Sea Change: Movement from Metropolitan to Arcadian Australia

By Ian Burnley And Peter Murphy, Sydney: UNSW Press, 2003, 272 pages, paperback, . Reviewed by Michelle Gabriel in the March 2004 issue.

Help more readers find out about this article
Slashdot   Digg   StumbleUpon   Del.icio.us

Throughout the post-war period an unprecedented number of young, working Australians embraced the 'great Australian dream' of home ownership. Following the settlement patterns laid down by previous generations, these owner-occupiers took up residence in the expanding suburbs of Australia's capital cities, places that offered the combined benefits of employment and ready access to transport and services. While such family and work-centred aspirations have continued to fuel urban sprawl in the late twentieth century, since the mid-1970s social scientists have also observed a steady undercurrent of counter-urbanisation. This 'population turnaround' is the subject of Ian Burnley and Peter Murphy's new book. Although they take their title from the popular television series Sea Change, they are not specifically focused on the flight of urban professionals to coastal idylls as depicted in that program; instead, they provide a comprehensive account of the scale and pattern of non-metropolitan migration in Australia and they profile the diverse range of people who have led this recent charge to the coast and the bush. In contrast to journalistic treatments of the 'sea change' phenomenon, Burnley and Murphy situate recent internal migration trends within a historical and international context. They note that Australia's 'population turnaround' is not unique but, rather, it resembles the experience of other Western industrialised nations in which the demographic dominance of large cities has been on the wane for some time.

Burnley and Murphy's book provides a timely and informative guide to those interested in and affected by population growth in non-metropolitan areas. One of the strengths of Burnley and Murphy's account is that they propose an inter-disciplinary and user-friendly approach to the study of Australia's population turnaround. While such an approach is difficult to execute, it is precisely what is needed to engage readers -- students or otherwise -- in current debates about the major demographic shifts that are shaping Australian lives and Australia's future. Broad appeal, however, generates its own tensions, particularly in terms of satisfying quite diverse audiences. When reading Burnley and Murphy's work I was impressed by the breadth of the material they proposed to cover, but also wary of their capacity to probe such material in sufficient depth. The authors do appear to have over-extended themselves by proposing to cover all aspects of the population turnaround which, for them, includes the migration of urban-dwellers to coastal and rural idylls, the migration of urban-dwellers to the outer urban fringe, and the migration of urban-dwellers to all non-metropolitan areas. Their unusual taxonomy of 'sea changers' (outlined in chapter two) merely serves to highlight just how heterogeneous the phenomenon they propose to investigate is. Here they draw a distinction between those who choose to leave the metropolis, 'free agents' (i.e. retirees, professionals, labourers, and alternative folk), those who are pushed out of the city, 'forced relocaters' (i.e. people on welfare), and a loose coalition of other 'sea changers' including tourists, 'gentrifiers', and those who move inter-state (pp. 34-40). One outcome of this inclusive approach is that several of the chapters are devoted to the investigation of quite unrelated phenomena. For example, chapter six on why income-support recipients move to rural areas reads like a stand-alone report (this chapter was in fact co-authored by Nancy Marshall and Graeme Hugo) with little connection to the largely middle-class development conflicts that are raised in chapter eight. Also, the depth of discussion across these chapters is variable. For example, in their overview of welfare-migration the authors provide no background on the national social policy context and side-step crucial issues such as the effect of recent changes in the labour market and the decline in housing affordability on this particular demographic phenomenon.

Most disappointing, however, was the tendency of these academic specialists to revert to demographic type throughout the text. Although the detailed data presented in this book is valuable, at times the authors appear to have become captive to it and have consequently overlooked the need to frame their analysis with a compelling narrative. For example, Burnley and Murphy's overview of the national experience of population turnaround (chapter three) is both informative and well-organised, and yet the following chapter on the experience of NSW starts off with the rather dry observation that 'Between 1971 and 1996, the population of the non-metropolitan coastal regions of New South Wales increased by 395,000 persons' (p. 107) and continues with an extensive listing of the population change experienced by each 'population turnaround' statistical local area across NSW between 1986 and 1996 (pp. 118-123). Elsewhere the authors have either mishandled or passed-up opportunities to explore the cultural aspects of the march to 'Arcadian Australia'. Throwaway observations such as 'The picturesque setting of Robertson was the filmic focus for the successful movie Babe, which in part celebrated idealised rural idylls' (p. 199) does little to inform the reader about the construction of certain coastal and rural localities as Arcadian. Things improve, however, in chapters seven and eight where the authors move beyond the standard demographic task of trying to distil the 'push' and 'pull' factors behind migration and make room in their study for exploring the key issues that give this academic work political currency. The authors present survey data that challenges the popular assumption that there are substantial attitudinal differences and consequently emerging tensions between local residents and newcomers. They also specify the challenges and trade-offs that confront policy makers, technical experts and local communities in managing population growth and change in turnaround localities.

Burnley and Murphy's comprehensive account of Australia's population turnaround has much to offer both the specialist and a wider audience. Although their attempt to marry demographic, economic and cultural analysis is not uniformly successful, Burnley and Murphy have certainly provided a serviceable template for inter-disciplinary, socio-demographic analysis that is long overdue.

Citation

• Michelle Gabriel. 'Review: Sea Change: Movement from Metropolitan to Arcadian Australia by Ian Burnley and Peter Murphy' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), March 2004. Availability: <please cite the web address here> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 25 May 2013].

Back Cover Blurb

• The popularity of ABC TV's 'SeaChange' series reflects the enduring power of the bucolic myth of escaping the city and creating a new, simpler life in an Arcadian setting. It is a myth given new power by the pressures of big city life in the age of economic globalisation. It is a myth that promises low-key, community-based living in an idyllic setting, well away from the big smoke - or at least far enough away to be beyond its pernicious influences yet accessible enough to reach its pleasures and supports.
  
  Although still a minority pursuit in Australia - where most people live in the coastal capital cities - over the past thirty years large numbers of city folk have moved to sea-change settings around the country. In that time, well over a million people have moved to coastal regions lying beyond commuter range of the State capital cities. And over the same period, similar numbers have moved from the cities proper to places beyond the suburbs, but within striking distance of city jobs and services.
  
  Integrating demographic, economic and sociological perspectives, Sea Change addresses the scale of this movement, its variation over time and place, and the types of people involved. It considers their motivations for moving, the places they colonise and the public interest implications of these moves. Both the people and the places are far more diverse than you would expect.

Have You Also Read?

• Borderline: Australia's treatment of refugees and asylum seekers
  
  Peter Mares, Kensington: UNSW Press, 2001, 219 Pages, Paperback, $29.95
  Reviewed by Frances Crawford in the October 2001 issue.
  
  Peter Mares is a working radio journalist with a solid grounding in Asian-Pacific current affairs. This book was commissioned for the Reportage series of the University of New South Wales Press. The series seems to provide space for working journalists to showcase the craft, passion and commitment of their professional practice. Other titles have been Fit to Print: Inside the Canberra Press Gallery by Margaret Simons and Reconciliation: A Journey by Michael Gordon. Peter Mares has maximised an opportunity to translate into written form some of the powerful lived experiences he has shared with a range of 'players' in the refugee story both here and overseas. Solidly prepared in the ... read more.