Conference Abstract | Lasse Kjeldsen

Urban Practitioners’ Approach to Social Sustainability in Disadvantaged Social Housing Estate Redevelopment

The paper investigates social sustainability strategies in the case of redevelopment of disadvantaged social housing estates. I pose the questions: How do urban practitioners perceive and address social sustainability in disadvantaged social housing redevelopment? Particularly: How do practitioners propose to deal with issues of community, social equity and inclusion, and participation in redevelopment and regeneration processes?

The paper is based on an empirical analysis of urban practitioners’ response to the Danish so-called Parallel Society Agreement (PSA) of 2018 that imposes mandatory redevelopment plans to fundamentally change the housing tenure composition in 15 disadvantaged estates. The paper draws on 27 individual and group interviews with 33 urban practitioners – such as planners, architects, developers and community workers – involved in redevelopment projects in five Danish social housing estates: Tingbjerg, Ringparken, Vollsmose, Gellerup/Toveshøj and Bispehaven.

Social housing developments are important welfare spaces designed to provide quality housing for all. With the introduction of the PSA, however, selected estates are subject to mandatory redevelopment, particularly stressing “mixed city”, urban integration and tenure mixing. The objective is to relieve concentrated disadvantage and enhance social mixing. The research literature warns us, however, that social mixing does not per se make for well-integrated and socially sustainable communities. On the contrary, estates redeveloped to enhance social mixing have often been marked by significant intergroup social distance and tensions. Furthermore, social tenants have often been marginalized and participatory mechanisms thwarted. Arguably, successful redeveloping socially disadvantaged estates into mixed neighborhoods calls for specific attention towards promoting social sustainability. In this paper, I investigate how urban practitioners perceive the challenges of social sustainability, and how they plan to address them.

Literature

Chaskin, R.J. and Joseph, M.L. (2015). Contested Space: Design Principles and Regulatory Regimes in Mixed-Income Communities in Chicago. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 660(1), pp. 136-154.

Chaskin, R.J. and Joseph, M.L. (2015). Integrating the Inner City. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Dempsey, N., Bramley, G., Power, S. and Brown, C. (2011). The social dimension of sustainable development: Defining urban social sustainability. Sustainable development (Bradford, West Yorkshire, England), 19(5), pp. 289-300.

Lawton, P. (2013). Understanding Urban Practitioners’ Perspectives on Social-Mix Policies in Amsterdam: The Importance of Design and Social Space. Journal of Urban Design 18(1), pp. 98-118.

Murphy, K. (2012). The social pillar of sustainable development: a literature review and framework for policy analysis. Sustainability : science, practice, & policy 8(1), pp. 15-29.

Lasse Kjeldsen is an Industrial PhD-fellow in the Department of The Built Environment at Aalborg University, and Chief Advisor at the Centre for Urban Regeneration and Community Development (CFBU). Lasse has a MA in Political Science from Copenhagen University and 10 years’ experience as evaluation consultant within social and community work. Lasses re-search interests lie in the area of disadvantaged social housing redevelopment, social mixing, social sustainability, and the coupling between community development and urban regeneration. Lasse is currently conducting an action research field work in connection with the urban redevelopment program for the social housing estate, Tingbjerg, in Copenhagen.