Reflections of a 'great port city' : the case of Newcastle, Australia

As the material form of the city and its symbols are negotiated and contested, the mobilisation of images and identities of place are central to the legitimisation of urban redevelopment. Frequently, these processes and their outcomes consolidate the status of those interests which have long controlled the urban agenda. In this paper I explore (with reference to the deindustrialising regional city of Newcastle, Australia) the extent to which powerful discourses of urban symbolism and the everyday meanings people attach to the places of their social and cultural worlds are implicated in the process of selling to local residents the 'ideal' of the redevelopment of the inner city.