ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that two significant changes in housing patterns have impacted on the ability of people to become attached to, and identify with, their dwelling because of tensions between these ways of living and dominant cultural representations of the dwelling as home. Exemplified in Australian urban housing markets, these changes are an increase in multi-unit property ownership and an increase in long-term private renting. The chapter shows how these phenomena need not necessarily result in people feeling less attached to their dwellings if dominant social norms and constructs of the dwelling as home, and home ownership in particular, are challenged. It presents a brief introduction to academic literature on the dwelling as home, and relates this to Relph's discussion of what it means to be an insider in a place. The link between one's dwelling place and one's wellbeing and identity has long been recognized by housing researchers, architects, and planners.
