Abstract Where and how people live in later life is of vital importance to their wellbeing. Yet there has been very little critical attention in gerontology to the growth of large residential complexes being built by developers on urban fringes across Australia. There is no coherent policy relating to older people’s accommodation, and a general absence in understanding the capacity of these purpose built environments to meet the needs of older people. Further, there is a lack of research that represents the intricate interplay of factors that informs the provision of residential complexes. This research aims to address the critical need to understand the reality of older people’s lives within these spaces of ageing. It seeks to do this by exploring the experiences and meaning older people resident in these complexes attach to these spaces, as well as investigating the views and knowledge of those responsible for their design and production. A spatial framework, directly informed by Henri Lefebvre’s theory of social space, provides a holistic means to integrate both the structural and humanistic dimensions of space. This framework guided an exploration of the working knowledge of the professionals involved in the production of residential complexes, as well as how older people use, and create meaning in this living environment. The qualitative research design facilitated the analysis of interviews with professionals and older people, as well as documents and working papers in order to gain a rich understanding of the different dimensions that make up the production of, and life within, residential complexes. The research identified a broad range of implications in relation to the policy and practice of building residential complexes for older people. Of particular note is that the working knowledge of those responsible for the provision of residential complexes is underpinned by a stereotypical approach to ageing which affects their attitudes and assumptions. This is part of a complex array of factors including ageism, the dominance of business acumen, and humanism all resulting in a cultural acceptance of older people’s accommodation as separate. These findings prompt consideration of who is planning for whom, and who benefits? Findings suggest that for older people residential complexes are an ambiguous place, characterised by tensions. For some residents, the space provides both security and community, enabling them to engage with occupations and relationships. However, for others, the space is limiting, compromising their ability to retain meaning in their lives. In this way, residential complexes are both an enabling and a constraining environment. These findings highlight the inherent difficulty of providing one dominant model for a population with a broad range of needs, experiences and expectations. Whatever their age older people continue to produce space, and this is not only about keeping the past alive, but keeping in touch with the whole of their lives. This entails continuing to form relationships and connecting to the environment, whether that is a garden, the bush or inner city life; and through the signification of objects as both an expression of connection, loss and absence. To reinforce the heterogeneity of older people, place and space for some was not important. This research has important implications for developing policy on ageing and planning the built environment, as well for the application of the theory of social space. Of note is the power and pervasiveness of ageism within professions responsible for the conception and production of residential complexes, and the strength of the dissonance between accommodation, support and care for older people. Important insights were gained about older people’s use and meaning of their space, notably the need to recognise micro agency and occupation throughout the life course. This thesis draws attention to the complexity of place and space in regard to older people and their living environments and challenges research that adopts a more singular approach. Finally, use of Lefebvre’s work to drive the approach adopted in this study is a major strength. In particular, the operationalisation of Lefebvre’s triad of social space in a social context provides a theoretical contribution to social theory, one to be taken up by gerontology and social science.

Abstract Where and how people live in later life is of vital importance to their wellbeing. Yet there has been very little critical attention in gerontology to the growth of large residential complexes being built by developers on urban fringes across Australia. There is no coherent policy relating to older people’s accommodation, and a general absence in understanding the capacity of these purpose built environments to meet the needs of older people. Further, there is a lack of research that represents the intricate interplay of factors that informs the provision of residential complexes. This research aims to address the critical need to understand the reality of older people’s lives within these spaces of ageing. It seeks to do this by exploring the experiences and meaning older people resident in these complexes attach to these spaces, as well as investigating the views and knowledge of those responsible for their design and production. A spatial framework, directly informed by Henri Lefebvre’s theory of social space, provides a holistic means to integrate both the structural and humanistic dimensions of space. This framework guided an exploration of the working knowledge of the professionals involved in the production of residential complexes, as well as how older people use, and create meaning in this living environment. The qualitative research design facilitated the analysis of interviews with professionals and older people, as well as documents and working papers in order to gain a rich understanding of the different dimensions that make up the production of, and life within, residential complexes. The research identified a broad range of implications in relation to the policy and practice of building residential complexes for older people. Of particular note is that the working knowledge of those responsible for the provision of residential complexes is underpinned by a stereotypical approach to ageing which affects their attitudes and assumptions. This is part of a complex array of factors including ageism, the dominance of business acumen, and humanism all resulting in a cultural acceptance of older people’s accommodation as separate. These findings prompt consideration of who is planning for whom, and who benefits? Findings suggest that for older people residential complexes are an ambiguous place, characterised by tensions. For some residents, the space provides both security and community, enabling them to engage with occupations and relationships. However, for others, the space is limiting, compromising their ability to retain meaning in their lives. In this way, residential complexes are both an enabling and a constraining environment. These findings highlight the inherent difficulty of providing one dominant model for a population with a broad range of needs, experiences and expectations. Whatever their age older people continue to produce space, and this is not only about keeping the past alive, but keeping in touch with the whole of their lives. This entails continuing to form relationships and connecting to the environment, whether that is a garden, the bush or inner city life; and through the signification of objects as both an expression of connection, loss and absence. To reinforce the heterogeneity of older people, place and space for some was not important. This research has important implications for developing policy on ageing and planning the built environment, as well for the application of the theory of social space. Of note is the power and pervasiveness of ageism within professions responsible for the conception and production of residential complexes, and the strength of the dissonance between accommodation, support and care for older people. Important insights were gained about older people’s use and meaning of their space, notably the need to recognise micro agency and occupation throughout the life course. This thesis draws attention to the complexity of place and space in regard to older people and their living environments and challenges research that adopts a more singular approach. Finally, use of Lefebvre’s work to drive the approach adopted in this study is a major strength. In particular, the operationalisation of Lefebvre’s triad of social space in a social context provides a theoretical contribution to social theory, one to be taken up by gerontology and social science.

Housing approximately half a million residents, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) has long been cast as the exception to the rule of ‘demolish and replace’ models of public housing in the United States. Yet as NYCHA faces a dire fiscal and administrative crisis, it has proposed a suite of privatization efforts that threaten its successful reputation. With a focus on NYCHA’s effort to allow private developers to construct mixed-income ‘infill’ projects on existing ‘underutilized’ public housing land through the NextGeneration NYCHA and NYCHA 2.0 plans, in this dissertation, I ask: how do various stakeholders, including residents, the housing authority, private developers, elected officials, and non-profit and advocacy stakeholders justify, react to, and resist NYCHA’s plans for redevelopment? While most studies consider the impacts of mixed-income housing on residents after lease up of a development, interpreting it as either a de facto beneficial policy or as a tool for state-led gentrification, this work differs in its focus on the range of viewpoints about the plan prior to construction. In so doing, it straddles the literature on mixed-income housing and urban planning processes through the lens of pragmatism. A pragmatic approach centers those most impacted in planmaking and considers how diverse stakeholder experiences co-exist and contrast in public deliberation processes. In other words, this dissertation considers how the housing authority’s various publics have reacted differently to the plans for its transformation with the goal of informing how to craft more restorative, equitable, and deliberative planning processes. Using data from over a year and a half of participant observation, interviews, and media and policy sources, I craft a qualitative narrative case of the deliberations surrounding NYCHA’s first five years of redevelopment from a variety of stakeholder perspectives. Using narrative and framework analysis, I organize this dissertation around three empirical chapters: 1) an anatomy of the formal and dialogical channels of engagement between speakers and NYCHA officials at 10 public meetings following the NextGeneration NYCHA plan’s release; 2) an account of the housing authority’s stop-and-start approach to pursuing infill set amidst its various crises, including an analysis of the viewpoints of public officials and a private developer selected for a pilot infill site; and 3) a description of residents’ opposition to the plan, which includes descriptions of spaces of contestation citywide and at a specific pilot infill development on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I find that while multiple stakeholders agree on the end goal of repairing existing public housing, actors promote a series of contradictions in their means to fix it, shaping a hotly contested landscape that has eroded public trust and further delayed action. Despite critiquing the housing authority for their management practices, residents launched a campaign to keep their homes publicly-operated that extended beyond the walls of their developments to citywide and even national progressive issues. This dissertation contributes to the housing policy and urban planning literature in three ways. First, it proposes an understanding of mixed-income housing that eschews past binary approaches and shows its perceived benefits and risks as highly dependent on the values and goals of the stakeholder. Second, it looks at conflicting attitudes to planmaking outside of a traditional consensus-based models, inviting a contextual understanding of power dynamics while also placing value on the experiences and actions of the majority Black and Latinx public housing residents who are the most impacted by the infill plans. Lastly, this dissertation also serves to profile pragmatism’s power–and limits– for theorizing more equitable redevelopment processes in planning.