Suburban Development - in Search of the Language of the Suburbs

Several Danish suburbs are facing major challenges that endeavour to cope with (among other factors) counteracting the segregation of suburbs into socially sharply separated residential areas. Therefore, these years see the post-war era’s suburban areas being revitalized and urban life, urban qualities and community are being discussed in relation to the suburbs. In the process of re-imagining the suburb it is important to analyse which factors could counteract segregation. Therefore, different types of suburban public spaces are mapped, with the purpose of exploring the design and the everyday use of suburban public spaces through urban life studies, architectural analysis and anthropological fieldwork. At play in the case studies of the PhD project are physical settings for community and as theoretical framework Hajer & Reijndorp’s term “exchange” (compared to “the meeting”) is used to open up the discussion and the cultural mind- set related to the development of the Danish suburb.