FEDELE FRANZONI IS on the edge. He lives with his family in Hoppers Crossing, in the outer tract of Melbourne’s rapidly expanding western growth corridor. It’s a place like many on the fringes of Australia’s cities, where hopeful households have flocked in recent years chasing the promise of a better life enriched by the Australian dream of home ownership.

But Fedele Franzoni’s dream is souring. Escalating petrol prices and mortgage interest rates have pushed him to take on a second job to keep his family’s budget in the black. His edgy neighbours are slashing their spending to make ends meet. Holidays, entertainment, new appliances and health insurance have all been cut. “It’s just getting so hard,” he told the Herald Sun in May. “They say we live in the lucky country but that’s crap when people have to live like this.”[i]