Urban perceptions of tree-change migration

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article discusses urban residents’ familiarisation and conceptualisation of the Australian ex-urban migration trend “tree-change”. Urban residents from Sydney, Australia were surveyed and asked whether they were familiar with the term tree-change and to nominate imagery and locations considered to reflect a tree-change move. Many survey respondents were not familiar with the term tree-change, but had little difficulty understanding the concept after brief prompting. Tree-change was linked with the visuality of the rural idyll through selecting imagery such as green vistas and heritage facades. Places nominated by survey respondents as tree-change locations were mostly proximal to Sydney, or large regional centres . These findings suggest that representations of tree-change are being received by urban residents, but urban residents’ familiarity with rural and regional Australia is low. This article highlights the place-specific nature of ex-urban and lifestyle migration, suggesting a “one size fits all” theoretical approach is ineffective.