Discussion in Sydney’s housing system

2. METHODOLOGY & THEORY

2.1 Research Design & Process

2.2 Analytical framework

3. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Typifying the current state of the system

3.1.1 Themes identified in the interviews

3.1.2 Connecting case study themes to conceptual frameworks in the literature

3.2 Potential interventions and their transformative potential

4. IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

Abbreviations

References

Footnotes

Additional Declarations

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