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 Ssubstantial kind in dormitory town areas. 429 In contrast to this he saw greatpotentials in developing inner city areas like Marais (which in the 70s inmany ways represented a parallel to Grünerløkka in Oslo) and Belleville(which in some ways had similar features as both Grünerløkka and Grønlandhad at that time). 430 As alluded to earlier (chapter 5), the urbanism discoursechanged considerably during the 1970s. A combination of severe criticism ofdormitory town developments and various counter-actions against inner cityurban clearance plans brought about a new regime of thinking within urbanplanning and development. From this period of transition the citations fromLefebvre illustrate in a clarifying way how the urbanism discourse at thattime (and in many respects still today) demonize mono-functional dormitorytown developments and romanticize more compound inner cityneighbourhoods. The investigation carried out in this thesis, I will argue, doeshowever shade off the picture, both when it comes to forms of socialinteraction in different urban areas and when it comes to how patterns ofurban use have developed since the time Lefebvre presented his theoreticalpoints of view:Patterns in urban use related to consumption and leisure-time activities,but also related to choices of where to live for a shorter or longer period oflife, reflect great regional mobility: The informants’ descriptions illustratethat people are quite conscious about what kind of qualities they seek indifferent urban settings, both when it comes to where to find them and how tomake use of the larger urban landscape. Due to this ‘mechanisms’ aredeveloped in which regionally specialized practice patterns are reinforced and429 This is a main topic in both Lefebvre 1968: Le droit à la ville, Paris, Anthropos and Lefebvre 1970: Larévolution urbaine, Paris, Gallimard. Here is, however, an example taken from Production of Space: ”Later, inthe present century, slums began to disappear. In suburban space, however, detatched houses contrasted with‘housing estates’ just as sharply as the earlier opulent apartments with the garrets of the poor above them. Theidea of ‘bare minimum’ was no less in evidence. Suburban houses and ‘new towns’ came close to the lowestpossible treshold of sociability – the point beyond which survival would be impossible because all social lifewould have disappeared. Internal and invisible boundaries began to divide a space that nevertheless remainedin thrall to a global strategy and a single power. These boundaries did not merely separate levels – local,regional, national and worldwide. They also separated zones where people were supposed to be reduced totheir ‘simplest expression’, to their ‘lowest common denominator’, from zones where people could spread outin comfort and enjoy those essential luxuries, time and space, to the full. As a matter of fact ‘boundaries’ is tooweak a word here, and it obscures the essential point ; it would be more accurate to speak of fracure linesrevealing the true – invisible yet highly irregular – contours of ‘real’ social space lying beneath itshomogenous surface.” (1991:316-7). (My italics)430 ”The degree to which a city can resist despoliation, the difficulty encountered by those who would lay itwaste, is well illustrated by the vase of Paris. As any urban space, something is always going on – but noteverything that is going on tens in the same direction. While neocapitalism and the centralizing statereorganize the city’s supposedly historic section in accordance with their interests, neighbourhoods not farfrom the centre are in the process of becoming more working-class in character: around Belleville, forexample, an area that is still very animated, immigrant workers and colons repatriated from North Africa rubshoulders – not without a measure of friction. Meanwhile, the Marais is experiencing the influx of an eliteelement, but this is an elite made up of intellectuals and of members of the (old and new) liberal professions,which does not look down its nose at the common people. In this respect, it differs from the old-stylebourgeoisie, still solidly ensconced in the city’s ‘residential’ arrondissements and suburbs. It is notinconceivable that the Marais and its vicinity will long retain some relationship with production – with craftindustry, small or medium-size manufacturing – and a proletarian and even sub-proletarian population.”(Lefebvre 1991: 385, - NB first edition written in 1974)348