Are All Apartments Equal? An Investigation of Contemporary Apartment Design Quality by Neighbourhood-Level Socioeconomic Disadvantage

Rapid increases in apartment construction have ignited concerns about design quality. Lower income populations could be disproportionately impacted by poor design as they are more likely to live in apartments and have fewer resources to mitigate design problems. We examined whether there was a socioeconomic gradient in contemporary apartment design by measuring the implementation of quantifiable policy-specific requirements in buildings (n = 172) sampled from relatively low, mid, and high socioeconomic neighbourhoods within Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth. Findings suggest the presence (or absence) of detailed policy instruments interacts with local market conditions to impact apartment design quality.