Abstract: Brunswick is an inner-northern suburb of Melbourne, long a centre of leftist politics that is colloquially known by insiders as the ‘People’s Republic of Brunswick’. There is currently a high level of contestation over the approval of new multi-unit housing development. Based on interviews with residents who have been involved in resistance to such development, this paper explores the ways Brunswick is experienced and the characteristics of developments that are opposed. The defence of Brunswick is not primarily a NIMBY syndrome; residents are generally defending a broad sense of place and community rather than the amenity of their private property or immediate neighbourhood. This place has few boundaries or centres and is interpreted as a series of overlapping ‘fields care’. Large-scale development is seen to threaten the sense of community as sustained by certain building types and public/private interfaces. The urban character of Brunswick is widely described as a mix of different people (ages and ethnicities) linked to a mix of building types (houses, factories, flats) and functions (industry, commerce, retail, residential). While the planning scheme requires that neighbourhood character be protected, the somewhat inconsistent and chaotic mix that residents are trying to defend is paradoxically seen from the outside as a lack of urban character. Thus the mixed character that is so valued within Brunswick becomes an excuse for the Planning Tribunal to approve its transformation.