Abstract: The paper follows calls to examine the everyday, micro-level interactions between migrants and city spaces to better understand how more inclusive cities can be achieved (Amin, 2002; Caglar and Glick Schiller, 2011; Ehrkamp, 2005). The discussion addresses the often-neglected site of public space in suburbia, and argues that there is a need to better theorise urban citizenship, socio-cultural diversity and the role of public space in the transformation of suburban settings. The paper draws on doctoral research exploring place-making practices of recent migrants in a multicultural suburb in Sydney, Australia. More specifically, it examines the role of new residents in the production of local public spaces, which are framed as shifting configurations of multiple actors, representations, governing narratives and everyday practices. This paper uses the example of the redevelopment of one public space – a pedestrianised mall – in the highly diverse suburb of Campsie, Sydney to examine the gaps between different representations and uses of the space for local planners/public officials and local migrant residents. It is argued that studying everyday modes of inhabiting suburban public spaces is important to understand how these spaces are constitutive of forms of local belonging. Moreover, migrants’ everyday practices in public space are mediated through the local spatial articulations of discourses of multiculturalism and diversity, civicness and productive space use. By examining the differently located social actors and divergent narratives that produce a suburban public square in a multi-ethnic neighbourhood, the paper highlights different ideas about who constitutes the legitimate dweller in, and producer of, (multicultural) public space.