Article

Urban Studies
1–18
Ó Urban Studies Journal Limited 2015
Destination dumping ground: The Reprints and permissions:
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convergence of ‘unwanted’ DOI: 10.1177/0042098015587241
usj.sagepub.com
populations in disadvantaged city
areas

Lynda Cheshire
The University of Queensland, Australia

Gina Zappia
University of Tasmania, Australia

Abstract
Academic and lay discourses around disadvantaged urban areas often draw on the language of
‘dumping grounds’ to encapsulate the poverty, marginalisation and social problems often found
there. Yet the concept of a dumping ground remains insufficiently theorised. This paper addresses
this issue by identifying five constituent features of the dumping ground: the perception of people
as waste whose fate is to be discarded; the need to accommodate this human ‘waste’ and the
logic by which places are selected for this purpose; the mechanisms through which this spatial
sorting occurs as problem populations are moved to their ‘rightful’ place; the relations of power
which enforce or encourage this mobility; and finally, the reactions of incumbent residents in
neighbourhoods that are compelled to host unwanted social groups. In the second part of this
paper, these themes are illustrated via a case study of the Australian city of Logan where residents
complain that their city has been treated as a dumping ground in order to explain its poor
reputation.

Keywords
Australia, disadvantage, dumping ground, migrant, mobility, neighbourhood, stigma, theory

Received November 2014; accepted April 2015

Introduction multiple and complex. Economic and labour

market restructuring induced by global
trends and national policies have led to high
Dumping ground: a place where rubbish or
unwanted material is left.
(Oxford English Dictionary) Corresponding author:
Lynda Cheshire, The University of Queensland, School of
The drivers of spatial sorting that concen- Social Science, St Lucia, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia.
trate poverty in certain parts of the city are Email: [email protected]

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2 Urban Studies

unemployment in formerly productive areas, features. These include the designation of

particularly those reliant upon manufactur- certain populations as human waste or detri-
ing. Immigration has led to the convergence tus; the demarcation of particular areas as
of (low-income) migrants in ‘gateway’ cities suitable dump site destinations for those
and suburbs where migrant support services populations; the allusion of mobility
and ethnic networks are strongest. Through (enforced or acquiesced) as problem popula-
gentrification affluent groups have colonised tions are exported into disadvantaged areas;
inner city areas and displaced incumbent the exercise of power by actors or institu-
populations to the ageing middle and outer tions thought to orchestrate this process;
suburbs. While housing market trends are a and the anxiety generated among the incum-
reflection of these processes, they also have bent population at being forced to live
their own generative mechanisms. As stocks among such undesirable groups.
of public housing are depleted, only house- In the second half of the paper, these pro-
holds with the greatest need are eligible for cesses are examined empirically through a
public housing, leading to a growing concen- case study of the city of Logan in south-east
tration of social disadvantage in neighbour- Queensland, Australia. In the opinion of
hoods containing either public, or low-cost some residents and stakeholders, the pres-
private rental, accommodation. ence of low-cost housing in the social and
Objectively classified as disadvantaged on private rental sectors, and the status of the
the basis of the low social outcomes of the city as a low-income area, has induced gov-
people who live there, the places where dis- ernments to use the city’s more disadvan-
advantage congregates suffer dual insult, taged neighbourhoods as a dumping ground
first through the inscription of a stigmatised for undesirable social groups, notably refu-
identity and second through their branding gees and other ethnic minorities. The effect,
as ‘dumping grounds’ for society’s most as they see it, is a raft of social problems
undesirable and dysfunctional populations. within their neighbourhoods, including a
While research on the creation, effects and heavily stigmatised identity and ethnic ten-
management of a stigmatised neighbour- sion among migrant groups. That local resi-
hood reputation has been extensive (Allen et dents locate the source of these problems in
al., 2007; Hastings, 2004; Kearns et al., the importation of problem populations
2013; Permentier et al., 2007; Wacquant, rather than any other set of factors is a
2010), the idea that places function as some reminder of the anxieties that can generate
sort of dumping ground has been subject to among those who see themselves as forced
much less critical and conceptual attention. to live alongside the ‘other’. Yet the case of
This is despite the frequency with which the Logan also acts as a reminder that the
term has been used to describe and account dumping ground is a social and political
for the concentration of ‘urban outcasts’ in construct which becomes a dominant place
poor neighbourhoods (Blake, 2001; Lupton, narrative only under certain conditions and
2003; Stenson and Watt, 1999; Wacquant, not without internal debate and contestation
1993, 2008). The aim of this paper, then, is by those advancing alternative meanings of
to place the idea of a residential dumping the processes observed. Acknowledging the
ground under a conceptual and empirical presence of counter narratives, even when
spotlight. Drawing on the work of Bauman they are marginal, helps dispel the taken-
(2004) in Wasted Lives, the first part of the for-grantedness of the urban dumping
paper engages theoretically with the concept ground in terms of its physical existence and
in an attempt to identify its component its discursive power.

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Cheshire and Zappia 3

Designated dumping grounds: misfortune at being stuck in a place routi-

The marginalisation of urban nely described as ‘a ‘‘dumpster’’, ‘‘the gar-
areas bage can of Paris’’’.
By many accounts, public housing estates
Academic studies are replete with images of are the quintessential dumping ground for
places becoming dumping grounds for the poor and the unwanted, prompting
‘unwanted’ populations who, on the basis of researchers to consider how social housing
their low class and/or ethnic and racial policies have contributed to this process.
minority status, are signified as rubbish, Earlier studies focused on the role of alloca-
waste and potentially polluting if not prop- tion policies as housing managers allocated
erly managed (Reay, 2004; Skeggs, 1997). less desirable properties in less desirable
One of the richer accounts, albeit outside the areas to less desirable tenants (Cowan et al.,
field of urban studies, is Blake’s (2001) 2001; Gray, 1976; Murie, 1997; Stenson and
monograph A Dumping Ground which docu- Watt, 1999). In a study by Murie (1997: 29),
ments how the Aboriginal township of a process of sorting was observed among
Cherbourg in Australia began its days as an housing providers, such that ‘rough or non-
Aboriginal reserve, designed to serve two respectable’ applicants and those from
purposes. The first was a ‘social distancing’ minority ethnic groups were channelled
function to ensure Aboriginal contact with towards problematic estates, partly because
white people was kept to a minimum while it was thought that they would not make the
the second was to subject some of the more place any worse, and partly because they
problematic members of the Aboriginal were the only people likely to accept a
community to greater government control tenancy there. For Murie, this form of dis-
through spatial containment. As Blake crimination was borne from the pressures
wrote, this dual function rendered the housing managers faced: a point Cowan and
reserve a ‘dumping ground for the lame, the colleagues (2001) illustrate in their study of
halt and the incorrigible’ (Blake, 2001: 245). the growing use of video surveillance for
In a different context, Wacquant (1993, managing anti-social behaviour on problem
2008) applies the dumping ground metaphor housing estates. They demonstrate how
to the ‘neighbourhoods of exile’ (Wacquant, housing managers were pressured by police
1993: 369) that comprise the American black and parole officers to accommodate sex
ghetto and the working class French ban- offenders in particular public housing estates
lieue. While the dynamics of these two places because they could be effectively monitored
are quite distinct, what they share in com- on estates where video surveillance is in
mon is the way their run-down public hous- operation. While some housing managers
ing, their economic and social decline, and a were reported to accept this justification,
growing concentration of minority ethnic they were nevertheless concerned that this
populations render them home to the ‘urban affirmed the status of these estates as social
outcasts’–‘poor people, downwardly mobile dumping grounds.
working-class households and marginal In recent decades, a reduction in the pro-
groups and individuals’ (Wacquant, 1993: vision of public housing, along with a conco-
368). Writing of the French banlieue, mitant shift in allocation policies, has led to
Wacquant (1993: 369) describes how a pow- the ‘residualisation’ of public housing so that
erful stigma is attached to these neighbour- it is now available only to those with the
hoods which readily transfers onto residents, greatest needs (Atkinson and Jacobs, 2008;
leaving them acutely aware of their Fitzpatrick and Pawson, 2014). The impacts

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4 Urban Studies

of this process in creating so-called ‘dump well-used to describe how ostensibly undesir-
estates’ are twofold. One the one hand, the able or unwanted populations end up in the
declining availability of local council housing least desirable neighbourhoods. In all cases,
stock has reduced the discretionary scope of the focus of inquiry has been directed at the
housing managers, thereby limiting the mechanisms through which this occurs. For
potential for problem housing tenants to be Wacquant (1993, 2008), these include
moved from one area to another (Hulse and macro-level processes of rising inequality in
Burke, 2005; Stenson and Watt, 1999). At advanced capitalist states; the deterioration
the same time, restricting public housing to of low-skilled jobs and the rise in unemploy-
the most vulnerable has concentrated disad- ment; and the retraction or reconfiguration
vantage in these estates even further. In the of the welfare state. Alternatively, housing
words of Atkinson and Jacobs (2008: 1), this researchers have located the cause within
has caused public housing to deteriorate into public housing systems that concentrate
a social dumping ground that ‘collects the problem tenants into so-called ‘dump
excluded’. According to Lupton, such areas estates’. Only in limited cases has there been
also have a disproportionate share of special- any engagement with the concept of a
ist accommodation and services for homeless dumping ground on its own terms in order
people, people with mental health problems to shine a light on the problematic assump-
and those recently released from prison, tions and inferences that underpin it.
which further compounds the level of disad- What follows is an attempt to fill this gap
vantage and corresponding identity as a pro- by identifying the component features of the
blematic place. dumping ground. While the term has been
Finally, similar sets of discourses have used to describe a range of problematic
also been shown to circulate around the spaces, be they slums, public housing estates,
kinds of schools that children of these so- ghettoes or Aboriginal reserves, it is not
called dump estates attend. As Reay (2004; synonymous with any one of them nor, like
see also Reay, 2007; Reay and Lucey, 2003) these other terms, does it designate a specific
illustrates in her study of inner city schools urban formation. Rather, it is a metaphori-
in working class areas of London, not only cal device, a place-narrative, formulated
are the schools demonised as ‘rubbish from a range of assumptions and assertions
dumps’ and ‘shit heaps’, but the children about the way spaces are made and used,
who attend them are defined in equally dero- that becomes a social fact with real and
gatory terms, as expelled waste: material effects when it is said often enough
and enacted by those in power (Shields,
Through metaphors of waste, refuse and rejec- 1991).
tion, demonized schools also become reposi- In beginning this unpacking process, a
tories for ‘stupid’ and ‘thick’ pupils – the ones
useful starting place is a conventional dic-
that the ‘good’ schools do not want. (Reay,
2004: 1011)
tionary definition where a dumping ground
is ‘a place where rubbish or unwanted mate-
rial is left’. Most apparent from this defini-
Unwanted populations, tion is the inference that populations are
undesirable spaces: Power, reducible to the status of ‘rubbish’ or
‘unwanted material’. The first aspect of the
mobility and fear of the ‘other’
dumping ground, then, is that it involves the
From the studies described above, it is clear identification and labelling of groups as having
that the dumping group metaphor is no discernible function, such that they are

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Cheshire and Zappia 5

conceived as unwanted waste or detritus whose concentrations of public housing, high

only destiny is to be discarded or dumped. This unemployment, complex social problems,
idea has been developed most extensively by high crime and perceptions of anti-social
Bauman (2004), although Wacquant’s (1993, behaviour. These are the places that people
1999, 2008) discussion of a new regime of with the means to do so avoid, rendering
urban marginality also incorporates the cre- them a neighbourhood of both last resort
ation of ‘urban outcasts’ as a by-product of and first choice for those with no alternative.
this regime. Bauman argues that an inevita- Second, in what Bauman (2003: 101) calls
ble outcome of the global project of moder- the ‘new hierarchy of domination’, only
nity is the creation of a redundant and some neighbourhoods have the power to
surplus population – the unemployed and resist the in-flow of unwanted populations.
unemployable, the refugee, the welfare- For neighbourhoods at the lowest end of the
dependent and other members of equally hierarchy, this social off-loading is difficult
marginalised groups – who are unable to ful- to contest, not only because residents lack
fil their obligations as either producers or the resources to mobilise or be heard, but
consumers in a consumer society. Marked also because they are already so stigmatised
as ‘functionless’, ‘superfluous’ and ‘redun- that the addition of yet more ‘rubbish’ is
dant’, these are the leftover populations unlikely to be noticed or yield complaint.
that Wacquant (1999) sees as rendered sur- Further, designated dumping grounds are
plus to requirement by advanced capitalism often selected as much for their abundance
and abandoned by an increasingly residua- of institutional infrastructure as they are
lised welfare system. While their inability to for their stigmatisation and marginalisation.
reciprocate or contribute to society bestows This may seem incongruous with the notion
on them a low social value, it is their identi- of a dumping ground, but even in countries
fication as a burden on the state’s already with a residualised welfare system, such as
scarce resources that causes their rights to Australia, the US and Canada (Esping-
societal membership to be challenged Anderson, 1990), it is rare for surplus popula-
(Reidpath et al., 2005) and for their status tions to be banished to a governmental void
as outcasts to be legitimised and institutio- and left to fend for themselves. Instead, they
nalised. Unwanted, and no longer guaran- are channelled into areas with cheap housing,
teed sympathy or support for their plight, community services, economic development
these groups have become a problem in projects, neighbourhood renewal initiatives,
need of a solution. employment and training programmes and
The second feature of a dumping ground similar projects, all of which are designed to
relates to this management issue, beginning turn a functionless and redundant population
with the question of where they might be into a contributing and respectable sector of
accommodated. The selection and designa- society, even if it remains poor (Osborne and
tion of particular areas as dump site destina- Rose, 1999). Often described as ‘service rich’
tions is not an accidental process, but is or even ‘over-serviced’, dumping grounds
based on the classification and selection of thus serve three functions. First as processing
city areas or neighbourhoods as suitable sites for society’s outcasts; second as places
spaces for the containment of unwanted of reinstatement where lives can be given
social groups. This suitability derives from renewed meaning, allowing those who reform
several characteristics. The first is the prior to ‘springboard’ into mainstream society and
labelling and stigmatisation of these areas as a better neighbourhood (Musterd and van
undesirable places to live by virtue of their Kempen, 2007); and finally as spaces where

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6 Urban Studies

those beyond help can be immobilised and external actors and processes rather than to
contained. the internal dynamics of the place and its
The third feature is one of mobility and incumbent residents. The construction of a
the idea that problem populations are discourse around the active ‘dumping’ of
exported into disadvantaged areas. This is problematic populations into an otherwise
based on an inference that so-called human ‘normal’ area may thus assist residents in
waste is externally, rather than internally, shrugging off any stigma by association.
produced and that, regardless of the prior A fourth observation unpacks the mobi-
circumstances of dumping grounds (difficult lity theme further by highlighting the pres-
as they may be), it is this importation of rub- ence of power relations that are thought to be
bish that causes, or at least compounds, in operation whenever problem populations
their problems. Wacquant (1993: 369), for are ‘dumped’. Implicit in the act of dumping
example, describes inhabitants’ indignation is the exercise of power by some actor or
at being stuck in a place conceived as a gar- agency that selects the groups to be dumped,
bage can. Whatever they were before, it is the spaces in which they are to be offloaded
the dumping of unwanted populations into and the mechanisms through which this pro-
these areas that cements the sense of aliena- cess of reordering occurs. Such observations
tion, marginality and stigma experienced by reflect recent debates among mobility scho-
those who live there. The basis of this per- lars about the way mobility is bound up in
ception is twofold. First, it is evident that the production and exercise of power
advanced capitalism has increased the rate (Cresswell, 2010; Hannam et al., 2006)
and scale of mobility in urban spaces, where power is exercised more by those who
including among disadvantaged and immi- make choices about mobility – including the
grant groups who relocate for low-skilled mobility of others – than by those who exhi-
jobs, housing and support networks. Given bit mobility, particularly when that mobility
the precariousness of their economic circum- is controlled and enforced or, at the least,
stances, it is invariable that they end up in acquiesced (Wiesel, 2014). As demonstrated
the poorer and more undesirable neighbour- later, local references to dumping grounds
hoods where housing is cheapest and the often allude to an omnipotent ‘they’ who are
requisite services are available (Musterd and endowed with the authority to sort and
Deurloo, 2002). mobilise problem populations. While it can
At the same time, there is a discursive broadly be inferred that this means the
aspect to this notion of the mobile ‘other’ ‘state’ or the ‘government’, governmentality
whose arrival brings trouble to otherwise theorists remind us that power is rarely exer-
tolerable places. As studies on the manage- cised as a single orchestrated activity by a
ment of stigma have shown, inhabitants of sovereign ‘state’ power. Rather, as Gill
neighbourhoods tarnished with a negative (2009) and Darling (2011) have demon-
reputation often adopt various discursive strated, mobility is governed through a con-
strategies to contest or evade the imposed stellation of decentred and localised
blemish in order that it be transferred to techniques, actors and agencies. Aside from
‘others’, but not ‘us’ and to ‘there’, but not ‘state’ actors, this includes accommodation
‘here’ (Hastings, 2004; Wacquant, 2007; providers, support workers and charitable
Watt, 2006). For autochthonous inhabi- organisations who ‘manage . [problem
tants, the stigma of living in a place that is populations], make decisions about them,
widely viewed as undesirable can be partially ensure their well-being and advocate or
managed by attributing the problem to demonstrate on their behalf’ (Gill, 2009:

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Cheshire and Zappia 7

187). While the intention of these agencies and fine-grained than previously thought
may well be to support vulnerable popula- and patterns of residential differentiation are
tions, they nevertheless operate within a net- highly influenced by the institutional, cul-
work of power that conspires to spatially fix tural and historical contexts of individual
them in designated and governable spaces. countries (Musterd and Deurloo, 2002). In
These practices are seldom coercive, particular, Musterd and Deurloo (2002: 502)
though, and rarely are problem populations point out that the ghettoisation of poor and
forcibly rounded up and transported to an ethnic minorities is far less pronounced in
incarcerated environment unless they are European countries than in the US, with the
thought to have breached some codified law. effect that ‘socio-spatial contrasts turn out
Instead, power is most effective when it to be more moderate and spatial patterns
involves a reshaping of subjectivities and turn out to be relatively dynamic’, especially
mobility interests, such that mobility is seen among those who are less affluent (Musterd,
as an exercise of volition and freedom (Gill, 2005). What this means is that the territorial
2009). In effect, any study of the processes exclusion of redundant or undesirable popu-
through which problem populations are lations is not immutable. Rather, residential
dumped should not limit itself to a search ‘dump sites’ are located perilously close to
for the actors or institutions who actively otherwise respectable working class neigh-
direct and enforce their movement, but also bourhoods, forming part of ‘a finely-
examine the indirect drivers or mechanisms differentiated congery of ‘‘micro-locales’’’
that shape the choices available to them, (Wacquant, 1993: 369) which may be sepa-
albeit from a limited range of options. These rated only by arterial roads or rail lines
mechanisms may include the provision of (Forster, 2006). Contamination of one space
affordable housing, services for the disad- can readily transmit to another.
vantaged, low-skilled jobs and ready-made As a result, incumbent residents can be
ethnic networks that draw minority groups fiercely defensive of their neighbourhood
into particular areas and, perhaps unwit- and anxious about what they see as an
tingly, offer a vehicle for their regulation unstoppable flow of minority, unemployed
and containment. and undesirable groups. This anxiety may
The final feature of contemporary dump- stem from two sources. The first, as noted,
ing grounds is the anxiety they generate relates to concerns about the effects of a
among the incumbent population about the stigma by association and the potential
effects of living alongside those considered impacts on property values, local business
undesirable and even more disadvantaged than investment and resident employment pros-
they. These anxieties, as Bauman (2004: 71) pects if their neighbourhood is tarnished
recounts, are heightened by the need for with a reputation for accommodating the
localities to find their own local solutions to most marginal and troublesome. But there
the (global) problem of human waste, which may also be a broader process at work,
cannot be quarantined in some distant loca- which Bannister and Kearns (2013) identify
tion but ‘stays inside and rubs shoulders with as a reduction in the willingness of (urban)
the ‘‘useful’’ and ‘‘legitimate’’ rest’. Where populations to engage with the ‘other’, and a
global city theorists have posited that eco- concomitant increase in fear of those consid-
nomic restructuring has sharpened inequality ered different or dysfunctional. This is par-
and divided cities along ethnic, occupational ticularly so if these groups are encountered
and class lines (Sassen, 1991; Walks, 2001), within the familiar and parochial space of
the ‘social ecology’ of cities is more complex one’s neighbourhood and not simply in

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8 Urban Studies

urban public spaces where contact with and resentment among incumbent popula-
strangers and difference is altogether more tions at having these people ‘dumped’ on
expected and fleeting. While Young (2007) their doorstep.
and others (Atkinson, 2006) have illustrated
how fear of the other manifests among afflu-
ent groups through a desire to maintain The research setting and methodology
social and spatial distance from those who The city of Logan, located half way between
pose risks to their prosperity, low-income Brisbane and the Gold Coast in south-east
groups may be more resentful of other mino- Queensland, is the sixth largest local govern-
rities (especially immigrants), through fear ment area in Australia with an estimated
they will compete for scarce resources and 2012 population of 293,485 (Australian
further reduce their already vulnerable situa- Bureau of Statistics, 2011). The city is ethni-
tion (Bilodeau and Fadol, 2011; Watt, 2006). cally diverse in terms of the proportion of
residents from non-English-speaking back-
Destination dumping ground: The grounds (26.8% in 2011) and the absolute
number of ethnic groups represented within
case of Logan, Queensland this figure (some boast of Logan accommo-
Combined, these five observations encapsu- dating 215 different ethnicities while others
late the mechanisms by which already disad- see this as the source of Logan’s problems).
vantaged neighbourhoods are viewed as A freeway running from north to south dis-
convenient sites for the disposal of the poor- sects the city in half, both spatially and
est and most undesirable populations by socially. Whereas the eastern side contains
those with the power to orchestrate this the city’s commercial areas and affluent sub-
social and spatial sorting, and their subse- urbs, the western side hosts areas of signifi-
quent effects upon and within those spaces. cant disadvantage and public housing,
In the remainder of this paper, these ele- including three of the most disadvantaged
ments are illustrated through a case study of suburbs: Logan Central, Kingston and
Logan City in Queensland, Australia, where Woodridge. These are also the most stigma-
the moniker of a dumping ground has been tised suburbs and are often held accountable
powerfully articulated, both as a means of for Logan’s poor identity and social prob-
insult by outsiders who look upon the city lems. In the early 1970s, the Queensland
with derision, and as a form of complaint Housing Commission built significant stocks
among residents and political figures about of public housing in Logan for low-income
the settlement of unwanted populations in families. Some 40 years on, as policy deter-
their city. Drawing on the framework above, mines public housing be available only to
the analysis examines five core issues that those with the most complex needs, the
relate to residents’ construction of Logan as legacy is a concentration of social disadvan-
a dumping ground: first, an understanding tage in these suburbs. Census data, for
of which groups are seen to constitute the example, place Logan Central within the
human rubbish that Logan collects; second, lowest decile of disadvantaged suburbs in
an explanation of why Logan has been the Brisbane Metropolitan Area while data
selected for this purpose; third and fourth, from the Queensland Department of
questions of power and mobility relating to Housing and Public Works (2012) indicate
the mechanisms through which problem that 80% of all households managed by the
populations are thought to be exported to Woodridge Housing Service rely on welfare
Logan; and finally expressions of anxiety as their principal source of income. A small

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Cheshire and Zappia 9

number of high-profile crimes in these sub- personnel) or because they had been recom-
urbs have also captured national attention mended as such by others. Second, three
in recent years and further served to brand focus groups with a total of 34 local resi-
the entire city as an unsafe place to live. dents were held. Participants were recruited
While the geography of disadvantage in through local community organisations and
Logan, as with all cities, is spatially uneven with the assistance of the Logan City
and concentrated in particular neighbour- Council which sent an invitation to 100 ran-
hoods, the stigma attached to this disadvan- domly selected local residents. Those who
tage is not contained within these areas, but agreed participate were diverse in terms of
impacts upon the whole city. The slang word age and ethnicity, although women domi-
‘bogan’, meaning an uncouth person of low nated by approximately four to one. That
social status, has obvious alliterative appeal most were long-term residents of 20 years or
as a catch-term for all that is wrong with more is likely to explain the veracity with
Logan and illustrates the stereotyping and which they expressed their views about
stigma that the city frequently faces. This is neighbourhood change and the presence of
a source of considerable consternation problematic populations. A much smaller
among residents of the affluent, eastern sub- proportion of interviewees presented dissent-
urbs who point out that Logan is not a sin- ing views although they tended to be local
gle (disadvantaged) suburb, but a diverse service providers who worked with ethnic
city containing neighbourhoods with million minority and refugee groups. As well as
dollar homes. While residents of these sub- highlighting the benefits to Logan of accom-
urbs campaign to have them reclassified as modating disadvantaged groups, they also
part of the more respectable neighbouring contested the dumping ground label itself on
shire of Redlands (Courier Mail, 2014; the grounds that it was foolish to portray the
Ticket to Redlands, 2013), the city council city in such negative terms.
has sought to enact various initiatives to
revitalise Logan’s more disadvantaged areas
and promote the positive features of the city
‘Our neighbourhood has become a
as a whole. dumping ground’
A number of data sources were utilised Frequently denigrated by its bogan tag,
for this paper. The first was a review of all Logan suffers from an externally-imposed
demographic and documentary material stigma of undesirability based on percep-
from local and state governments and not- tions of the city as crime ridden, ‘full of no-
for-profit organisations on the kinds of hopers’ and ‘the dumping ground of
problems Logan is seen to face, where they Queensland’. In large part, residents’
are most concentrated, and what sorts of responses to these stereotypes are fairly typi-
initiatives are enacted to address them. cal and range from outright rejection of
Following this, primary data were generated what they see as inaccurate and unfair jud-
through two sources. First, interviews were gements to distantiation involving accep-
held with 19 local stakeholders from key tance of external critiques, but only as they
organisations such as government agencies, apply to others (Hastings, 2004; Wacquant,
schools, the not-for-profit sector, police/jus- 2010). Often, there is little to distinguish the
tice and housing providers. Participants internal derivatives of place from those that
were selected for inclusion either because circulate externally, but they function in very
they were readily identified as central figures different ways. Whereas non-local proclama-
in a given field (such as key local council tions of Logan as a dumping ground are

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10 Urban Studies

intended as an insult to the place, local resi- thought to occupy as society’s most
dents use the same language as a defence unwanted and undesirable social groups.
mechanism by attributing the source of the Indeed, in the excerpts above, focus group
city’s problems to external processes and residents explain that the reason these new
actors. The following excerpts illustrate how arrivals are troublesome is because they are
the dumping ground metaphor is deployed ‘immigrants’, because there are ‘too many of
in this way: them’ and because they have been sent to
Logan because more affluent and desirable
Resident A: It’s been the dumping ground. neighbourhoods do not want them. The per-
[Name of politician] will tell you that our ceived need to stop this influx of migrants
Federal and State governments have not stood was articulated more forcefully in the fol-
and done the right thing by Logan. It is the lowing exchange which echoes Australian
dumping ground and [Name of politician] will government policy mandates to ‘stop the
be the first to say it. Too many people, too fast boats’, meaning stopping the practice of asy-
and they tried to slow it down and they got lum seekers being smuggled into Australia
opposition because they needed somewhere to by boat:
put a lot of people and that’s just where they
all put them. Into Logan. Resident C: Do you think we need a rabbit
fence? Like they have out West? Don’t let any
Resident B: The most housing commission more people in?
around Brisbane is in Logan, so that’s where
Group: [Laughter]
they’re going to put the people in the housing.
Resident D: No! Stop the boats!
Resident A: Exactly, that’s my point.
Resident C: We should be able to say, shut the
Resident B: It’s not the fault of the people, it’s gate we’ve had enough!
the fault of the government.
To some extent, these views about immi-
The worst thing they ever did in Woodridge grant arrivals reflect Logan’s status as a
was put up all those [public housing] units. multicultural city with a large mix of ethnic
Like one after the other in 1973. It’s like we groups. However, its 27% overseas-born
get everyone from overseas . I’m an population is not large compared to urban
Australian citizen now but it’s like what do areas in Sydney that have proportions
you do? . Chuck everyone here. I mean what of over 40%, or considering that 55% of
do you expect is going to happen? Yeah right. Logan’s immigrants are from English
Come on, go into the affluent areas. You
speaking countries (Australian Bureau of
know, chuck them over there. (Resident)
Statistics, 2011). Instead, they are most
The focus should be on the first people of this likely a reflection of the fact that a signifi-
nation. Logan seems to be the dumping cant proportion of newly-arrived migrants
ground for immigration. (ABC Local Radio, into Logan in recent years are refugees and
2009) humanitarian visa holders. A recent report
by Hugo and Harris (2013) observed that
While the first quote suggests that Logan is among the 25 fastest growing urban regions
suffering the effects of rapid population in Australia, Logan is shouldering the greatest
growth, the suggestion that this has rendered burden of humanitarian visa holders (20% of
the city a dumping ground makes it clear Queensland’s intake) relative to its share of
that the problem is not the sheer volume of the state population (6.3%). More acutely,
new arrivals, but the categories they are 47% of all immigrants to Logan are a

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Cheshire and Zappia 11

Settlement Target Group, meaning that they also become the most repellent and conten-
are eligible for a range of settlement services tious in the search for local solutions to this
on the basis of being permanent settlers with global problem with their presence generat-
low English literacy and hence poorly inte- ing fears about challenges to national secu-
grated into the community (Hugo and Harris, rity and social cohesion (McAdam, 2013).
2013). In order to ensure the requisite services For places selected to collect such an objec-
are readily available to these groups, the for- tionable group, questions arise as to why
mer Federal Department of Immigration and they have been chosen.
Citizenship (DIAC) earmarked certain areas Generally, it is typical for newly-arrived
as designated settlement regions for refugees migrants, including refugees, to settle in
and humanitarian visa holders. Logan, as one areas with a ready supply of cheap and
such area, has been receiving these groups vacant housing, as well as the requisite social
since 2005 (Harte, 2010). and community services to ease the settle-
The view that there are ‘too many of ment process (Colic-Peisker and Tilbury,
them’, then, does not apply to the majority 2008). Inevitably, the spatial logic of urban
Anglo-Saxon migrant population, but to the capitalism dictates that these areas are likely
non-white asylum seeker who has been dis- to be spaces of existing disadvantage and
proportionately offloaded into Logan. For low desirability. In Logan, residents and sta-
Hage, (1998: 38 emphasis in original), ‘cate- keholders understood this logic and justified
gories such as ‘‘too many’’. are primarily Logan’s selection as a reception area for
categories of spatial management’, meaning newly arrived humanitarian migrants on the
that those who claim dominance over the pragmatic basis that it contained many of
national space by virtue of their Whiteness the elements required for such a role:
see themselves as having the right to assert a
‘managerialist gaze’ over that space and That’s why DIAC picked us. Low cost accom-
determine how the non-white ‘other’ can modation, close to the city, lots of low paid
access and move around in it. As the first jobs. (State housing provider)
quote above illustrates, the promulgation of As controversial as that may be in the media
these discourses appears to have begun with at the moment, this is one of the location areas
city officials who have bestowed them with [for refugees and humanitarian entrants]. So
an air of authority and shaped ‘the percep- we’ll have those people coming in here and
tual field . through which citizens position slowly increasing the population of the city .
their own views, orientations and actions’ Because we have high incidence of rental hous-
(Darling, 2013: 1791). In Hage’s view, resi- ing, government housing, here, then they’ll be
relocated to this area. (Police/justice)
dents’ assertions that they ‘should be able to
say ‘‘enough’’’ suggests their power to do so
In addition, there was a perception that the
is weakening and it is the loss of privilege to
selection of Logan to host refugees went
control their country that has prompted this
beyond mere institutional logics and
fear and resentment to emerge. In Hage’s
occurred because Logan was a place that did
analysis, this worry encompasses multicul-
not matter and was already so poorly
turalism in all its non-white forms, but there
ranked that the addition of yet more detritus
are some groups, such as asylum seekers,
would hardly make a difference:
who are deemed more harmful than others.
In Bauman’s (2004) schema, not only are Interviewee: I think it’s somewhere in the order
asylum seekers the exemplar of a globally- of 24 per cent or something like that come
created human waste problem, but they have through Logan.

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12 Urban Studies

Interviewer: Why’s that? Do you know? Or do there would seem to be a degree of volition
you have an idea? and agency among refugees in selecting
where they live regardless of where they are
Interviewee: Oh, it’s ‘chuck them in there.
initially settled, although the earlier point
They [the people of Logan] wouldn’t know the
about power operating through the shaping
bloody difference’. Why wouldn’t you?
of individual subjectivities continues to
(Business representative)
apply.
In all the excerpts so far, there is a sense In turning, then, to the perceived effects
among research participants that the process upon Logan of playing host to the undesir-
of exporting low-income immigrant groups able populations who have been unwittingly
to the city is a deliberately orchestrated one dumped into it, there are two observations.
and that there are clearly identifiable actors The first is that even as residents acknowl-
who are responsible for it. As outlined ear- edge the various social problems Logan is
lier, the idea that groups or individuals can known to encounter – ethnic conflict, crime,
be ‘chucked’ into particular areas implies a anti-social behaviour and high unemploy-
set of power relations whereby power is ment – they consider these to have been gen-
exercised by those with the authority to erated by the problematic migrant
decide who goes where, often at the expense communities who have been dumped there
of the populations to be discarded and the rather than by an autochthonous popula-
residents of areas forced to accept them. In tion. As outlined earlier, this may be a dis-
some of the quotations, there is reference to cursive tactic deployed by residents from
an abstract ‘they’ as a set of sovereign actors ‘respectable’ social groups in otherwise
explicitly responsible for Logan’s poor treat- ‘respectable’ neighbourhoods to allow them
ment. Others are more specific and identify to distinguish themselves from more proble-
federal and state governments as being at matic populations and neighbourhoods and
fault while expressing sympathy for those cast off any stigma that might stick to them
who have been dumped on their doorstep, simply because they live in Logan (see Watt,
troublesome as they may be. This apportion- 2006 for a similar argument in a UK council
ing of blame is even more straightforward housing estate). The quotes below illustrate
when residents can directly attribute their the way these discourses operate, not only to
woes to a particular agency, such as the attribute blame for Logan’s troubles to the
Department of Immigration and Citizenship migrant communities themselves (i.e. that
which targeted Logan through an explicit set they are the outcome of inter-ethnic conflict
of policies. But in many cases, the mechan- between migrant groups), but also to nor-
isms for funnelling problem populations into malise the ensuing social problems by sug-
problem areas are neither direct, nor easy to gesting that affluent suburbs would
attribute to a single actor, particularly when encounter these same problems if the
they are seen to pull, rather than push, migrants had been dumped there instead.
migrants into those places. In Logan’s case,
They [migrants] cause trouble amongst them-
the large numbers of humanitarian visa
selves and with other cultures that come from
holders are as much the outcome of second- overseas somewhere. That’s where the problem
ary migration by migrants themselves in the is. (Resident)
search for affordable housing, local services
and ethnic community networks as they are Resident E: But I do think there’s 200 and
of initial resettlement programmes enacted something different nationalities in Woodridge
by the state (Harte, 2010). In this sense, . I think that’s a shame. I mean we are all

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Cheshire and Zappia 13

different but I think to put all that many people any advancement by minority groups is per-
in one place – if you took that many people and ceived to occur at the expense of the incum-
dropped them in St Lucia1 what would happen? bent and dominant white majority (Bilodeau
and Fadol, 2011). In particular, as Colic-
Resident F: Oh yes.
Peisker and Tilbury (2008: 42) report, when
Resident E: They’d have big problems it comes to refugee groups, there is an
wouldn’t they? assumption that they are welfare-dependent
‘and therefore in competition with the more
Resident F: Yeah.
legitimate/deserving native born’. In Logan,
Resident E: I mean we can’t help but have a this was most frequently expressed through
few problems here with so many different peo- the view that public housing was now largely
ple. I mean you can’t live like that. inhabited by refugee groups while other,
supposedly more legitimate, households lan-
Second is the point made earlier about the
guished on decade-long waiting lists (see also
anxieties created among those whose neigh-
Watt, 2006 for a similar argument). This is
bourhoods become home to populations
despite the fact that refugee groups fail to fit
ejected or unwanted from elsewhere. With
the ‘priority needs category’ required for
research showing that the taint of living in a
public housing eligibility unless they have
stigmatised area has real and profound
other problems such as poor mental health
effects (Link and Phelan, 2001; Permentier
(Harte, 2010). Nevertheless, both residents
et al., 2007; Wacquant, 1993), and that the and service providers acknowledged that
arrival of new migrants into already disad- one of the fundamental sources of resent-
vantaged areas can actually exacerbate exist- ment towards refugees was the belief that
ing levels of deprivation (at least in the short they received the bulk of housing and other
term) (Phillimore and Goodson, 2006), it forms of social support while ‘Australians’
may be unfair to cast judgement on what were left to struggle:
appears an intolerance among Logan resi-
dents for more vulnerable social groups, or
to reduce their anxieties to a simple fear of But what I find is that the other kids are
the other. going, ‘Oh they get rent paid for a year for
nothing living there. They get all their food
For those who are affluent, the means to
provided for one year. They get AUS$25,000
separate themselves from undesirable groups a year per family and in that year they’ve got
are more readily available and the creation to find a job. But why are they getting the
of dumping grounds may work to their housing? Why are they getting all the white
advantage by containing groups who may goods? Why are they getting free accommoda-
otherwise blight their own neighbourhoods. tion and why are they getting the food paid
But for low socio-economic groups, middle- for and they’re living like that when the
class homogeneity is not an option and the Australians are struggling and don’t have
arrival of populations who are even more accommodation.’ (Resident)
needy and disadvantaged than they can gen-
. yet the policies – and they have to target
erate fears of scarce resources being reallo-
specific groups, because specific groups will
cated elsewhere. What scholars have termed
have specific needs – but that runs the risk of
‘conflict theory’ helps explain this by sug- fragmenting the community into thinking,
gesting that negative attitudes towards eth- ‘Well, the refugees get this, why don’t the pen-
nic minorities are more likely to arise in sioners?’ (NGO community worker/service
ethnically diverse places like Logan because provider)

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14 Urban Studies

This discourse of Logan serving as a dump- Conclusion

ing ground for problematic asylum seeker
The aims of this paper have been twofold.
groups is easily the most dominant form of
The first was to place under the spotlight a
place narrative that circulates in Logan, not
metaphor that is frequently used to describe
only because it coincides with, and unwit-
neighbourhoods that have become home to
tingly reinforces, externally imposed repre-
some of the most marginalised and vulnera-
sentations of Logan as a dumping ground,
ble social groups in the advanced western
but also because of the legitimacy bestowed
world. Whatever national variations exist in
upon it by claims that it is shared by political
the social and ethnic composition of these
leaders. Drawing on Shields (1991: 261), this
neighbourhoods, in the mechanisms that
grants such narratives with ‘a degree of
produce them, or in their physical location
robustness, despite internal schisms and
on the outskirts of city regions or inner-city
margins of opposition, which allows them to
estates, there is a sense that the creation of
be treated as social facts’. But this does not
deprived and marginal urban spaces has its
mean that claims of Logan’s dumping
own logic and that the ‘dumping ground’ is
ground status are subject to no opposition at
now a permanent feature of the urban land-
all. While promulgated mainly by those who
scape. While frequently used as a term of
work closely with Logan’s refugee groups,
derision by outsiders who fail to appreciate
and expressed more privately through inter-
the debilitating effects of poverty, stigma
view, alternative views are advanced by
and social exclusion experienced in these
some who reject the labelling of asylum see-
localities, its adoption by residents as a form
kers as a problem for Logan and question
of defence against external judgement, and
the wisdom of describing the city in such
as an explanation for what has gone wrong,
pejorative terms. During interview, for
suggests that there is more to this concept
example, one local service provider vehe-
than flippant insult. Indeed, as has been
mently rejected Logan’s dumping ground
shown here, bound up in the concept of the
narrative on the grounds that it was dama-
dumping ground are a range of complex
ging for the city to internally validate a nega-
issues and assumptions that have not previ-
tive, externally-imposed label and that it was
ously been articulated or explored.
misguided to view refugees as harmful to
In unpacking this metaphor more thor-
Logan when their presence created so much
oughly, this paper has identified five key fea-
economic activity for the city.
tures. First, and drawing on Bauman (2004),
I think even from our highest levels within
is the constitution of people as waste or det-
Logan, people are actually not talking the ritus with lives that have become so mean-
right language to talk up [Logan] . That’s ingless and useless that their only fate is to
not the terminology and in fact it’s wrong; I be discarded. Second, is the need to accom-
mean it’s just wrong. There’s no way of dis- modate this form of waste within city areas
guising it, it’s not a mistake, it’s just wrong . and the logic by which places are selected,
To call us a dumping ground. There is so much such that it is inevitable they should be
economic benefit for what we do with the neighbourhoods already experiencing pov-
immigration and how we handle things here erty, stigma and exclusion where the dump-
that people just don’t realise that you take
ing of more rubbish will hardly be noticed.
away the biggest employer. We are generating
tens of millions to Logan, tens of millions – no Third, are the mechanisms by which the spa-
one looks at that. (NGO community worker/ tial sorting of undesirable populations
service provider) occurs and the mobility this entails as

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Cheshire and Zappia 15

problem populations are moved to their features of their presence in Logan, but the
‘rightful’ place where they can be contained language of the dumping ground endures.
away from affluent areas. Fourth, is the exis- But Logan is only one place and while its
tence of relations of power which enforce or experiences may resonate with other disad-
encourage these ‘mobilities of disadvantage’ vantaged city areas outside Australia, fur-
(Wiesel, 2014), either indirectly through the ther empirical work is needed to refine and
operation of housing and employment mar- test the conceptual framework offered here.
kets which have a magnet effect in drawing In what other ways, for example, is the
disadvantaged groups to disadvantaged dumping ground metaphor used, and in
places, or more obviously through deliberate what other contexts? What processes, other
policies that intentionally place them there. than the ones observed here, are bound up
Finally, there are the effects upon the neigh- in its construction and adoption? How is it
bourhoods themselves of being compelled to contested, negotiated and resisted more
host undesirable groups and the reactions of effectively by other local stakeholders who
incumbent residents in being forced to hold alternative, and potentially competing,
accept, and live alongside, the other. While visions of how their cities and neighbour-
the anxieties this breeds are indicative of a hoods should be, including those that strive
wider loss of tolerance to those who are dif- to make them more inclusive of difference
ferent (Bannister and Kearns, 2013) and an and socially just? And, perhaps most impor-
inability to control where they are placed tantly, when is it not used? When is the pres-
(Hage, 1998), its presence among low- ence of difference and disadvantage not
income groups may also be fuelled by a sense viewed as an insult or imposition; when new
of injustice, not only that they – and not arrivals are made to feel welcome rather
affluent populations – have been dumped than resented; and when low-income areas
on, but also that those who have been foisted do not feel that they alone have to accom-
upon them might be receiving more in the modate the city’s outcasts? While the con-
way of assistance. struction of cities as embodying particular
The second aim of this paper was to apply moral values that render them sites of sanc-
this concept in an empirical setting, both as a tuary or hospitality for asylum seekers and
means of illustrating and testing its utility, refugees has been subject to critique for the
but also as a way of understanding how resi- tendency to demarcate between ‘deserving
dents conceive and respond to external pro- and legitimate’ asylum seekers who should
cesses of urban change over which they have be welcomed, and those who, by means of
no control. Rather than confirming external their illegitimate arrival or intent, should not
stereotypes of their city as low-class and (see Darling, 2010, 2013), the willingness of
crime-ridden, residents of Logan City draw some cities to adopt a more progressive
on the dumping ground metaphor for differ- approach to asylum seeker settlement by
ent purposes – in this case to account for the reframing their own identity as welcoming
problems Logan faces; to attribute responsi- of asylum seekers and engaging in wider
bility to those who have orchestrated this political debate about asylum seeker policy
outcome (usually government); and to has been viewed a positive step (see Malpass
explain why, even though they may feel pity et al., 2007 for a similar argument around
for their new neighbours, they are unhappy ethical consumption campaigns). As resi-
about their presence. Stakeholders who work dents and stakeholders of cities and neigh-
with these new arrivals attempt to counter bourhoods formulate local narratives and
such claims and highlight the positive cultures of place, how can we support the

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16 Urban Studies

former while engaging critically with the lat- Atkinson R and Jacobs K (2008) Public housing
ter, including in Logan where an alternative, in Australia: Stigma, home and opportunity.
but still-marginal, place narrative that recog- Housing and Community Research Unit,
nises the virtue of the city’s diversity is strug- paper no. 1. University of Tasmania,
gling to be heard. These are bigger questions Australia.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2011) Census of
than can be answered here, but they ques-
population and housing: Basic community
tion the inevitability, rather than simply the
profiles: Logan City. Catalogue No. 2001.0,
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