Abstract
S. Greer had found two different areas in the involvement of residents in their residential area in Los Angeles in the 1950s. The purpose of this paper is to confirm whether there exist such different areas in present-day large Western cities or not. For this purpose, I conducted a survey of women aged between 20 and 55 in two research areas in the suburbs of Melbourne in 1999. The analysis of the data revealed the following two points: Firstly, women in both research areas did not have much neighbourhood relationships and participated in very few groups. Therefore, I could not find such an area where residents were deeply involved in their residential area – an area which had existed in Greer’s Los Angeles study and Martin’s Adelaide study about 50 years ago. Secondly, the two research areas in Melbourne were different in terms of the geographical distribution of kinship and friendship relationships, the number of workmate relationships, the attendance to self-improvement classes, and the choice of their dwelling place. Involving themselves in near-by kinship networks and exploiting good facilities and services of the city, women in one area were devoted to their work and attended to self-improvement classes. Unlike women in that area, women in the other area enjoyed the good natural environment of their residential area. The difference in the “way of life” had changed since
Greer’s and Martin’s studies, because of the increase of workforce participation of women and the diffusion of
cars.
