Reading Socio-Spatial Interplay - Arkitektur- og designhøgskolen i ...

R E A D I N G S O C I O - S P A T I A L I N T E R P L A Y - I N T R O D U C T I O NGrønland is located near the city’s historical and current transport junctionand has architectural fragments from all of the city’s historical developmentphases. Grünerløkka is a uniformly planned classical urban area that wasdeveloped in the period of industrial urban growth from the 1870s andonwards. Furuset is a modernist satellite-town from the post-war welfarestate urban growth period, as a “third generation” satellite town, Furuset wasplanned and realized after, an as a response to the massive critique ofmodernist urban planning in Oslo.All three areas are in different ways involved in socio-cultural processes ofchange, which among other issues implies that they are put to use in otherways and by other social groups than previously. All three areas are currentlyexperiencing significant gentrification and/or immigration, but in relativelydifferent ways. The ways that these areas are involved in the processes ofgentrification and immigration, will make it possible to study some of themore important mechanisms of urban development in contemporary Oslo:Grünerløkka is today associated with gentrification, while Grønland isassociated with ethnic diversity. Population statistics from SSB 13 show thatthe immigrant population from both Western and non-Western countries isgradually increasing in Oslo. From 1997-99 the non-Western immigrantpopulation has increased in most of Oslo’s 25 districts, apart from in morehomogenous western districts of the city. Of districts with the highestpercentage of immigrants, there in the inner districts is some decrease inGrünerløkka-Sofienberg and some increase in Grønland/Gamle Oslo, whilethe satellite towns of Furuset, Stovner and Søndre Nordstrand are about todevelop as Oslo’s new immigrant districts, whereas the ‘older’ immigrantareas in inner parts of the city are becoming more and more gentrified. BothGrünerløkka and Grønland, as previously run down and working classdominated areas, have in recent times received significant public investmentsthrough urban renewal programs, increased commercial activity related to“urban recreation”, and an increased number of relatively young, ethnicNorwegian inhabitants. Like many other suburban satellite towns in Oslo,Furuset has in the last ten years received an increasing number of non-Western immigrants, both from central urban areas like Grønland andGrünerløkka, from abroad, and from other places in Norway. Simultaneously,the commercial businesses at the satellite town centre are suffering fromcompetition from both regional shopping centres and central urban areas –such as Grønland.13 Statistisk sentralbyrå (Statistics Norway).16