First we had to make it livable: the affordances of livability in suburban Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

Literature in geography and urban studies has long noted how livability has been put to use in neoliberal projects of inter-city competition to foster particular types of redevelopment: usually to attract or service middle-class consumption. Perhaps for this reason, academic discussions and policy debates about fostering livability are often narrowly focused on the city center. Recent work in geography has suggested that livability agendas may exceed this framing and “create spaces of (and for) politics that have not been simply erased by neoliberalism.” Exploring livability by thinking about spaces beyond the inner city such as the middle suburbs and urban fringe is another way to exceed a simple neoliberal framing of livability. In this chapter we explore the role of livability in policy, development agendas, and resident experiences of two parts of Newcastle, Australia: the middle ring suburb of Charlestown, and Huntlee, a newly developing suburb on the urban fringe. The chapter explores the similarities and differences in how livability is deployed in assembling the different parts of the city, no longer focused on its inner areas. The chapter also examines the role of mobility between city spaces for understandings of livability. For residents of suburban locations, the livability of their home and suburb may be based on a low-density neighborhood that provides affordable housing, a comfortable home, and an attractive physical environment, if it also provides adequate and appropriate access to other amenities located in the city core. Livability in a city, then, depends not only on inner city agendas and a narrow range of middle-class consumption practices, but on the complex interconnections that assemble the city as a whole.