Do sociologists have important things to say about social change?
In their update of An Australian Newtown (1972), Bryson and Winter return to the same Melbourne suburb to see how much life has changed between the 1960s and the 1990s, and how much it has stayed the same . The suburb dubbed Newtown was built by the Housing Commission on rural land on the fringe of Melbourne. In the 1960s, the suburb was home to mainly low-income blue collar families dependent on manufacturing industry. They had secure housing and were optimistic about life. Today, Bryson and Winter document, Newtown’s families are doing it hard . The single most important factor in this change is unemployment. The negative effects of global restructuring have meant unemployment of up to 20% and fear for the future. The car industry, employing 7000 in the 1960s, now employs 1000 people. Loss of economic power has meant a loss of political power, illustrated by the community being unable to resist the imposition of super-councils by the state government and the loss of key battles over
