Aside from taking pretty pictures, C. Speed and I have been conducting a number of formal interviews recently – well, formal in the sense that we sit down with a tape recorder, and in the sense that we negotiate and ask people to sign off on formal terms for the use of the recorded material. In most other respects, though, the interviews have been fairly unbounded: they’ve consistently taken far longer than we expected – we had originally tentatively asked for, and sometimes only grudgingly been granted, an hour of time. So far, the shortest interview has actually taken close to two hours, and the longest reaches past three. My fingers are already aching in anticipation of the transcription work to come… But the material – and the generosity of the people providing it – has been absolutely fantastic.
On one level, the methodology for the interviews has been quite easy to construct: we’re focussing on the development process for the region covered by the Mernda Strategy Plan, which was an unusually detailed strategy plan prepared by the local Council, when it feared that rezoning the very fragmented original landholdings would cause small parcels to be snapped up by a large number of developers, some of whom might not have the funds or the expertise to think on a regional scale when planning their individual developments. As it happened, a small number of large developers did piece together substantial land holdings – although it’s an interesting question whether this means that the local Council needn’t have placed as much effort into the planning process, or whether this means that the effort Council placed into the planning process is what ultimately attracted the major developers…
I spent some time with local Council staff last year, as well as with selected major developers. This year, I have been focussed on other stakeholders in the planning and development process: other developers, original community members (divided into two broad groups of opponents and supporters of the development process), residents of newly built estates, and social service organisations attempting to build community infrastructure for the area.
It’s been interesting to compare what we were worried about, when we were originally planning the interview strategy, with the sorts of problems we have actually encountered. Read more of this post
Rough Theory 