In her recently released essay Once Were Westies, sociologist Gabrielle Gwyther said that aspirational was initially a political term coined in the late 1990s to describe residents of Sydney's fringes who were taking advantage of easy credit and dual incomes.

Dr Gwyther said the word had been adopted by Sydney's well-heeled to describe what they viewed as the materialistic, selfish ``middle-class wannabes'' of suburbia, who were typically bored and bloated, and an assault on nature with their SUVs and ``McMansions''.

Dr Gwyther, a Casula resident, concluded: ``The disparaging of the aspirationals, at least in part, seems to be a response to this group attempting to move beyond its allocated social position ... perhaps it is a subconscious reaction by Sydney's more privileged citizens as they catch a disturbing glimpse of their own rapacious selves.''

Dr Gwyther said that one of the most common ways to deride aspirationals was through their preferred choice of housing the master-planned estates like Harrington Park and Greenway Park, which offer middle-class living in low-income regions.

``The idea of the aspirational and the McMansion are linked together,'' Dr Gwyther said, explaining she was inspired to write the essay as a response to architect-writer Elizabeth Farrelly's critique of sprawling Sydney, Blubberland.

```Aspirational' is used by people outside of western Sydney and with the same kind of moral undertone that was used with `westies' ... without an understanding of why people live in the way they do.

``Master-planned estates concentrate [aspirationals] in certain areas they are built for them.''

Dr Gwyther said that even though they were targeted towards aspirational families, it was difficult to predict whether the new master-planned estates of Sydney's north-west and south-west ``growth centres'' would be filled with them because of changing political forces over time and the possibility of recession.