Correspondence: Fiona Haslam McKenzie, Director of the Housing and Urban Research Institute of Western Australia (HURIWA) Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia. e-mail: F.McKenzie@curtin.edu.au

¹is Adjunct Associate Professor, John Curtin Institute of Public Policy, and previously Research Associate at the Curtin Business School. Her academic background is in media, culture and society, with a communications-oriented Doctorate in international management and intercultural education. She has broad research and consulting experience in the international resource industry and services sectors, and sustainability. She has multifaceted analytical and interpretive capabilities, and her publications reflect an Asia Pacific regional interest.

²was a Curtin Research Fellow at the Curtin University Graduate School of Business, prior to her current appointment. She has extensive experience in population and socioeconomic change, regional economic development and analysis of regional and urban social indicators. She has published widely and undertaken work for all three tiers of government, both nationally and in Western Australia. She has undertaken research with the private and public sectors to develop solutions to often complex housing and planning challenges.

Received 2 September 2007; Revised 2 September 2007.

Abstract

In a global market context, with growing societal concern to address economic disparities, global climate change and perceptions of risk, the sustainable development agenda highlights the imperative for an industrial system that reconciles human values with those of the natural system. This transformative societal agenda elevates a more holistic and integrated notion of a 'competitive identity' place-branding strategy across the six societal areas of nation branding. This paper argues that understanding status quo culture is crucial to reframe interpretations of local strategy to this global transformative agenda. The paper focuses on the issue of housing and settlement in the remote and natural resource-rich Pilbara region of Western Australia to explore how longstanding 'British, frontier and mining industry company town' interpretive values prevail. The paper explores why this approach limits 'competitive identity' advantages and argues why a locally responsive and globally competitive cultural shift is needed to enable the Pilbara geo-region to meet its sustainable development aspirations. Transforming the prevailing approach to housing and settlement is essential to improve the place-branding performance of the Pilbara geo-region, indeed, the nation branding performance of Australia.