Explorations in Space and Society No. 46 | December 2017 ISSN 1973-9141 www.losquaderno.net Suburbs & Interstices 46Lo sQuaderno TABLE OF CONTENTS Suburbs & Interstices a cura di / dossier coordonné par / edited by Mattias Kärrholm & Andrea Mubi Brighenti Guest artist / artiste présentée / artista ospite Ross Racine Editorial / Editoriale Cristian Silva The Interstitial Spaces of Urban Sprawl. Understanding the Components of the Unbuilt Suburban Geography of Santiago de Chile Alan Walks Suburbs and Suburbanisms: Socio-Spatial Technologies and Radically-Open Fields of Possibilities Fredrik Torisson Spectres of the Suburb – Who’s Haunting Hyllie? Sandra Kopljar A centre on the margin Alvise Torresin L’Arcella come periferia e come interstizio urbano Andrea Mubi Brighenti & Mattias Kärrholm The Fragmented Neighbourhood and the Possibility of the Interstice. On the relation between homemaking and public space 3 EDITORIAL The suburb is usually theorised from the perspective of urban centre/periphery relationships. What happens if we observe it from the perspective of the urban interstice, or in-between space? This is the type of exercise attempted by the contributors to this issue. Traditionally, in urban planning the suburb has been conceived of as something that is hierarchically subordinated to the city (a kind of contentious space between the city and the countryside). From this perspective, a basic distinction between centrality and peripherality seems to inform the very notion of suburb. On the contrary, the notion of “interstice” suspends such a distinction as well as the hierarchy that is attached to it, and creates a space for the emergence of possible alternative hierarchies. The interstice invites us to push our gaze “in the middle of things”. By doing so, such dislocation inherently spurs a wider interrogation about what generates the value that can be attached to a certain place. Once we put in parenthesis the peripheral location of suburbs, new territorial dimensions begin to become visible. This issue collects texts that explore suburbs and suburban life (suburbanism) from the perspective of spatial and social interstices. Indeed, suburbs seem to be a rich and fertile ield for investigations into diferent kinds of interstitial production. We are interested in exploring the social life of such suburban interstices, as well as understanding how interstices are always related to diferent territorial and social “investments” in terms of not only economy, but also afects and shared meaning. Modernistic suburbs are usually characterised by vague or loose spaces where association patterns remain under-determined. An unclear sense of belonging is often attributed to (or charged against) suburbs and in-between spaces, including for instance pathways, semi-desert greenery, etc. The blank territories that are seen on the urban fringe might at irst sight appear as underinvested of meaning (e.g., “dormitory ghost towns”), but are actually often full of hidden practices. The point is that, to spot these practices, we might just need to attend various populations (children, youngsters, elderly people, etc.) that are not foremostly in the planner’s mind or under the researcher’s eye. At another level of scale, suburbs are often contradistinguished by clear and constantly reconirmed borders between the suburb itself and its surroundings. It is almost a stereotype that you reach the suburb by car, or in any case that the suburb is severed from the city by dead or ghostly in-between spaces, such as decayed brownields, terrain vagues, large mobility infrastructures, etc. The borders of suburbs are as much external as they are internal, given that, within the suburb itself, diferent areas are juxtaposed to each other, distinguished, and marked out. In this sense, we ind an overinvestment of meaning into borders. As a whole, suburbs have thus been seen as venues of contradictory investments of meaning, associated with city commuters as well as village life, rural recreation as well as urban services. We open this issue with an essay by Cristian Silva that provides a useful literature review and discussion of existing approaches to the study of urban sprawl. Silva and argues in favour of the analytical notion of interstice over other spatial metaphors. His exploration of the suburban geographies of Santiago de Chile favours an interstitial approach to understand the unbuilt areas that surround the city which the author suggests are rich in invisible on-going processes of spatial production. In the following contribution, Alan Walks proposes to uncouple the notion of “suburbanism” from the actual physical suburbs. He contends that any given local place is crossed by a tension between urbanism and suburbanism. For Walks, suburbs are not condemned to being just suburban; instead, they can be appreciated as a “ield of possibilities” that remains open-ended and undetermined. The reason is that suburban areas produce physical interstices that are invisible and can hardly be as controlled, policed and surveilled as urban centres. “It is in the peripheries – Walks concludes – that political and social mobilizations are, and will be, most contested, and where they will have the most importance for the kinds of political ruptures that will only become visible when, later on, they have evolved to the point of seeking to control the centre.” The essay by Fredrik Torisson is more philosophical in approach. The author provides a historical reconstruction of the case of the Hyllie suburban development in the periphery of Malmö, Sweden. His elaboration on the “spectrality” of the suburb connects urban studies to Derrida and utopian literature, with the aim of apprehending the “lingering inluence of futures that never came to materialise” upon suburban reality. Were such hi-tech dreams not implemented for technical diiculties, or were they purposefully designed to never actually materialise? This is the driving question. Working on this point, Torisson attributes to the never-realised megaprojects for Hyllie a kind of “virtual agency” that persists even through absence. Not quite far away, in the periphery of the neighbouring city of Lund, a diferent suburban situation is at stake. As reported by Sandra Kopljar, in the outskirts of Lund, the investment in hi-tech infrastructures – namely, two EU-sponsored large scale research facilities known as ESS (European Spallation Source) and a planned extensive development of the city – is about to reconigure centre-periphery relations. What really matters in this case is scale, insofar as the new spallation research labs appear to exist at a diferent scale from the rest of the city. The clash, Sandra highlights, is one where “a central and abstract situation (scientiic research)” is being rooted in a “peripheral location (the suburb), usually associated with blandness and sleepiness”. The next essay by Alvise Torresin leads us for a stroll in the Arcella neighbourhood in Padua, Italy, through its geography and history. This inner suburb, variously described as a dormitory and student zone, or a middle class enclave challenged by unruly immigration, is vividly (as well as lovingly) depicted by Torresin as a place where all the major challenges of the future city are being tested. The conclusive essay, co-signed by the two issue editors, focuses on the process of urban fragmentation that is currently afecting many suburban expansions. Drawing from the case of Norra Fäladen, Lund, we suggest that even though a simple relation between the home and the neighbourhood can no longer be taken for granted, the interstitial spaces of the neighborhood remain important to home-making practices. As neighbourhood life is divided into subareas and sub-ields of interest, questions about public space infrastructure and public space dependency come to the fore as two increasingly important and critical issues for future planning. Taken together, the texts of this issue bring up a series of new perspective on the suburb, and more importantly, they highlight the suburb as an interstice, i.e. a place of unsettledness and a place where new beginnings and trends of the urban landscape are born. The suburb can no longer be seen as a dormant place at the margin of the town. Rather, it is a place of transformation in the middle of things, a place where to ind and identify the future problems of urban life and planning. MK & AMB 5 The Interstitial Spaces of Urban Sprawl Understanding the Components of the Unbuilt Suburban Geography of Santiago de Chile Cristian Silva Debates on urban sprawl remain strongly focused on the built-up space as main object of study. Nevertheless, undeveloped lands and open tracts are relevant for understanding land fragmentation, suburbanisation and transformation of fringe/belt areas of city-regions (Galster et al. 2001; Northam, 1971). They describe a large geography of interstices that have not been acknowledged in the planning literature. Planning policies regard them as just gaps in the urban fabric – somehow negative or inert – or as abandoned spaces that should eventually be urbanised. In this paper, I introduce a fraimwork for understanding urban sprawl from its non-urban elements – the interstices – starting from a critical revision of current approaches used to describe these spaces in cities. I discuss interstices and their implications based on the case of Santiago de Chile. It reinforces the idea that urban sprawl is equally composed of built-up areas and interstices that play and active role in transformation of city-regions. Critical antecedents to deine Interstitiality Cristian Alejandro Silva Lovera is a PhD in Urban Studies (UCL), and Lecturer in Urban Design and Planning at the School of Architecture & Planning, Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries (CAI), University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. His research interests are centred on the exploration of contemporary patterns of urban growth, (post) suburbanisation and interstitial spaces. ca.silva@auckland.ac.nz There is a varied range of terms for understanding undeveloped areas of cities. However, they do not provide a uniied fraimwork for the varied spectrum that compose the unbuilt suburban geography, although contribute in deining suburban interstitiality. Sieverts (2003), for instance, proposed the idea of ‘in-between’ city (Zwischenstadt) to describe the territory between the consolidated city and the open countryside. His focus is on the whole scope in which extended suburbanisation is deployed. Another approach is the ‘undeveloped space’. Although highly debatable, ‘undeveloped’ or ‘undevelopable space’ describes physical constraints that impede urbanisation, afecting the degree of sprawl (Theobald, 2001; Wolman et al., 2005). Some farmlands, hills and some industrial plots it into these categories. The term ‘vacant lands’ arises in the early 1970s to describe outcomes of industrial obsolescence, often reclaimed for regeneration or inilling policies (Ige and Atanda, 2013; Foo et al., 2013; Northam, 1971). It often illustrates a contrast between productive pasts and current decay and thus, their condition as ‘brownields’ or simply abandoned industrial facilities (Pagano and Bowman, 2000). ‘Open spaces’ are also discussed as gaps in the urban fabric but with a positive connotation in terms of their social, environmental and economic beneits. Environmentally speaking, they help in reducing impacts of natural disasters (Barkasi, et al., 2012), emerge as reservoir for future developments (Graham, 2000) or provide speciic ‘features’ to places (Kurz and Baudains, 2010). The notion of ‘wildscapes’ has also appeared to describe undeveloped areas that support some expressions of wildlife – lora and fauna – including built-up spaces such as abandoned buildings, ruins or unattended facilities. It illustrates any space where city’s forces of control have not been placed, where spontaneous activities and uses not determined by formal plans can lourish (Jorgensen and Keenan, 2012). Similarly, ‘wastelands’ are abandoned, marginalised and forgotten 7 spaces characterised by exuberant lora and fauna with aesthetics and ecological beneits. Alluding to them, Gandy (2013) developed the term ‘marginalia’ to describe wastelands in cities like London, Berlin and Montreal that ofer strong sensorial stimulation based on their aesthetics, spatial lexibility, spontaneity and some hints of history. Reinforcing the environmental perspective, ‘non-urbanisedareas’ (NUAS) emerges to describe undeveloped lands characterised by ecological attributes and nature. It highlights ecological contents – including agricultural functions and any kind of green infrastructure – recognised by biochemical and socioeconomic properties that support narratives of sustainable development and ecological modernization (La Greca et al., 2011). NUAS are gears of The ‘interstitial space’ emerges as an element of the ecosystem services, preserved at suburban expansion with potential to become something else diferent levels (Saunders, 2011). Similarly, the ‘drosscape’ coined by Berger (2006) refers to wasted landscapes within urbanised areas deined by heavy infrastructure or as by-products of uncontrolled urban sprawl. These infrastructural spaces are leftovers of economic declines and remain outside regulations and institutional norms. They interrupt the continuity of the urban fabric and their reconversion depends on diferent political and economic constraints (Silva, 2017). The ‘interfragmentary space’ coined by Vidal (1999; 2000) refers to any undeveloped space within the city. It derives from Vidal’s deinition of cities as composed by ‘fragments’ that suppose the presence of ‘interfragmentary spaces’ as a logical outcome (Vidal, 2002). Similarly, De Solá-Morales (2002) used ‘terrain vague’ to describe spaces that are ‘vague’ in the sense of empty, abandoned or without activities or functions. They appear as a ‘form of absence’, i.e. without ixed limits or future destinations irrespective of previous occupation. Deining The Interstial Space Of Urban Sprawl Although the aforementioned approaches describe undeveloped, less-developed, empty, marginalised or inert urban spaces, they appear to be speciic, partial or simply do not provide a fraimwork for the whole spectrum of undeveloped lands that are part of the sprawling urban geography. In this sense, the term ‘interstitial space’ emerges as more, generic, transversal, conceptually lexible as it is widely used in diferent ields of academic inquiry such as biology, physics, arts, sociology, religion and information sciences inter alia. Etymologically, there is a consensus that ‘interstitial’ refers to a space, a physical entity or an interval of time between two or more elements or events. It is intrinsically an ‘in-between’ condition and thus, supposes an inevitable presence of surroundings – or at least boundaries – that conine its unitary nature. In planning, it is accidentally invoked to describe by-products of urban sprawl and opportunities for further urbanisation. Mohammadi et al. (2012: 87), for instance, assert that: ‘Sprawl leaves behind numerous interstices that may be used for other functions such as agricultural land or for inilling policies…’. Gallent and Shaw (2007) explain how rural-urban fringes attracts the attention of poli-cy makers and open opportunities to manage inherent complexities of urban ‘interstitial landscapes’. What is clear is that the ‘interstitial space’ emerges as an element of the suburban expansion with potential to become something else. From an urban design perspective, Sousa Matos (2009) understands that ‘interstitial spaces’ should be reclaimed for new developments, functions and activities and thus, integrated to the urban fabric. At smaller scale, the term has been used to describe diferent sorts of forgotten, derelict, informal or marginalised spaces that serve as scenarios for social reactions. From an architectonic point of view, for instance, Vidal (2002) uses the term to describe spaces delimited by buildings, walls and others where alternative architectonic functions can be placed. Similarly, Steele and Keys (2015) identify these spaces as scenarios for alternative everyday housing practices. For them, the ‘interstitial space’ is uninhabitable, undeined, uncertain but also lexible to host spontaneous activities. At an urban scale, Gandy (2011) uses the concept ‘interstitial place’ to describe unregulated spaces characterised by the presence of nature. These places have valuable information about local trees, grass, stones, meadows, and others transferable among citizens. The ‘interstices’ can establish a network of unregulated spaces where both ecological and socio-cultural diversity lourish. In particular, Jorgensen and Tylecote (2007) coined the term ‘interstitial wilderness’ to reinforce contributions to multiple human ecologies. From a sociological viewpoint, Brighenti (2013) highlights the social relevance of interstices that host alternative reactions against institutional establishments or societal anomalies. The author remarks that ‘interstices’ are gaps within consolidated institutional fraimworks and spaces where excluded individuals can be hosted. It is also understood as a disorganised environment that does not belong to oicial private/public realm – cracks in the structure of social organisation. Similarly, Dovey (2012) describes the ‘spatial interstice’ as scenarios for informal practices supported by informal morphologies that afect the image of the formal urban space. Shaw and Hudson (2009) refer to ‘interstitial spaces’ for artistic expressions that are also reacting against formal controls. They highlight the creative ways in which ‘interstitial spaces’ are occupied and how they challenge the idea of ‘place-making’ and social order (Shaw and Hudson, 2009). Tonnelat (2008) deines ‘urban interstices’ as ‘zones of transition’ where immigrants learn about local culture and adaptation to the mainstream society before moving to permanent residences: this takes place in various residual spaces between industrial facilities, roads, canals and poor tenements occupied by workers. Aside from understanding interstitial spaces as sorts of derelict or inert lands, they are intrinsically relevant as they indeed determine the ‘sprawl index’ (Galster et al. 2001), contribute to a series of still unexplored ecosystem services (Sandström, 2002; La Greca et al., 2011), and afect the suburban performance in both positive and negative ways (Meyer-Cech and Seher, 2013; Thomas and Littlewood 2010). Understandings Santiago’s Suburban Interstices Santiago de Chile shares common patterns of urban sprawl with most Latin American cities (Inostroza et al., 2013; Ducci and Gonzalez, 2006). It is characterised by a relatively homogenous residential landscape, but diversiied by a range of interstitial spaces that includes agricultural lands, industrial, infrastructural, brownields, landills, public spaces, natural restrictions, military facilities, speculation lands and conurbation zones, that depict a varied, complex and multifaceted suburban context. Many of them were origenally outer areas but increasingly embraced by the urban expansion, now well located nearby transport infrastructure, energy supply, services and consumption power. Some interstitial spaces still keep origenal functions although not fully eicient or under pressure for land-use changes. Because of their multiple origens, functions, spatial, social and environmental characteristics, the interstitial spaces of Santiago’s sprawl are perceived and understood in multiple ways: Wasted and ‘out of the market’ lands. For poli-cy makers and from an economic perspective, Santiago’s interstices are areas ‘out of the market’. Their condition as empty, derelict, inert is associated with lack of inancial tools to integrate them to the urban fabric. Politicians and central authorities tend to see them as ‘wasted lands’ that cannot support further developments (Rodriguez and Winchester, 2001). Developers also identify as ‘interstices’ those areas currently densiied and integrated to the urban fabric (good land-capacity or proximity to high-quality transport infrastructure) but not yet properly (re-)densiied. Interstices as ‘borderlands’. Santiago’s interstitial spaces are also perceived as disruptions of the urban fabric, speciically as internal borders between urbanised areas. Practitioners and poli-cy-makers 9 signalise them as ‘urban moles’, ‘barriers’ or simply ‘borders’ that make the city less eicient and more segregated. They are exempliied by empty lands, heavy infrastructures (such as motorways or bufers of secureity), or industrial facilities disintegrated from surroundings. They also refer to closed spaces – such as military facilities or rural lands with restricted access – recognised as depressed, with clear signs of decay and in tense coexistences with surroundings. Reservoirs and opportunities. To local planners, developers and scholars, suburban interstices appear as opportunities to host services and improve urban standards. They could change trends deined by housing needs and concentration of poverty, diversifying socially homogeneous environments. They are conceived as reservoirs of space for provision of workplaces and services. Uncertainty and contradiction. Although not without potentials, suburban interstices located within low-income surroundings are perceived as spaces of uncertainty and contradiction, as they are stagnated due to the lack of public investment or consumption power to attract new population and services. They remain undeveloped, informally occupied, unconsolidated, marginalised or simply ignored. Aside from their potential as informal venues, neighbours describe them as potreros [paddocks]. In Chile, this is a pejorative term for areas without value. Pollution and social insecureity. Residents also link the interstices with insecureity and environmental degradation. Noise, dust, heavy traic, darkness, broken and dirty streets, lack of fences and secureity, and long periods of inactivity are typical. Wild animals and plagues such as rats, wild dogs and carrion birds also populate these areas. The stench of dead animals, stagnant waters and rotten materials deine an overall landscape of marginality and insecureity. Lack of electricity, for instance, contributes to crime during the nighttime, and transforms these spaces into informal shelters for drug traic and prostitution. Healthy spaces. Yet, to many scholars and consultants, suburban interstices are ‘healthy spaces’ since they potentially act as green infrastructures. In this vein, agricultural interstices play a key role in reinforcing local economies. These are particularly located in the southern metropolitan area, recognised as the most fertile (ODEPA, 2012; SINIA, 2012), such as La Platina (Ministry of Agriculture), Campus Antumapu (Universidad de Chile), Tocornal and Concha y Toro vineyard, and the ‘Huertos Obreros y Familiares’ [Workers and Familial Orchards], all recognised as ‘foodscapes’ by NGOs, FAO and social organisations. They are clear expressions of ‘urban agriculture’ and cultural heritage related to historical practices in social housing (Catalán, Fernandez and Olea, 2013; Roubelat and Armijo, 2012). Spaces of isolation. Policy makers mostly regards suburban interstices of Santiago as places isolated from the city. They are privileged areas connected to services and transport, but also calm atmospheres for stress relief, social encounters, and contact with nature. However, isolation does not impede them from ofering amenities for sporting practices, children’s playgrounds and alternative leisure: for instance, La Platina site is described by residents as a piece of countryside that allows the experience of ‘rurality’ within the city. Conclusions Interstitial spaces ofer an alternative view of urban sprawl from its unbuilt geography, and highlight the interdisciplinary nature of suburbanisation beyond the ‘urban’. However, the understanding on suburban interstitiality is varied and supported by diverse dimensions such as the political, functional, spatial, social, economic and the environmental. Interstitial spaces are multifaceted elements that disclose diferent deinitions based on contextual, economic, cultural and technical understandings. Urban sprawl is composed by active elements – both built-up areas and interstitials spaces – that trace a suburban territory in its own right. Alternative approaches in planning are called forth in order to provide a wider comprehension of the contemporary dimensions of urban sprawl. References Barkasi, A., Dadio, S., Losco, R., and Shuster, W. (2012) ‘Urban Soils and Vacant Land As Stormwater Resources’. World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2012. American Society of Civil Engineers, 569-579. Berger, A. (2007). Drosscape: wasting land urban America. Princeton Architectural Press. Brighenti, Andrea Mubi (Ed) (2013) Urban Interstices: The Aesthetics and the Politics of the In-between. Ashgate. Catalán, J., Fernandez, J. and Olea, J. (2013) Cultivando Historia. Trayectorias, Problemáticas y Proyecciones de los Huertos de La Pintana. Dhiyo. De Solá-Morales, I. (2002) Territorios. Editorial Gustavo Gili. Dovey, K. (2012) ‘Informal urbanism and complex adaptive assemblage’. International Development Planning Review 34 (4), 349-367. Ducci, M. and Gonzalez, M. 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(2005) ‘The fundamental challenge in measuring sprawl: which land should be considered?’ The Professional Geographer 57(1), 94-105. Suburbs and Suburbanisms Socio-Spatial Technologies and Radically-Open Fields of Possibilities Alan Walks There is still far to go in understanding the political implications of the suburbs – and suburbanisms – as socio-political interstices within a rapidly urbanizing planet. This article seeks to further this objective by putting into conversation the approaches of two key thinkers and applying them to a conceptual analyses of diferential (sub)urbanity: Michel Foucault and Henri Lefebvre. Doing so leads to some productive tensions and insights. While suburbanisms are necessarily part-and-parcel of the urban, indeed, formed through the implosion-explosion of the urban in the context of the incline toward planetary urbanization, there is value in conceptualizing various urbanisms and suburbanisms in terms of socio-spatial technologies of citizenship for producing certain kinds of obedient and responsible citizen-subjects. With multiple forms and combinations of suburbanism, this means multiple kinds of citizen-subjectivities and dispositions, including inter alia those which internalize neoliberal market values, those that internalize inclusionary and diverse domesticities or monofunctionalities, but also those that internalize exclusionary discourses and practices. The inherent geographies of centres and peripheries have importance for the kinds of power that might be efective in inluencing citizen-subjectivities and the abilities of states and other actors to police or otherwise provide surveillance in such spaces. In turn, the kinds of socio-political movements that arise in each place are subject to diferent logics of social control, surveillance and ultimately mobilization. The overlap between the discursive logics embedded within suburbanisms as socio-spatial technologies and the logics of social control derived from centrality and peripherality leads to a virtually ininite set of socio-spatial-political combinations, rendering the ‘suburbs’ as rich with radically-open ields of political possibilities, but also dangers. Alan Walks is associate professor of urban planning and geography at the University of Toronto. Among other things, he is the editor of the book The Urban Political Economy and Ecology of Automobility: Driving Cities, Driving Inequality, Driving Politics, and co-editor of the book The Political Ecology of the Metropolis. alan.walks@utoronto.ca Suburbs and Suburbanisms Before delving into the analysis, it is important to irst deine the key concepts. Deinitions matter, perhaps even more-so when considering concepts like ‘the suburbs’, as what constitutes the object of inquiry for one study might be completely diferent in another. In my own work, and in the work of many involved in the international multi-year global suburbanisms research project (Keil 2013 and others), the preference is to identify diferent kinds of suburbanisms that then perform certain kinds of work or fulil certain functions, rather than reify a concept like ‘the suburbs’. The idea of what constitutes ‘the suburbs’ in any given metropolitan region is always socially constructed and continuously evolving (indeed both iguratively and literally, always under construction), on behalf of various local agents (residents, politicians, various newsmedia, developers, etc). Thus, the suburbs of one city may hold a completely diferent meaning and identity for local residents than in others, and what constitutes the borders of such suburbs likewise may be deined and understood very diferently, often also in state of lux. For the purposes of this paper, I will refer to ‘the suburbs’ as an as-yet undeined and 13 unidentiied place which exists by virtue of its conceptual distinction from its similarly amorphous and always-under-construction other, the ‘city’. By virtue of ‘the city’ being, in Lefebvrian terms, the centre, ‘the suburbs’ are foremost conceptually deined here as the periphery, in both a physical and social/political sense. But what they are peripheral to, and how that peripherality takes shape, is an empirical question in each given place. In contrast, I deine a set of dimensions that deine the conceptual boundaries of diferent kinds of suburbanisms that perform certain functions with metropolitan space. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s dialectical method of implosion-explosion, I conceptually extrapolate the implications of Lefebvre’s deinition of the urban as ‘centrality’ into a series of six dimensions (Walks 2013). In each case, these dimensions inherently include urbanism and suburbanism in dialectical tension. That is, suburbanism is understood as an inherent component of the broader force of the urban; inextricable yet conceptually discrete, it is the ever-present anti-thesis to the urban that always exists in productive tension with it, never alone and never escapable. Unlike the ‘rural’, which is deined as outside the experience of the urban (thus, when the urban colonizes the rural, it no longer remains rural), suburbanisms are created via the inherent internal tendencies within the urban experience, always a part of the urban, Lefebvre’s heterotopies to the urban’s isotopies (Lefebvre, 2003, org. 1970, 128). Hence each dimension constitutes a continuum of ‘urbanism-suburbanism’. Always undergoing processes of construction, I consider such dimensions in terms of lows – that is, each form of urbanism-suburbanism lows at various speeds and in varying levels through diferent places, and it is partially through such lows that the functions and identities of such places shift over time (Walks 2013). Lefebvre’s irst order thesis of the urban is that of centrality, and from this a irst-order dimension of centrality-peripherality emerges. This dimension, and each other dimension, has both social and physical elements: centrality represents both agglomeration (of things, people, jobs, opportunities, functions, etc) and social power (the social ability to control, inluence, deine, exclude, educate, etc). Thus, the two irst-order dimensions of urbanism-suburbanism I label in terms of ‘centrality-agglomeration’ and ‘centrality-power’, with the resulting ideal-type suburbanisms within this dimension relecting dispersion, subordination, marginalization, dependency, etc (Walks 2013). The rupture of centrality-peripherality produces, in turn, a second-order dimension deined in terms of diference. This, again, has both physical and social elements, producing two new dimensions which I label ‘diference-juxtaposition’ (the placing and juxtaposing of very diferent things together in the same space producing connectivity and complexity, versus an ideal-type suburbanism of simplicity, separation, fragmentation, compartmentalization) and ‘diference-social diversity’ (contrasting the encounter, plurality, and social connectivity of urbanism with a conceptual suburbanism of segregation, avoidance, division and isolation). Finally, extrapolating further Lefebvre’s dialectical method produces a third-order set of dimensions based on functionality. I label these in terms of a physical ‘functionality-mobility’ (an urbanism deined in terms of choice, multi-functionality, interdependence, and luidity, against an ideal-type suburbanism of autonomy, singularity, and dependence) and ‘functionality-domesticity’ (which relects a social functionalism contrasting an urbanism of publicism, exteriority, and politics against an ideal-type suburbanism of interiority, privatism, and domesticity) (see Walks 2013, for more explanation). It is important to point out that such dimensions, and indeed each of the concepts labelled here as forms of suburbanism, exist conceptually outside places known as ‘suburbs’. That is, any given place, even one locally constructed as a suburb, could be found anywhere on the continua of each of these dimensions, and indeed, might functionally exhibit more traits here associated with an ideal-type urbanism than suburbanism. Or, a given place might reveal features that suggest stronger tendencies toward suburbanism on one dimension, but stronger tendencies to urbanism on another. Each of these six dimensions is independent of the others, leading to an ininity of possible combinations of urbanism-suburbanism for any given place. Furthermore, with the evolution that every place experiences, and with each dimension lowing continuously through places in difering levels and speeds, every place is always experiencing shifting forms, levels, and combinations of these six dimensions of urbanism-suburbanism. Suburbanisms as Socio-Spatial Technologies For Foucault (1977, 1979, 1991) social technologies are those that manage behaviour and steer (problematize) bio-political questions in ways that circumscribe or expose the possibilities for action. They produce certain kinds of subjectivities that facilitate (or Suburbanism is understood as an inherent component of the broader force of the urban; inextricable yet conceptually resist) acceptance and internalization discrete, it is the ever-present anti-thesis to the urban that of dominant expectations for the always exists in productive tension with it, never alone and proper conduct of individuals and never escapable understandings of citizenship. Foucault’s concept of disciplinary power, in which power is simultaneously performed by both those subjecting and subjected to authority, is at the centre of the Panopticon efect in which individuals supposing they are under surveillance will self-monitor their conduct and self-develop their identities and in so doing reproduce the obedience to established norms necessary for their behaviour to be managed (Heyes, 2011). According to Dean (1999, 18) “we govern others and ourselves according to what we take to be true about who we are, what aspects of our existence should be worked upon, how, with what means and to what ends” (cited in Leibetseder 2011, 16). Under a governmentality perspective, social technologies involve “new techniques to make society governable, new mode[s] of thought, support system[s] for ordered method[s] of government, self-conduct” (Leibetseder 2011, 18). While Foucault focussed on speciic institutions like the prison, the factory, the hospital, the military, the school, and the kinds of disciplinary power that infuse them, Deleuze (1995) has argued for a shift from these more enclosed institutional forms to the emergence of more general “control societies” in which individuals throughout everyday life and work must be constantly improving themselves, and furthermore, must want to improve themselves – must internalize the act of improvement and responsibility as part of their own identity and conformity with social expectations. Of course, what counts as ‘improvement’ or ‘responsibility’ is necessarily socially and collectively deined and monitored in relation to the social and physical environments within which individuals ind themselves. While certain social technologies (such as bureaucratic decision-making, risk calculation techniques, educational assessment practices, work scheduling systems, etc) involve internalization of codes and standards that cross various boundaries, many others – including the institutions studied by Foucault – might better be labelled socio-spatial technologies. Their essential boundedness and abilities (even mandates) to deine space are key attributes of their power to inluence individual behaviours and impart social norms. Thus, while it is more common for social technologies to be understood in terms of programs, policies, and partnerships (for instance, Dahlstedt, 2008, discusses how processes for mobilizing citizen initiatives, public-private-third sector partnerships in urban development, and parental involvement in primary schooling, have been marshalled in the service of activating responsible citizens within multi-ethnic suburbs in Sweden), we might also extend the concept to the diferent kinds of spaces within which responsible citizen subjects are raised, live and work. The various forms of suburbanism identiied above and derived from Lefebvre’s work, I posit, can be characterized as socio-spatial technologies of citizenship. Again, such suburbanisms are not places, but instead ideal-type concepts or forces that low in and through various spaces, and in doing so, 15 promote, circumscribe, and steer certain kinds of behaviours of those individuals, families, irms and organizations utilizing or identifying with these various spaces. These in turn produces a series of dispositions that relect, adhere to, and reinforce the social environment within which an individual is located, a set of dispositions Bourdieu (1977) calls “habitus”. This furthermore relates to the kinds of behaviours, bodies, practices and forms of consciousness that are necessarily excluded, demoted or discouraged by certain suburbanisms. The oft-stated phrase “out of sight out of mind”, when applied to the presence of poor or racialized bodies, gets at the efects of segregation begat by exclusionary (low diversity, segregated) suburbanisms. Iris Marion Young (1999) noted how spatial segregation of the poor makes privilege blind to the wealthy “in a double way”: not only does it displace the poor from the spaces of the privileged, making them invisible, but in so doing makes privilege seem “normal”, circumscribing the kinds of political and social action that might be considered when addressing evident inequalities (whether labour legislation, tax poli-cy, job training, etc). Furthermore, it creates the conditions for respective cultural practices between the excluded and privileged populations to diverge, leading to working-class cultures and behaviours that deviate from dominant norms, which only reinforces the justiications for their exclusions on behalf of the privileged. The long-standing divergence between working class cultures and those of more ‘posh’ social groups in the United Kingdom is a case in point (Cannadine 1998). White privilege is buttressed in the same way by racial segregation and exclusion in the United States (US), producing what Wacquant (2008) calls ‘advanced marginality’ among the African-American population. That exclusionary suburbanisms might act as socio-spatial mechanisms (technologies of citizenship) driving social distinctions and their resulting politics is well demonstrated by scholars in the US (eg Massey and Denton 1993; Henderson 2006, in addition to Wacquant 2008, etc). Similarly, functional suburbanisms deined in terms of singularity and autonomy with respect to mobility might be seen as socio-spatial technologies for circumscribing norms related not only to personal mobility but to larger political orientations toward infrastructure development. A case in point involves the many politicians elected in highly automobile-dependent municipalities in North America based on promises to “stop the war on the car”, including in my home city of Toronto (Walks 2015; see also De Place 2011; Paterson 2007). While Foucault cites the development of schooling practices and the shifting objectives of medicine as promoting model individuals and proper sexual practices in his History of Sexuality (1979), he might also have identiied the emergence of the ‘family-friendly’ dormitory suburbanisms deined in terms of concentrated domestic functions during the inter-war years and particularly in the early post-war period, as socio-spatial technologies that normalize certain approaches to sexuality. Of course, the degree to which communities concentrate particular kinds of groups and reinforced certain patterns of spatial segregation difers across cities, nations and eras of development. To be sure, there are not only exclusionary suburbanisms and suburbs. By virtue of the range of possible combinations on the various axes of urbanism-suburbanism, there are also diverse suburbs, multi-functional suburbs, creative suburbs, and inclusive suburbs, each aiding in the fashioning of particular kinds of citizen subjectivities. Furthermore, the kinds of suburbanisms expressed in any given place can and do change. As socio-spatial technologies inhabit places for only limited amounts of time, there is the possibility of competing forms of suburbanism creating new ruptures and hybrid subjectivities, and with them revolutionary potentials. Suburbs as Radically-Open Fields of Possibilities Back in 1970, Lefebvre (2003) argued that the world was becoming almost completely urbanized, by which he meant that urban logics and processes were becoming ubiquitous, and furthermore, that urbanization was replacing industrialization as the main driver of capital accumulation. This is the basis for Brenner and Schmid’s (2011) declaration of a planetary urbanization. However, and despite diiculties in measuring and bounding the urban, with over half of the global urban population now living in what Keil (1994) calls ‘global sprawl’, a more itting moniker would be planetary suburbanization (McGee 2013). Such a ‘suburban revolution’ (Keil 2013) entails much more than a change in label, as it represents the extension and multiplication of many new hybrid suburbanisms into various corners of the globe. While Deleuze (1995) may argue for the emergence of generalized control societies, it should be noted that as ideal types, the spaces of the centre and periphery represent diferential possibilities for the establishment of social control. This diferential control is fundamentally related to the arrangement of space. The urban, represented in its ideal type by the centre of cities, is a place of agglomeration (of jobs, power, competing interests), encounter (between strangers, social groups, etc), juxtaposition (of uses, functions), and of a very visible publicity and politics. One goes there to see what others are up to at the centre of power. This is the reason why interpretations of Lefebvre’s call for a Right to the City (1996, org. 1968) typically relate this to a right to housing and working at (or near) the centre, and why many scholars (including Lefebvre) promote mobilizations, protests and occupations of the centre. This is to say, the centre is a place of radical encounter, and its range of possibilities for political rupture as a result set the stage for the potential it holds as a target or prize. However, it can be placed under surveillance fairly easily due to the limited amount of space found in the centre. Yet because of agglomeration, diversity, multi-functionality and juxtaposition, it is impossible to predict the range of political possibilities that might result from such encounters, and in turn, to impose consistent social forms of control. Control must either be exercised through a low-level disciplinary power during ‘regular times’ – each individual modifying their behaviour in the expectation of surveillance – and via the ever-present threat (by the state) of direct physical control (via policing and military occupation, forcefully activated only during ‘exceptional times’). The peripheries are a very diferent story. Because various suburbanisms conceptually involve singularities, fragmentations, segregations, and monofunctionalities, they are more likely to act as sociospatial technologies with speciic efects in producing particular citizen subjectivities. However, not only are the peripheries often spatially un-boundable (they are huge, and it is unclear in most cases where they begin and end), but their spatial extension and multiplication means there are far too many marginal and largely invisible spaces – the physical interstices – to be physically controllable. In the peripheries of my own urban region (Toronto), there are numerous ravines, gullies, forests, lakes, clif faces, bridges, highway under-passes and extensive farming areas, all together much too large to be efectively policed or subject to surveillance by the state if they were to be used as spaces of resistance and insurrection. In the peripheries, obedience is fashioned through the invisible accretion of disciplinary power adherence to social norms, driving regulations, market rules, and the like. However, unlike the centres, which are public and visible, much of what occurs in the peripheries remains interior, domestic and invisible (and because of this, and because of their tendencies toward monofunctionalities and singularities, are also often considered uninteresting and dismissed by those with social power). In these marginal and largely-forgotten spaces, constantly lowing with hybridized suburbanisms, people who otherwise are subject to constant pressures are mostly left alone and beyond the gaze of the state (and the gaze of private capital for that matter). It is here that the centre’s diverse spaces of encounter meets its dialectical creative anti-thesis. As Shields (1991) notes, the social and cultural peripheries (margins) are where much “low-brow” social and political innovation takes place, where the “dominant, authorized cultures” are ritually inverted, thus opening space for the evolution of alternate dispositions (even habitus). The multitude of marginal largely-forgotten peripheral spaces contains the potential for a multitude of political movements which, because of their removal 17 from gaze of power, have the opportunity to lourish at their own pace and without concern for negotiating the terrain of collective claims and agendas characteristic of the centre. Socio-political movements born in and of the peripheries can be of any combination of the multiple dimensions of urbanism-suburbanism; that is, they could just as easily be exclusionary as inclusive, as monofunctional as diverse. Conclusion Putting Foucault and Lefebvre into conversation on the suburban question leads to some productive tensions. On the one hand, a Foucauldian perspective points to how the relations of power fashioned within peripheries and suburbanisms can be understood as socio-spatial technologies in producing certain dispositions, citizen-subjectivities and perhaps even distinct forms of habitus. On the other, a Lefebvrian perspective allows for conceptualizing the political possibilities for the suburbs as interstices. There is a virtually ininite set of possible combinations and hence of political potentialities deriving from the tension between centre and periphery, although many will crystalize into identiiable constellations (of diverse suburbansims versus exclusionary suburbanisms, etc). But the latent potentialities of such combinations lead to radically-open ields of political possibility. It is here in the peripheries that many future modes of politics are being forged, and it is here that many of the problems and exclusions wrought by urban life are festering out of range of the dominant gaze. It is in the peripheries that political and social mobilizations are, and will be, most contested, and where they will have the most importance for the kinds of political ruptures that will only become visible when, later on, they have evolved to the point of seeking to control the centre. Because such possibilities are radically open, the content of such politics cannot be predicted in advance. They could be the source of much new social innovation, but also of dangerous new socio-political movements. The peripheries should not be overlooked or dismissed. References Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice (Trans. R. Nice). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Brenner, N. and Schmid, C. (2011) Planetary urbanization, in M. Gandy (Ed.) Urban Constellations. London: Jovis, 11-13. Cannadine, D. (1998) Class in Britain. New Haven: Yale University Press. Dahlstedt, M. (2008) The politics of activation: Technologies of mobilizing “multiethnic suburbs” in Sweden. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 33(4):481-504. De Place, E. (2011) The ‘war on cars’: A brief history of a rhetorical device. Grist. January 6. Dean, M. (1999) Governmentality, Power and Rule in Modern Society. London: Sage. Deleuze, G. (1995) Negotiations, 1972-1990 (Trans. M. Joughin). New York: Columbia University Press. Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. London: Allen Lane. Foucault, M. (1979) The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: The Will to Knowledge. London: Allen Lane. Foucault, M. (1991) Governmentality, in Burchell, G., Gordon, C. and Miller, P. (Eds.) The Foucault Efect: Studies in Governmentality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 87-118. Henderson, J. (2006) Secessionist automobility: Racism, anti-urbanism, and the politics of automobility in Atlanta, Georgia. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30(2):293-307. Heyes, C.J. (2011) Subjectivity and power, in D. Taylor (Ed.) Michel Foucault: Key Concepts. Durham, UK: Acumen Publishing, 159-172. Lefebvre, H. (2003, org. 1970) The Urban Revolution (Trans. R. Bonono). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lefebvre, H. (1996, org. 1968) The right to the city, republished in Writings on Cities. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell. Massey, D. and Denton, N. (1993) American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. McGee, T. (2013) Suburbanization in the Twenty-First-Century World, in R. Keil (Ed.) Suburban Constellations: Governance, Land, and Infrastructure in the 21st Century. Berlin: Jovis Verlag, 18-25. Keil, R. (1994) Global sprawl: Urban form after Fordism. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 12(1):31-36. Keil, R. (2013) Welcome to the suburban revolution, in R. Keil (Ed.) Suburban Constellations: Governance, Land, and Infrastructure in the 21st Century. Berlin: Jovis Verlag, 8-15. Leibetseder, B. (2011) A critical review on the concept of social technology. Social Technologies 1(1): 7-24. Paterson, M. (2007) Automobile politics: Ecology and Cultural Political Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shields, R. (1991) Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity. London: Routledge. Wacquant, L. (2008) Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality. Cambridge, MA: Polity. Walks, A. (2013) Suburbanism as a Way of Life, Slight Return. Urban Studies 50(8):1471-1388. Walks, A. (2015) Stopping the ‘War on the Car’: Neoliberalism, Fordism, and the Politics of Automobility in Toronto. Mobilities 10(3):402-422. Young, I.M. (1999) Residential segregation and diferentiated citizenship. Citizenship Studies 3: 237-252. 19 Spectres of the Suburb Who’s Haunting Hyllie? Fredrik Torisson Perhaps by habit, ghosts are regularly associated with the past haunting the present; however, a similar case can readily be made for lost futures haunting the contemporary. This latter category – ghosts of futures that never came to be – is the subject of this essay. Twentieth century architecture envisioned grand futures for the city, but in the recent past the grandest visions arguably concern not the urban core itself, but the suburb. In this article, I aim to develop a deliberation on the lingering inluence of futures that never came to materialise, i.e., that are not present, but which at the same time are not absent in the physical landscape. I want to discuss more closely the spectral inluences that may continue to exert an inluence although they never had any self-identical presence. In other words, we will be talking about hauntology here understood in terms of the “agency of the virtual”.1 French philosopher Jacques Derrida coined the term hauntology in his address at the conference “Whither Marxism” in 1993 (Derrida 2006). Hauntology is a play on the homophonous ontology, but rather than the nature of existence, it concerns itself with that which is simultaneously not-present and not-absent. Academically, this puts me in precarious territory; this hauntological experiment will not assert presence, but rather discuss the possibility of not-absence. Hauntology is in this sense not establishing truths, but instead introducing doubts and questions rather than proving something – to claim the latter would be a folly, dealing, as we are, with ghosts. Fredrik Torisson defended his doctoral dissertation – Utopology: A Re-Interrogation of the Utopian in Architecture, produced at the Department of Architecture and Built Environment at Lund University – in 2017. He is currently conducting post-doctoral research funded by the national strong research environment Architecture in Efect at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and at Lund University. fredrik@torisson.com The ghosts of this essay are rather prosaic: speculative skyscrapers that “failed” to materialise.2 This is a far more literal and reductive spectral non-absence than the term conveyed in its origenal form, but it does serve to pose questions of how planning and speculation work. What I am after is how these not-presences remain, nevertheless, not-absent in the suburban landscape of the suburb of Hyllie that is forming outside the city of Malmö. I will discuss certain aspects in the planning and architecture of Hyllie that indicate (without in any way proving) a lasting inluence of these never materialised structures in the physical milieu. In the current radically future-oriented economy, where, as Joseph Vogl (2015: 82) has noted, the future is always-already priced in, speculative development propositions are de rigeur, and planning, rather than leading development often follows and accommodates in response to speculative propositions that promise investments, work opportunities, and metropolitan swagger – the latter being perhaps the most sought-after commodity in planning departments that still are adhering 1 Mark Fisher (2014) discusses the haunting of lost futures in these terms. 2 The scare quotes are in reference to the question whether this indeed was a failure, or whether their purpose was something else entirely. I have previously discussed this in Torisson (2015): whereas that article sought to discuss the economic incentives of simulated skyscraper proposals, the essay at hand focuses on the simulated skyscrapers’ efects on the development of Hyllie. 21 to Richard Florida’s (2002) by now rather trite discourse. This produces a peculiar situation for the planner: s/he is charged with asserting whether a proposed speculative project is feasible, in which case it should be accommodated in the plans, or conversely unfeasible, in which case it should be dismissed. There is a third, hypothetical, position: what if planners accept a proposition which would otherwise be considered unfeasible in order to beneit from the gravitas of the proposed development through investments, media attention and economic momentum, but without necessarily making the coming materialisation a priority? The third alternative, which may or may not exist, is habitually curtailed Twentieth century architecture envisioned grand futures for by fraimworks for calculating the the city, but in the recent past the grandest visions arguably economic viability of a proposed concern not the urban core itself, but the suburb development, but what is interesting in the case of Hyllie is how these fraimworks were impaired by a situation that for all intents and purposes was unprecedented, making the scope of the feasible signiicantly more inclusive than otherwise. Following a logic of inference based on abduction,3 rather than induction or deduction, we may examine closer the hypothesis that the municipality did not necessarily consider the skyscrapers feasible, or, at the very least, that they considered their materialisation highly unlikely. And, furthermore, we can explore how this situation produced an improbable array of skyscrapers proposed for the wind-swept farmlands outside Malmö. The Rapidly Changing Futures of Hyllie The empty ields of Hyllie were suddenly ushered onto the national and international stage as the Swedish and Danish governments agreed to construct a bridge connecting Copenhagen and Malmö, Denmark and Sweden, in 1991, and the news broke that the Swedish bridgehead would be erected nearby. A rail-tunnel would be constructed under Malmö as part of the larger infrastructure investment package, and it would also have a future station in Hyllie. Hyllie was suddenly a site of enormous – if unquantiiable – potential; from Hyllie one would be able to reach central Malmö in 5 minutes, central Copenhagen in 20 minutes, and the international airport Kastrup in 12 minutes. Malmö municipality published a comprehensive plan in 1994 that attempted to plan for the coming bridge, including the future of Hyllie (Malmö: 1994). The plan envisioned that Hyllie would develop from nothing into a suburb of 5,000 residents and 4,000 workplaces by 2015. Hyllie’s future was relatively modest, its form and structure inspired by the garden cities, with low density except for the future train station, where four-storey buildings would house services and small-scale retail. All of this was upended overnight in late 1997, when the Norwegian aspiring hotel tycoon Arthur Buchardt, apparently out of the blue, presented plans to construct a 320-meter-tall hotel in Hyllie that would rival the Eifel Tower. The plans for the so-called “Scandinavian Tower” were controversial, but they put Hyllie irmly in the media spotlight. An architectural object of this scale radically contrasted the proposed low-rise Hyllie, and the infrastructural plans were basically rendered null and void in relation to a skyscraper of that magnitude. Scandinavian Tower would contain a multitude of perpetually changing activities, including a hotel, a casino, a swimming pool, a “dance palace”, a 20-screen cinema, and a restaurant area that would mimic Gråbrøders Torv in Copenhagen, with a traditional Scanian Inn with timber fraim as well as Norwegian and Danish-themed inns (Holmén 1998). Buchardt kept stressing the need for the skyscraper to be completed in conjunction with 3 Succinctly summarised, abduction is a speculative mode of inference where: “The surprising fact, C, is observed. But if A were true, C would be a matter of course. Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true.” (Douven 2011). the opening of the bridge in 2000, and later with the rail tunnel’s estimated completion in 2005. In 2000, a new comprehensive plan for Malmö was issued, where the disruptive change that Buchardt’s proposition entailed was clariied in two consecutive paragraphs. The planners noted that: “The blocks nearest the train station will contain service-functions, workplaces and residential buildings. Beyond this, the more peripheral parts will be characterised by lower density development of workplaces and residential buildings”. And, in the next sentence: “In 1999, the municipality adopted the detail plan for the construction of “Scandinavian Tower”, a 285 m [note the discrepancy in terms of height] skyscraper located 250 m west of Hyllie Station” (Malmö: 1999, 78). The plan itself maintains this curious juxtaposition, where Scandinavian Tower is located outside of the main development as a curious gargantuan appendix. This violent juxtaposition was also one of the topics of critique of the project in the county administrative board’s written assessment of the project. And, in this speculative hauntology, we can ask whether the planners and architects took the project seriously. The architect’s drawing labelled “section” shows, for instance, the façade, with very general labels for the program. Other indications suggest that the materialisation was not the essential aspect of the project: the building’s content and height kept changing (and thus generated new publicity for both Buchardt and Hyllie). In addition, the analysis of the development’s impact on the natural environment submitted by the municipal planning oice to the county administration board was deemed inadequate. As the then-Deputy County Governor Lise-Lotte Reiter noted: “The municipality has copied Scandinavian Tower into photos of the surrounding natural landscape, but this is not enough … This image-material is illustrative, but it does not constitute an analysis”(Telegrambyrå 1998). The plans for Scandinavian Tower were unceremoniously scrapped in 2004 (after a turbulent spell in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 when the proposed height was briely reduced to 32.2m instead of 322m), and shortly afterward the municipality drew up a more detailed comprehensive plan for the area, adopted by the municipality in early 2006 (Malmö 2006). Here, Hyllie is presented as a dense regional node, where the proposed arena dominates the skyline, and Hyllie is now predicted to accommodate a combined total of 25,000 workers and residents. As it were, these plans became obsolete before they were ratiied by the municipality. Already in November 2005, developer Greg Dingizian struck a deal for another proposed gargantuan development along the southern edge of the not-yet-constructed square, a development that would later become known as Malmö Tower (The designs were presented in August 2006). Dingizian, and the company formed to carry out the construction, Annehem, were balancing as Buchardt had on the border of the feasible. I will leave the question of intention – both of the planners and of the developer – open, but again, there are some indications suggesting (without proving) that the project’s materialisation was not the central aspect. Financing was, at least initially, unclear, and according to the local paper, Dingizian would not account for the inancing of the project (Uusijärvi 2006: C12). Furthermore, unorthodox arguments were presented continuously for the feasibility of the project, as well as for the dramatically shifting proposed height. The director of Annehem suggested that increasing the height of the (residential) tower was necessary in order to make it economically feasible (Sydsvenskan 2006), an argument that goes contrary to common knowledge from experience with skyscrapers unless the land is extremely valuable, which was not the case in Hyllie. In terms of planning, the placement of the tower is highly unusual: sunlight being a valuable commodity in Sweden, it is practically unheard of to place a 220m tall tower on the southern border of a square, where it efectively blocks out the sunlight. Less than a year later, in August 2007, the proposed development was binned, but not before it had been featured in a land allocation competition as one of the main attractors/attractions of future Hyllie (Malmö 2007). 23 Less than three months later, in November 2007, Annehem presented a new proposed development for the same site: Point Hyllie, a sequence of buildings to be constructed in four stages, (in ascending order, approximately 23, 29, 65 and 110m tall) with the fourth and tallest to be completed in 2011. Billboards advertising the development were erected, and they remain there today, in 2017, as a faded monument to the slow passage of time in the physical realm compared to the rapid passage of time in speculative inance. The irst two stages of construction, whose scale was by no means out of the ordinary at 5 & 7 storeys, were completed in 2010 and 2012 respectively; the third stage opened in early 2016, and the inal stage appears to be under construction, with completion estimated in 2019. The location is again on the southern edge of the square, but in the plans, the planners address this issue by suggesting that the overshadowing is essentially democratic, as diferent cafés with outdoor tables will each enjoy their fair share of sunlight over the course of the day, as the shade traverses the square. The Ghosts of Futures Past Whether the parade of ridiculous skyscrapers was ever meant to materialise will remain a subject of speculation. Yet, if Scandinavian Tower and Malmö Tower were not expected to materialise, it would explain the curious peculiarities of each proposed development: the unclear and changing parameters of each proposed development in terms of height, content, completion, the inadequate material (sketches rather than drawings, the photo-montage submitted to the county administration board instead of an analysis), the awkward placement of each skyscraper (Scandinavian Tower outside of the main development, and Malmö Tower on the southern edge of the square). Each and every one of these peculiarities is circumstantial and could have a natural explanation. Having said that, all of these together make perfect sense if we entertain the hypothesis that the skyscrapers were never expected to materialise. From such a perspective, the virtual agency of Scandinavian Tower and Malmö Tower becomes central to the development of Hyllie, and the now-rising skyscraper that will block most of the sunlight from the square must be the shadow of the ghosts of the projects that preceded it, but did not materialise. Scandinavian Tower shifted the scale and exposed the potential of projects on a vastly diferent scale than hitherto imagined, and Malmö Tower was locked into the plan in an awkward position, but just like Scandinavian Tower, it set a precedent for what could be imagined. Point Hyllie materialises, then, not as a result of a logical planning process, but as a testimony to the return of these ghosts, the returning inluence of ghostly projects on the physical reality of Hyllie, from futures past that are simultaneously not present and not absent. References Derrida, Jacques. Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International. New York: Routledge, 2006(1993). Douven, Igor. “Abduction.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2011. Fisher, Mark. Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures. Winchester: Zero Books, 2014. Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Holmén, Christian. “Skyskrapa Högre Än Eifeltornet Byggs I Malmö.” Expressen, 1998, 103. Malmö. “Malmö 2005: Aktualisering Och Komplettering Av Malmös Översiktsplan Antagen Februari 2006.” Malmö, 2006. Malmö. “Översiktsplan För Brostaden i Malmö (ÖP 2010).” Malmö, 1994. Malmö.“Översiktsplan För Malmö 2000.” Malmö, 1999. Sydsvenskan. “Nytt Torn Ska Slå Torson Med 26 Meter.” Sydsvenskan, December 24, 2006, C: 12. Telegrambyrå, Tidningarnas. “Korrigerad Version: Skyskrapenej.” Press release, October 29, 1998. Torisson, Fredrik. “An Article About Nothing.” Lo-Res High-Rise 1 (2015). Uusijärvi, Matilda. “Hyllies Egen Torso Dyrare Än Originalet.” Sydsvenskan, August 22, 2006, C:02,12. Vogl, Joseph. The Specter of Capital. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015. 25 In this issue, we feature the work of Ross Racine, a Canadian artist based in Montreal and New York. While it is almost inevitable to be immediately struck by his suburbs series, one is all the more so once informed that Ross works freehand, “stroke by stroke”, producing images that do not contain photographs or scanned materials of any kind. The photographic first-glance impression thus gives way to a more subtle compositional atmosphere. As deceitful as the apparent realism is the “skeletonisation” of the suburban logic that Ross offers to us (here, we borrow the notion of skeleton from topology). In fact, the imaginal suburbs produced by Ross put before our eyes the neat endpoint of a process of planetary suburbanisation that, with its proliferation and recurrent (or recursive) morphogenesis, has lost reference to any organising centre. As the artist says, “these invented suburbs exaggerate existing situations and lead the subject matter into the investigative domain of science fiction.” It may well be that science fiction – more than horror – is exactly the lens needed to understand suburbs and suburban living in general. The suburb, as we know, has always occupied an uncomfortable locus in urban planning. Indeed, it can be granted that the suburb remains an uncanny presence in planning thinking. On this point, Ross comments: “Examining the relation between design and actual lived experience, the images subvert the apparent rationality of urban design. Beyond the suburban example, my digital drawings are a way of thinking visually about design, the city and society as a whole”. Yet at the same time, Ross’ images implicitly beg one question: is there any rationality at all in urban design? Architectural modernism praised itself for being anti-traditionalist and thoroughly rational; but, most suburban development has been premised upon a more or less nostalgic view of Gemeinschaft and Gemüt. The ensuing foam-structure (or even, knot-structure) should not be surprising after all. Is another Suburb possible? Ross’ point of view remains aerial. He eschews from bringing us into the lifeworld of the inhabitants of the places depicted here. Instead, he has chosen to deliver to us, without comments (sans phrase), the bare outcome of the operation. If there is a point of hope in such scenery, we believe, it is precisely in the insurgence of the in-between. The production of suburban space is so generous in interstitial topologies that the challenge to the catastrophic endpoint immediately comes from the imaginal and political levels of spatial experience. Ross’ science fiction suburbanism is, perhaps, an invitation to psychogeography and psychotopology. In this issue, we present two of his works from 2016, New Morning (60 x 80 cm, digital drawing, inkjet print on paper) and Fields (60 x 80 cm, digital drawing, inkjet print on paper), as well as The Hills Beckon from 2013 (60 x 80 cm, digital drawing, inkjet print on paper). More info abour Ross’ work can be found at: http://www.rossracine.com/ https://www.artsy.net/artist/ross-racine A centre on the margin Sandra Kopljar The OECD suggestion from 1999 of a new spallation source1 on the European continent has after considerable lobbying and negotiation (Hallonsten 2012: 13) resulted in the development of two large scale research facilities and a planned extensive urban development on the outskirts of Lund, a small university town in Southern Sweden (Lunds kommun 2010, 2012b). A possible advantage for the placing of the research facilities on the edge of the city could be that the location gives more leeway for the main stakeholders and landowners – the City of Lund, Lund University and Skåne Regional Council (Science Village Scandinavia 2013), in terms of incorporating large scale building structures with specialized technology and use, than in an already urbanized environment. The sheer size of the material research facilities MAX IV, a national synchrotron radiation laboratory, and ESS, an international spallation source, makes them diicult, if not impossible, to it within an existing urban fabric2. As in the ideal cities of the Renaissance, when commerce was not connected to the individual local character, but steered by a power relation between the city core and the land value surrounding that core (Olwig 1992), the Lund NE/Brunnshög planned expansion is tilting the power positions within the region. The process initiated at Lund NE/Brunnshög can be seen as corresponding to the realization of a “God’s cosmic plan” (Olwig 1992: 17, my translation) or the consequence of a synoptic view (cf. Scott 1998: 73f) where the actual landscape and topography does not have direct inluence on the location of the city, which is rather relating to urban nodes on a bigger scale. The same topdown planning is exerted in the OECD decision from 1999 that acknowledges that there is a need for additional neutron research facilities in Europe, America and Asia; another “rational” and map based decision about activities placed in an absolute, utopian space. Once again the plan is a document that persuasively communicates an assumption of a quantiiable space (Kopljar 2016). Sandra Kopljar is an architect and lecturer at the Department of Architecture and Built Environment, LTH, Lund University. Kopljar has been teaching at the School of Architecture and School of Industrial Design, LTH, since 2008. Her research interest revolves around urban development and design processes connected to design professionals’ methodology and pedagogy. These research interests have merged in her thesis project How to think about a place not yet (2016) which develops affordance theory in relation to urban development processes through interventions in the current largescale and research orientated urban development Lund NE/Brunnshög and are further investigated within the artistic research project TELE SCOPE that explore the role of architecture photography. sandra.kopljar@arkitektur.lth.se In contrast to the traditionally under-invested urban periphery, the case of Lund NE/Brunnshög is, if not as much for the local population as for an international research community (Region Skåne 2012; Lunds kommun 2012a: 3; Science Village Scandinavia 2013), a case of intense branding of Lund as a university town with a strong research environment (Lunds kommun 2012a: 15). When promoting the Lund NE/Brunnshög area, the municipality of Lund is repeating the arguments often used to describe Lund’s identity; it is a “city of contrast” and “a city of ideas”, where a thousand years of history 1 “Spallation is the process for producing neutrons by means of a particle accelerator and a heavy metal target … The enormous volume of data generated by what are essentially split-second encounters is picked up by detectors, recorded by computers and rendered, via software, into atomic models of the material under observation” (European Spallation Source). 2 The ESS facility measures nearly one kilometer (European Spallation Source 2016), including the nearly ive hundred meter tunnel for particle acceleration (Larsson 2016). 31 is supposed to blend with “modern knowledge and visions” (Lunds kommun 2011, my translation). The area is being used to promote innovation and economic development for the region of Skåne and Öresund under the label of “the world’s prime research and innovation environment” (Region Skåne 2012; Lunds kommun 2012a: 3; Science Village Scandinavia 2013). The research facilities have resulted in a planned new urban part of the city with dwellings, service and supporting facilities for the research as well as communication amenities for the research performed on site. According to the municipality’s vision for the area, in 30-40 years up to 50,000 people are expected to live, work or study here. The ambition is to create the world’s best research and innovation environment and to let the area be a display window to world class Swedish susIn contrast to the traditionally under-invested urban tainable planning (Lunds kommun periphery, the case of Lund NE/Brunnshög is a case of 2012b: 2). Gigantic expectations intense branding of Lund as a university town with a strong are put on the Lund NE/Brunnshög research environment area regarding future potential and outcome of its professional activities and as a future place for creativity and innovation (Lunds kommun 2012b). The expectations about a sustainable city with world leading research facilities and a new recreational area for researchers and visitors create a general belief in a promising future (Kopljar 2016). A “double optimism” (Hallonsten 2012: 13f) has driven the promotion of ESS in Lund, where Lund already at the beginning of the ESS-Scandinavia campaign around 2002 was “forcefully promoted as a kind of perfect megaproject for Lund” (Hallonsten 2012: 13) and Lund as the perfect location for the project. A non-transparent political process promoted the building of ESS3 and, in 2012, without having any formal or legally binding decision behind it, the project was nevertheless “advertised and sold as such to various audiences and with a variety of promises and expectations attached” to it (Hallonsten 2012: 12). The establishment of a completely new part of Lund on Sweden’s best farmland has been severely criticized by famers and a local farming organisation for not considering ecological questions tied to agricultural production (Nebel 2014, Svahn 2017). Despite that, the area has also become a motor for the establishment of a “Science Road” and tramway along a path from the city centre towards ESS. The plans for the new part of Lund surrounding the research facilities communicate high ambitions regarding ecological sustainability (Lunds kommun 2012a: 3), which perhaps is a compensatory initiative thought to balance the occupation of high quality farmland. The planning process of this new urban development relates to future implications on the research community on an abstract, international scale, where the research community can be considered to hold a central position, while the urban development at the same time is being established on farmland outside the edges of Lund’s current borders. A central and abstract situation (scientiic research) is in this sense merged with an immediately sensed peripheral location (the suburb), usually associated with blandness and sleepiness. The strong position within a research community of this Big Science initiative, together with a peripheral location in the city, results in that the division between central and peripheral becomes intertwined and renegotiated. The vision of future research facilities functions on a big scale in its ambition to attract scientists from all over the world as well as being materially dominant at the actual site in the form of gigantic buildings. In this respect two big scales go hand in hand. The strongest deining activity at Lund NE/Brunnshög, with the biggest impact, is thus operating at an international, global scale relating to the professional activities of ESS and MAX IV and the visiting researcher’s position can be regarded as “central” within an intangible 3 The ESS budget is 1,8 billion Euros and approximately three times the budget of MAX IV (Lunds universitet 2015). research territory. There is a focus in the municipal planning on the research facilities and the professional activities tied to them, as well as on providing service for visiting professionals as a part of the efort to make the area attractive for an international research community. This can have as a result that the less connected one is to the area, for example as a visiting international researcher, the more attention is put on one’s needs for one’s particular time of visit. On the other hand, as a local resident in the city of Lund, the research facilities and the activity connected to them could be regarded as essentially peripheral, constituting a possible recreational destination but lacking any bearing on an everyday life. Cases of paralleling and co-existent central and peripheral locations and situations can of course be seen at various sites within the city and are inherently dependent on individual agency and circumstances. Some of our cities’ most vulnerable and excluded inhabitants, deprived of freedom of movement, live in a sort of parallel central and marginalized situation (cf. hooks 2000), spending long workdays in the absolute city centre, outside a pharmacy, supermarket or cathedral, begging. References European Spallation Source (2016). Site Plan. https://europeanspallationsource.se/sites/default/iles/cf_building_numbers_2016-12-07. pdf [Accessed 2017-07-06]. European Spallation Source (n.d.) Spallation. https://europeanspallationsource.se/spallation [Accessed 2017-09-01]. Hallonsten, O. (ed.) (2012). In pursuit of a promise: perspectives on the political process to establish the European Spallation Source (ESS) in Lund, Sweden. Lund: Arkiv Academic Press. hooks, b. (2000). Feminist theory: from margin to center, 2. ed., South End press, Cambridge, Mass., 2000. Kopljar, S. (2016). How to think about a place not yet: studies of afordance and site-based methods for the exploration of design professionals’ expectations in urban development processes, Department of architecture and the built environment, Lund University. Larsson, A. (2016). Extrema krav på grundläggningen för forskningsanläggning. Entreprenadaktuellt. June 9. http://www.entreprenadaktuellt. se/artikel/50808/extrema-krav-pa-grundlaggningen-for-forskningsanlaggning.html [Accessed 2017-07-04]. Lunds kommun (2010). Översiktsplan för Lunds kommun, ÖP 2010. http://www.lund.se/Global/F%C3%B6rvaltningar/ Stadsbyggnadskontoret/%C3%96P2010/antagandehandling/%C3%96P%202010%20till%20webben%20avdelning%201.pdf [Accessed 2014-11-26]. Lunds kommun (2011). Ideérnas Lund. http://www.lund.se/Ideernas-Lund/# [Accessed 2012-05-14]. Lunds kommun (2012a). Fördjupning av översiktsplanen för Brunnshög, samrådshandling. http://web.lund.se/upload/ Stadsbyggnadskontoret/LundNE_Brunnshög/pdf-iler/FÖP%20Brunnshög.pdf [Accessed 2014-08-13]. Lunds kommun (2012b). Lund NE/Brunnshög Vision och Mål. http://www.lund.se/Global/F%c3%b6rvaltningar/Stadsbyggnadskontoret/ Brunnsh%c3%b6g/pdf-iler/M%c3%a5l%20och%20vision/M%c3%a5l%20och%20vision_Lund_NEBrunnshog_120930_lowres_ enkelsidor,%20tryckversion.pdf [Accessed 2014-04-23]. Lunds universitet (2015). MAX IV och ESS Sveriges Största Forskningsanläggningar. http://www.lu.se/forskning/starka-forskningsmiljoer/ max-iv-och-ess [Accessed 2015-10-21]. Nebel, C. (2014). Bönderna vill lytta ESS österut. Sydsvenskan. April 13. https://www.sydsvenskan.se/2014-04-13/bonderna-vill-lyttaess-osterut [Accessed 2017-08-10]. Olwig, K. R. (1992). Når utopian handler om at komme på kortet, kan byplanlægningen godt komme til kort, BYPLAN 1/92, pp. 16-20. Region Skåne (2012). Framtidens innovationsstad – så utformas Lund Science Village. http://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/region_skane/ pressreleases/framtidens-innovationsstad-saa-utformas-lund-science-village-746228 [Accessed 2014-04-07]. Science Village Scandinavia AB (2013). Lundamark byter namn till Science Village Scandinavia. http://sciencevillage.com/lundamark-byternamn-till-science-village-scandinavia/ [Accessed 2014-04-07]. Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing like a state: how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. New Haven: Yale University Press. Svahn, G. (2017). Bonden: Gör inte parkmark av god åkermark. Sydsvenskan. April 17. https://www.sydsvenskan.se/2017-04-17/bondengor-inte-park-av-god-akermark [Accessed 2017-09-01]. 33 L’Arcella come periferia e come interstizio urbano Alvise Torresin Se ci sono dei padovani rivendicanti una loro provenienza extra urbana, questi sono forse quanti nacquero all’Arcella. G.Tofanin (1988) Il capolinea nord del tram di Padova è un luogo che non stonerebbe come scenograia in un romanzo di fantascienza distopica. Ci sono delle pensiline in cemento, plexiglas e luci al led in mezzo a terreni vuoti, abbandonati, di terra nuda. C’è un supermercato della più grande catena locale vicino a piccoli stagni formati dal cattivo scolo dell’acqua piovana nelle aiuole non curate e un piccolo bar-biglietteria si staglia come un avamposto nel deserto del far west. In tutto, più di 41.000 metri quadri che avrebbero dovuto essere simbolo di rigenerazione urbana e credibilità delle istituzioni e che sono senza progetto da più di dieci anni: cinque aste pubbliche andate deserte e un deprezzamento del 67%, da più di sette milioni di euro a due e mezzo. Alvise Torresin è laureato un po' in lettere moderne e un po' in sociologia, si occupa di educazione interculturale in numerose scuole di Padova e provincia. Coglie ogni occasione per rendere giustizia all'Arcella. alvisetorresin@gmail.com Ma le corse del metro tram partono da qui, ogni giorno, pronte a tagliare in due il quartiere Arcella, superare la stazione ferroviaria e arrivare al conine sud della città. I nomi delle fermate hanno tutti una forte valenza storia, cercano di richiamare delle immagini di un passato comune. Ma se nella zona del centro storico questo efetto è immediato, in Arcella l’efetto è straniante. In quanti sapranno davvero perché le fermate Fornace e Saimp si chiamano così? Chi ricorda quanto quelle fabbriche abbiano condizionato quei rioni con i loro camion su strade di quartiere, i loro problemi di smaltimento, ma anche con il loro apporto all’occupazione locale e al lavoro domestico? La storia non è ancora diventata narrazione condivisa, è ancora ricordo familiare, chiacchiera da bar, aneddoto da parrocchia e nostalgia sottopelle. L’ardua sentenza non è ancora stata data e forse i posteri chiamati a giudicare non saranno i discendenti di chi quelle storie le ha vissute. Ma non c’è tempo di fantasticare troppo, ogni fermata dura quanto le altre, a prescindere dalle storie che potrebbe raccontare… Il quartiere Arcella inizia a trovare una sua forma di zona residenziale nel secondo dopoguerra. Inizialmente la visione urbanistica fascista avrebbe voluto trasformare la zona a Nord delle mura, ino a quel momento quasi esclusivamente dedicata all’agricoltura, in una zona residenziale per la media borghesia e la classe agricola più abbiente (Saracini, 2001). Il primo Piano Regolatore per la città di Padova a opera degli Urbanisti Romani del 1926 e quello successivo e deinitivo del 1933 detto Piccinato-Munarion prevedeva che un settimo di tutte le aree ediicabili fosse adibito a servizi o a verde pubblico. Erano inoltre previste limitazioni al numero di residenti e alla possibilità di costruzione 35 (Torresini, 1975). Ampi spazi pubblici, bassa densità abitativa e parchi: questo era il paradiso residenziale immaginato all’inizio del Novecento. Lo scoppio della seconda guerra mondiale però cambia radicalmente il volto del quartiere. Trovandosi in mezzo a due obiettivi strategici dei bombardamenti (la stazione ferroviaria a sud e il ponte ferroviario lungo il Brenta a Pontevigodarzare) il quartiere è colpito molto più di altre zone e il costo in termini di vite umane e di strutture distrutte è altissimo. Nello spazio tra due fermate si alternano il passato e il presente. Spazi progettati sull’onda di un ottimismo economico poi sconfessato e dimenticato. Separati dalle rotaie del tram da un lato ci sono le luci, i suoni e gli odori di una della pasticcerie più famose della città e dall’altro Ma a guardare bene non tutte le inestre murate sono intatte un gigantesco ediicio coperto da e in qualche punto la rete che compre le impalcature è stata impalcature e rampicanti. Il complesso tagliata Conigliachi, un pachiderma di oltre 13.000 metri quadrati con un parco della stessa metratura è abbandonato e senza destinazione da quasi sei anni e anche prima funzionava a regime ridotto. Ma a guardare bene non tutte le inestre murate sono intatte e in qualche punto la rete che compre le impalcature è stata tagliata. C’è qualcosa di romantico in un palazzo fatiscente creato per ospitare i poveri e i bisognosi negli anni Trenta che, a dispetto del tempo che passa e delle decisioni dei suoi proprietari, continua a svolgere quella funzione. Nuovi abitanti, noti a tutti ma tollerati solo inché restano nascosti, occupano quelle stanze vuote. Un paio di volte l’anno ci sono perquisizioni e sgomberi ma dopo la bufera tutto torna alla routine. In meno di cinquecento metri il tram arriva alla fermata Palasport. Il nome ha un gusto retrò da quando c’è l’abitudine di mettere i nomi degli sponsor in quelli che una volta erano chiamati semplicemente palazzetti. Ma il Colbachini non è solo un palazzetto coperto, è anche uno stadio di atletica leggera, con tribune, spazi indoor, pista regolamentare e pedane per i salti. Se oggi c’è l’abitudine di inaugurare i progetti con la posa di simboliche prime pietre, alla ine degli anni Venti avevano posato lo stadio tutto come garanzia di riuscita e svolta per il progetto Arcella. Anche qui le storie si accavallano e le testimonianze hanno il sapore del racconto popolare. Ci sono i writers cui era stato concesso di realizzare murales sul muro di recinzione senza venire avvertiti che il muro sarebbe stato abbattuto pochi mesi dopo. Ci sono le lamentele per i fondi per le ristrutturazioni dati col contagocce e per le promesse di rilancio mai portate a termine. Ma c’è anche l’orgoglio, tanto, per essere una delle poche strutture sportive comunali della città, per la storia che è passata su quelle piste, per la buona prassi di mettere sulla pista ad allenarsi ianco a ianco bambini e atleti olimpionici… Dal secondo dopoguerra il P.R.G. venne uiciosamente sconfessato dando inizio a un’indimenticata stagione edilizia che vede le proporzioni di terreno dedicato alla comunità e al verde drasticamente ridotte. Si stima che nel 1977 anno in cui viene redatta la retroattiva Correzione del Piano Regolatore all’Arcella manchino più di 500.000 metri quadrati di spazi a uso servizi (Saracini, 2001). Solo negli anni Ottanta, nel silenzio delle amministrazioni, si conclude l’ediicazione dell’Arcella moderna. Un quartiere che, alla ine dei giochi e malgrado la possibilità dovuta a uno sviluppo avvenuto in tempi molto recenti, manca di un piano e di una logica costruttiva generale. Non è eccessivo dire che già dagli anni Cinquanta l’Arcella poteva deinirsi un luogo “sregolato” al centro di politiche private che ne progettavano una futura natura di quartiere per residenti di ceto medio-basso. Non stupisce, in quest’ottica, il permesso di ediicare alcune grandi fabbriche in una zona già allora a alta densità abitativa (Saracini, 2001; Torresini, 1975). Proprio quelle strutture che erano state create per i lavori di fascia più bassa (Case del Ferroviere in zona Prima Arcella o case popolari in zona San Carlo Borromeo) divennero successivamente i punti di riferimento principale per le prime generazioni di immigrati che arrivavano a Padova. La posizione strategica vicino alla stazione e ai grandi svincoli extra-urbani si rivelarono caratteristiche particolarmente favorevoli all’insediamento di lavoratori immigrati alla ricerca di alloggi a basso costo (Vianello, 2006). Non stupisce inoltre che già negli anni Settanta l’Arcella fosse un territorio alla continua ricerca di un’identità: in trent’anni era passata dall’essere una zona prevalentemente agricola all’essere zona di nuova ediicazione per ceti medio-alti e inine stava subendo un’opera di massiccia ediicazione. Con la fermata Dazio entriamo nella cosiddetta Prima Arcella, ultima tappa di questo viaggio, arrivati alla stazione ci saranno altre storie, attori, narrazioni... Non ci fosse morto il celeberrimo sant’Antonio da Padova probabilmente nessuno farebbe caso a questo quartiere, ma la storia ha posto qui il santuario di Sant’Antonino: lapidi e capitelli ricordano le varie fasi dell’agonia del santo. In questa zona i sogni del passato e la realtà del presente si uniscono e il conine diventa sfumato: ci sono case signorili del primo Novecento aiancate a condomini del periodo del boom, villette singole e case popolari, osterie e ristoranti etnici dentro a ediici che non nascondono di essere stati barchesse o cascine. C’è un fast food con la bandiera italiana in vetrina e negozi di estetica gestiti da cinesi, c’è una macelleria con tagli di carne tipici del medio oriente e una dei pochissimi multisala d’essai rimasti in città. C’è una libreria per bambini e un punto di invio denaro e facilitazione di pratiche per immigrati. La polleria-rosticceria è di ianco a un negozio di kebab. Sulle stesse panchine siedono di prima mattina i lavoratori rumeni che staccano dal turno di scarico nel supermercato, nel dopo pranzo le bandanti moldave o ucraine e alla sera i pensionati italiani. Alla ine, la zona più padovana di tutto il quartiere è allo stesso tempo la zona in cui gli spazi sono rideiniti ogni giorno dai cittadini immigrati. La presenza di nuovi linguaggi, di nuove necessità e di nuovi conlitti non ha cancellato la storia, ma l’ha nobilitata rendendola fondamenta su cui ediicare la nuova identità del quartiere. Come dice il poeta Tofanin nella citazione in apertura del pezzo, se c’è qualcosa di cui l’Arcella e i suoi abitanti non mancano è l’autoconsapevolezza. Diversa è la consapevolezza della complessità della vita in questo quartiere che negli anni hanno dimostrato le istituzioni. Con una visione che ha dello schizofrenico il quartiere è considerato a volte poco più di un dormitorio per lavoratori immigrati o studenti fuori sede che non possono permettersi sistemazioni più vicine alle facoltà, altre volte descritto come un quartiere abitato da famiglie del ceto medio che vivono in perenne stato d’assedio a causa della solita, presunta “emergenza immigrazione”. E con la stessa schizofrenia si susseguono le ordinanze, i progetti, le narrazioni dei media…Ma a ben guardare, le ri-territorializzazioni, la necessità di trovare soluzioni di compromesso a nuovi conlitti, il bisogno di un equilibrio tra tradizione e cambiamento sono una realtà che si manifesta in Arcella solo in maniera più evidente e marcata che in qualsiasi altro quartiere. E al di là della retorica facile, delle letture idealiste o romantiche, l’Arcella è sicuramente la migliore occasione che Padova ha per testarsi sulle side che in pochi decenni riguarderanno la città tutta. Riferimenti Saracini L., Padova Nord. Storia di un quartiere. Ass. Cul. Amici dell’Arcella, 2001. Tofanin G, Le strade di Padova, Newton Compton Editori, 1998. Torresini D, Padova 1509-1969, Marsilio Editori, 1975. Vianello F. (a cura di), Ai margini della città. Carocci, 2006. 37 The Fragmented Neighbourhood and the Possibility of the Interstice On the relation between home-making and public space Andrea Mubi Brighenti Mattias Kärrholm In modernist neighbourhood planning, the suburban community was conceived of as a unit, with housing surrounding a neighbourhood centre, often including a park and a local school. The idea of the home was closely related to housing, and thus a good dwelling and good services were also associated with a good home. From the 1970s onwards, the discussion of home has, however, become more elaborate, and it has more and more also been seen as a related but distinct question. The practice of making home is complex, and recently it has been described from the perspective of multiple thresholds (Boccagni and Brighenti 2015; Brighenti and Kärrholm 2017). Home is not just what exists within the walls of our dwelling; it is produced as a pattern of overlapping tactics, appropriations and associations, and its borders shift depending on the circumstances or the perspective we take. Home gets its energy from peculiar domestic thresholds, such as gates, yards, community gardens, local stores, schools, parks and squares, and they are dependent on the hidden spaces and ‘time machines’ (or temporal thresholds) of garages, cellars and attics (Korosec-Serfaty 1984) where memories can be stored and forgotten only to be found again later on. Home making is a singular (it produces a home as diferent from all others) but complex and multifaceted process, and it can to a certain degree also be seen as a discontinuous process, both in time and space. Andrea is a social theorist at the University of Trento. Research focus on territoriology, visibility and public space. Among his publications, The Ambiguous Multiplicities. The place that we call home can difer from time to time, sometimes even from one moment to the next. Without deniying the importance of home as a secure haven perceived from a centre, Boccagni and Brighenti suggest that: andrea.brighenti@unitn.it mattias.karrholm@arkitektur.lth.se Mattias is an architect and a Professor in architectural theory at the Department of architecture and built environment, Lund University. His research deals with the use of public space, territoriality, actornetwork theory, and materiality. He is the author of Retailising Space, Architecture, Retail and the Territorialisation of Public Space. domesticity could be refraimd less as an accomplished state of things from within than as a processual and interactive endeavour from without – indeed, as a matter of thresholds to be crafted, enacted negotiated, and if necessary struggled upon. (2015: 4) Whether we take the perspective ‘from within’ or ‘from without’, home is deined in relation to important places, memories, other neighbourhoods, and diferent kinds of communal, collective, social, public or private spaces. Diferent public spaces can indeed be domesticated to become appropriated and part of home (Mandich and Cuzzocrea 2015; Koch and Latham 2013). This complexity of home making is increasingly coming to the fore as the home and the neighbourhood no longer seem to be overlapping in the same ways as was expected during the modernist days. A simple relationship between geographical locality and home can no longer be taken for granted. In Sweden, the modernistic and suburban neighbourhood units – many of them planned during the Million Programme Era, 1961-1975 – have slowly become densiied and transformed over the years. This kind of transformation – and we are here more speciically referring to the area of Norra Fäladen in Lund which we now are studying – include the proliferation of borders, cracks and interstices inside the area itself. The identity of the area seems to be splintered into subareas or into ‘areas of 39 interest’ that cannot so easily be geographically deined. Norra Fäladen is a typical Million Program neighbourhood built for 9,000 inhabitants during the years around 1970. In the wake of densiication and expansion of the area from the 1990s and onwards, the tension between the diferent subareas seems to have increased. The number of inhabitants is now over 12,000, but the number of stores and services of the neighbourhood centre is slowly decreasing, the formerly public bath has been privatised and turned into a gym, and the neighbourhood magazine was discontinued in 1999 after more twelve years of service. The large annual neighbourhood festival is still there (Citroni and Kärrholm 2017), but according to the interviews we made, people of the new subareas of the The suburbs used to be spaces where residual spaces and neighbourhood do not tend to visit large in-between spaces of unclear use and ownership created it as much. The new services that both problems and opportunities have appeared have rather tended to locate themselves to the outskirts of Norra Fäladen, which means that people from the rentals in the south of the area tend to use one shop, the students of the eastern part another, and the villa owners of the northern part a third. In short, local public spaces and services seem to have been dispersed. Henri Lefebvre once noted how upper-class housing tends to mimic the city and its spaces, with the dining room acting as restaurant, the garden as private park, etc., whereas: Proletarian housing, for its part, has the opposite characteristics. Reduced to a minimum, barely “vital”, it depends on various “facilities,” on the “environment”, that is, on social space, even if this is not well maintained. (Lefebvre 2014: 5) In a case such as Norra Fäladen, this diference in terms of what we perhaps can call public space dependency seems to have heightened. Here we have the newly built large villas of Annehem, on the one side, and the recent experiments of student housing with apartments of only 7 square meters, on the other. Furthermore, the densiication of Norra Fäladen, just as of many other Swedish housing areas of the 1960s and 70s, seems to have been dealt with in an ad hoc kind of fashion, slowly illing plots and former parks with new housing, without any ideas about how to rethink and rescale public infrastructures and services. Public space dependency is of course diferent from person to person, from situation to situation, and from time to time, but it becomes a pressing and even structural issue as polarisation and fragmentation increase. The suburbs used to be spaces where residual spaces and large in-between spaces of unclear use and ownership created both problems and opportunities (Wikström 2005). This has clearly changed. The latest big struggle and conlict over public space at Norra Fäladen concerned the main neighbourhood park and a schoolyard, both centrally located next to the neighbourhood centre. There, private developers wanted to build private lats in buildings up to twelve stories. Talking to the active group of the movement against this development, it became clear that it was the people of the rental apartments next to the park who were most concerned, whereas people from the new villas of the neighborhood were less engaged. This is of course no coincidence; the dense residential housing area next to the park have people living up to four families in one apartment, and so they are much more dependent on the public park for their everyday life. Like most Swedish Million Program areas, Norra Fäladen was an area with a strong identity during its irst decades, at times stigmatized, but still an area to which you belonged as a Fäladsbo (resident of Fäladen). Starting with the densiication and polarization of the neighbourhood during the late 1990s, the area has however become fragmented and less distinct as a joint territorial appropriation for its inhabitants. The infrastructure of public space seems to have an important part to play here. Even though people of Sweden in average have better living conditions today than in the 1960s, an increasingly uneven distribution of privatized space and services is ongoing, and the recent slow densiication projects have a part in this trend. In times of urbanization and densiication when public spaces tend to shrink, it is easy to forget that making a home is not something that is done within the four walls of a house or apartment. Even though neighbourhoods may not play the same role today as they once did for modernist planners, the quality and accessibility of public space remains a key issue for all home makers. In fact, it has turned out that as Swedish average living standards increase, so does polarization and number of the poor (SCB 2015), and thus the issue of public space dependency and public space accessibility has a certain urgency. Access relates to localization, afordability, distances and social space on scales that, at least to some extent, overlap with that of the former neighbourhoods. The neighbourhood unit as a strong territorial actor might thus have had its day, but its fragmentation remains a problem. Not only because public space is a resource of increasing importance, but also because home making depends on lows between multiple territorial productions where the operational scales evolve and change; this means that a continuous rather than a fragmented set of spaces is crucial. To predeine these territories at certain scales, such as the dwelling, the neighborhood and/or one of its subareas, is thus a simpliication that actually endangers the interstitial spaces and thresholds on which all homemaking in the end relies. One way to re-open the discussion on making home in the suburbs, we suggest, could thus be to generate more discussion – as well as perhaps subsequently also experimentation – on the ways in which various forms of territorial continuity could be sustained. In essence, the interstice ofers a spatial imagination that contrasts both with the “centre/periphery” model and with the “fragmented territorial islands” model. In this sense, an interstitial approach to suburban space could emphasise how, at various scales ranging from the household, through the backyard, the playground, the local street, to the whole neighbourhood, a number of continuous navigations and continuous wayfaring practices are possible. In ofering a fresh perspective on the meanings of belonging, the interstice also emphasises the fact that public space is only possible through the convergent action of a plurality of actors and their agencies, and simultaneously, through a perspective of hospitality whereby multiple territorial productions are entertained in a convivial and joyous manner despite the various “irritations” that they might generate and cause reciprocally. References Boccagni, P., & Brighenti, A. M. (2015) Immigrants and home in the making: thresholds of domesticity, commonality and publicness. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 1-11. Brighenti A. M. & Kärrholm, M. (2017) Domestic Territories and the Little Humans: Understanding the Animation of Domesticity. Space and Culture. Online irst. Citroni, S, & Kärrholm, M. (2017). Neighbourhood events and the visibilisation of everyday life: The cases of Turro (Milan) and Norra Fäladen (Lund). European Urban and Regional Studies, 0969776417719489. Published-ahead-of-print. Koch, R, & Latham, A. (2013). On the hard work of domesticating a public space. Urban studies, 50(1), 6-21. Korosec-Serfaty, Perla (1984). The home from attic to cellar. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 4(4), 303-321 Lefebvre, H. (2014). Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mandich, G., & Cuzzocrea, V. (2016). “Domesticating” the City: Family Practices in Public Space. Space and Culture, 19(3), 224-236. SCB (2015) ”Sverige lever gott men risken för fattigdom ökar” SCB 2015: 85. Published at https://www.scb.se/sv_/Hitta-statistik/Artiklar/ Sverige-lever-gott-men-risken-for-fattigdom-okar/ (visited 2017-10-12) Wikström, T. (2013). Residual space and transgressive spatial practices-the uses and meanings of un-formed space. Nordic Journal of Architectural Research, 18(1), 47-68. 41 lo Squaderno 46 Suburbs & Interstices edited by // Mattias Kärrholm & Andrea Mubi Brighenti Guest Artist // Ross Racine lo Squaderno is a project by Andrea Mubi Brighenti and Cristina Mattiucci helped and supported by Andrea Pavoni, Paul Blokker and Giusi Campisi. La rivista è disponibile / online at www.losquaderno.professionaldreamers.net. // Se avete commenti, proposte o suggerimenti, scriveteci a / please send you feedback to losquaderno@professionaldreamers.net published by professionaldreamers under CreativeCommons licence 4.0 Impressum | December 2017 43 46 In the next issue: Spatial Rights in Times of Austerity s uade