Planning happy families: a history of the Naenae idea

Abstract

This thesis examines the planning and ideology behind the establishment of the Naenae state housing programmme which was initiated under the first Labour Government during the 1940s and shows how the planners of Naenae tried to inculcate a sense of community into a suburban environment which was fundamentally based on individualised family life. The first pan of the thesis investigates the origins of modern suburbia and the rise of garden city movement in Britain and New Zealand. It shows how these ideas were adopted by urban reformers who held an environmentally deterministic belief that social problems could be solved through an improved physical environment. The second component of the thesis analyses Labour's housing policy and its commitment to natalist policies which underlay its suburban-based-state housing programme. The third part of the thesis concentrates on Naenae itself, examining the spatial and social planning behind its establishment, and the tensions between the 'idea' and the 'reality' of Naenae. The thesis concludes by suggesting that the ideal of a privatised familial suburban environment ultimately had more resonance in the suburb of Naenae than the ideal of local community.