The Neighbourhood in Pieces: The Fragmentation of Local Public Space in a Swedish Housing Area

New article written together with Johan Wirdelöv in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research

In this article, we investigate the transformation of local public spaces in the ethnically and socially diverse housing area Norra Fäladen during 1970–2015. After being built, the area soon faced stigmatization and became known as a problem area. This was followed by a series of investments in local public spaces aiming for a stronger appropriation of the neighbourhood by its inhabitants. The production of a ‘neighbourhood spirit’ has, however, slowly deteriorated over the last two decades. Through the introduction of new areas, with large single‐family houses on the one hand, and a densification of the existing housing stock on the other, the inhabitants’ dependence on the existing (but now decreasing) public spaces within the area has been polarized. Local public spaces are also being increasingly relocated from central parts of the neighbourhood to the peripheries or outside the area. In this article, we investigate how this quite slow, yet steady, transformation has affected the local public spaces and the everyday life of the area.

Fäladstorget. Photo taken on 13 December 2012 from the Church tower. In the background we see the school with the local library. The high‐rise building on the left is an addition from 2011 (photo by Albin Brönmark, reproduced by permission of Bilder i Syd)

Public and private in Hausmannian Paris (Territorial quote 3)

On territoriality and materiality:

"Second Empire architects also discouraged decorating practices that made domestic interiors resemble streets. In an article whose title – ”Des voies publiques et des maisons d’habitation à Paris” – signaled a conceptual separation between roads and houses, Charles Gourlier noted that within houses, wood parquet floors were replacing ”pavement” [dallages]. Formerly, slabs of concrete, stone, or marble had been used to cover floors inside apartments and to pave streets, but now they began to be confined strictly to the street. The street thus became a mineral realm whose hard, unyielding durability was perceptibly distinct from the more delicate, vegetal ground of the home."

Marcus S, Apartment Stories, City and Home in Nineteenth-Century Paris and London, 1999, p. 142 f.

Neighbourhood events and the visibilisation of everyday life: The cases of Turro (Milan) and Norra Fäladen (Lund)

This article, written together with Sebastiano Citroni, is published ahead-of-print in European Urban and Regional Studies.

Abstract

While scholars agree on the reasons behind the current proliferation of urban, small-scale, pre-organised events, the implication of these events for public life is more controversial, and involves polarised debates between enthusiasts and critics. This paper develops an international comparison between one city district in Milan (Italy) and one in Lund (Sweden), in order to explore how the variety of events that took place there between 2013 and 2015 possibly affected the local and on-going everyday public life. In both cases, the observed events aimed to de-stigmatise the broader urban districts in which they were staged, as well as to enhance a vibrant urban life in relatively disadvantaged areas. In the study, we identify three different ways in which these events make the public character of everyday life visible, and even redefine patterns of urban civility. The main argument deriving from our comparative ethnography is that the salience of events in the everyday life that they supposedly disrupt can be analytically addressed by developing a pragmatist approach to public space, discussing it in terms of territorial complexity.

At the Neighbourhood festival 'Fäladskalaset', Lund, 2016.

Temporality of Territorial Production - The Case of Stortorget, Malmö

This article is now published in Social & Cultural Geography (2017), 18, 5, pp. 683-705. 

Abstract: In recent years, we have seen the development of a more relational approach to territoriality. This perspective, which focuses on events rather than space, also opens up for an elaboration of temporal aspects of territorial production. In this study, I investigate the central urban square, Stortorget, in Malmö, Sweden, in order to develop a discussion of a time-space territorology. In 1978, Korosec-Serfaty performed a thorough study of the square, observing its everyday activities. The present study compares territorial productions at Malmö’s Main Square during 1978 with those of 2013. The results of the study indicate a change of time-space production in which temporary territorial appropriations and tactics tend to become shorter in duration, whereas the number of temporary and large-scale territorial strategies has increased and the role of these become more important. The study also shows how these territorial transformations include changes (in pace, rhythm, temporal salience and scale) that seem to vertically stabilise the territorial structure of the square, and thus decrease both territorial complexity and the possibilities for new publics to evolve

Stortorget, Malmö (2013)

Stortorget, Malmö (1978)

Stortorget, Malmö (1912), with the airship Hansa.

Stortorget, Malmö (1896), the unveiling of the statue Karl X Gustav.

The Sewers of London (Territorial quote 1)

A small reminder from Michel Serres about the role of smell for territorial production:

"Since the invention of the flush toilet and the sewage system at the end of the nineteenth century in London, it has indeed become difficult and quite unusual to mark our nest with urine."

Serres, M. Malfeasance, Appropriation through Pollution?, 2011, p. 63.