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 – C O N C L U D I N G R E F L E C T I O N Sconscious about the positive sides of living in a suburban neighbourhood incontrast to an urban neighbourhood in central areas. Especially important areneighbourhood qualities related to recreation (for instance sports and outdooractivities) and community activities such as voluntary work, ‘dugnader’ andthe joint interest of maintaining and improving community environments andfacilities for people living in the area. Thus many more examples of closeinteraction between inhabitants with common local interests but of radicaldifferent backgrounds could be found at Furuset than in the interviewmaterial from Grønland and Grünerløkka.The material also reflects that the notion of ‘the neighbourhood’ isaestheticized in various ways, especially at Grønland and Grünerløkka. Herenumerous examples can be found of understandings in which social life in thelocal neighbourhood is represented as both including and urban (as ‘a villagein the city’). In other instances it’s the notion of a ‘colourful community’ orof a ‘multicultural’ neighbourhood that is emphasized and given symbolicvalue. In the same areas though there are few examples of close interactionbetween people of different backgrounds, or between unacquaintedinhabitants, apart from more superficial encounters (i.e. meetings withoutobligation) in streets and public parks, or activities related to spaceconsumption. Among the informants that deliberately have chosen to live insuch multicultural urban neighbourhoods, one can also find quite manyexamples of compensating practices. This relates to schools that are favoured,plans for where to live in the future, cultivation of social arenas consisting oflikeminded people, and attribution of positive values to the fact that one canchoose not to relate to neighbours that one finds little interest in. At Furuset,however, quite opposite attitudes seem to be the order of the day. Here theinformants underline more pragmatic assessments and positive experiences,precisely in order to shade off the prevalent negative notion of theneighbourhood as dull or characterised by juvenile crime. While thecompensating practices at Grønland and Grünerløkka to a large extent can beinterpreted as ways of avoiding unwanted interaction with ‘others’, thecompensating practices at Furuset first and foremost are related to deliberateacts of going elsewhere in the city for recreational activities that the localneighbourhood does not provide for.Related to the issue of social mixing, and the populace’s conceptions andexpectations of the such in specific urban neighbourhoods, it is tempting toinclude a comment on the evaluation that Lefebvre himself made of the socialpotential he believed to find in developing different kinds of (observed andconceived patterns in various) urban areas in 1970s Paris. Lefebvre was verypessimistic about the possibility of developing social qualities of any347