BIG BUILD - PROPERTY CAPITAL, THE STATE AND URBAN CHANGE IN AUSTRALIA

Historically, Austrialia's urban development has been characterized by property booms and busts. The recent wave of property speculation is tied to the global restructuring of capital. Analysis of the forces restructuring Australia's cities illuminates the roles of the state and property capital in urban development in advanced capitalist societies in general. This paper examines the decline in manufacturing investment and the rise in property development over the last decade and details the types of investment which are occuring - mainly the development of offices, tourist resorts, retail and leisure complexes and 'mega-projects' of various kinds. Examining the patterns of investment in the built environment necessarily includes examining the interconnections between underlying structural forces and regional and local strategies of accommodation and resistance. Conflicts over the appropriation and control of space have increasing salience as modes of opposition to capital. Struggles over the built environment throw up local barriers to global accumulation and potentially pose alternative bases for the non-commodified creation and use of space.