Selective memories, sanitised futures: constructing visions of future place in inner Sydney

The contemporary remaking of inner city Pyrmont–Ultimo in Sydney is analysed in terms of the visions of planners, developers, politicians and residents. Developers and government agencies selectively remembered the blue-collar history of this place in their place marketing efforts. These ‘memories’ were sanitised to make them more appealing to contemporary lifestyle-oriented residential markets. The need to sanitise and repackage particular urban places can be regarded, following Bourdieu, as a strategy of the field of planners and developers, as they struggle to gain ascendency in the game of land and property development. Their ‘feel for the game’, it is argued, is reflective of a ‘planning habitus’.