In Australian cities in the early 1970s certain sections of the trade union
movement banned work on inner-city construction projects considered detrim
ental to the urban environment: trade union 'black bans' were transformed i
nto so-called 'Green Bans: Associated with the union action was a ground sw
ell of resident opposition to demolition and redevelopment. There has been
much documentation of this important moment in Australian history: Green Ba
ns have been celebrated as a class-based urban social movement and as the b
irth of environmentalism in Australia. We begin the process of critically r
eevaluating Sydney's Green Bans, drawing on feminist-inspired reworkings of
publicity and privacy. In this cultural geography of the Green Bans we arg
ue that resident participation restructured the very terms of democracy and
, along with this, a range of citizens' rights. This reading shows that the
categories 'private' and 'public' are far from fixed: they are sociospatia
l categories that take a multitude of forms and configurations in time, in
process, across space.