Growing Pains: Adolescent Urbanism on the Gold Coast

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Author(s)
Burton, Paul
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2009
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This paper sets out to better understand the particular nature of urbanisation on the Gold Coast in South East Queensland and of urbanism in general. In developing this understanding it draws on the conception of adolescence as a stage in the physiological and psychosocial development of children into adults. The characteristics of adolescence including rapid growth; identity confusion; developing sexuality; growing analytical capacity and egocentrism are used in the analysis of Gold Coast urbanisation. As a young Australian city the Gold Coast displays many of these adolescent characteristics in the way it has grown ...
View more >This paper sets out to better understand the particular nature of urbanisation on the Gold Coast in South East Queensland and of urbanism in general. In developing this understanding it draws on the conception of adolescence as a stage in the physiological and psychosocial development of children into adults. The characteristics of adolescence including rapid growth; identity confusion; developing sexuality; growing analytical capacity and egocentrism are used in the analysis of Gold Coast urbanisation. As a young Australian city the Gold Coast displays many of these adolescent characteristics in the way it has grown and is now managed and led. The paper concludes by proposing a more ambitious and comparative research agenda for analysing similar cities in Europe, North and Central America and extending our understanding of more general processes of urbanisation.
View less >
View more >This paper sets out to better understand the particular nature of urbanisation on the Gold Coast in South East Queensland and of urbanism in general. In developing this understanding it draws on the conception of adolescence as a stage in the physiological and psychosocial development of children into adults. The characteristics of adolescence including rapid growth; identity confusion; developing sexuality; growing analytical capacity and egocentrism are used in the analysis of Gold Coast urbanisation. As a young Australian city the Gold Coast displays many of these adolescent characteristics in the way it has grown and is now managed and led. The paper concludes by proposing a more ambitious and comparative research agenda for analysing similar cities in Europe, North and Central America and extending our understanding of more general processes of urbanisation.
View less >
Conference Title
Proceedings of the 4th National Conference on the State of Australian Cities
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Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2009. The attached file is reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. For information about this conference please refer to the conference’s website or contact the authors.
Subject
Urban and Regional Planning not elsewhere classified