Suburbanized cities, regardless of scale, face a common dilemma: how to increase both housing supply and diversity while maintaining an established low-scale leafy character. While greenfield and brownfield zoning continue to increase housing supply through establishing new suburbs, densification is provided in greyfield1 precincts through urban regeneration infill and in transit corridors via apartment developments. One intention of all these four strategies is the avoidance of intensification in established suburbs, leaving them to their business-as-usual housing model.
This raises the question of what this “business” is, for the suburbs continue to see substantial change regardless of falling outside of infill policy. I call these established suburbs the “bluefields.”2 They are suburbs usually quarantined from strategic density and diversity increases: those with established character, where “blue” represents both the perceived immutability of their traditional character and the high financial and emotional values in play.
A bluefield suburb is one where change is observable in knock-down-rebuild minor infill, where a single house is replaced with duplex or triplex housing. Often, each new house offers the same accommodation as the single house being replaced, with each new dwelling selling independently for more than the value of the original property. The result is an increase in suburban density
