During the 1960’s and 1970’s, big social housing areas were built in the surburbs from a welfare ideology providing accessible, healthy housing with and a focus on the green recreational areas. The suburbs were planned by a post war architecture where principles such as rationality and functionality dominated, resulting in physical zoning. Today, we find that the urban field is segregated into an archipelago of enclaves, where homogeneous groups of people live together in more or less isolated communities. This is the result of the both the physical structures as well as the societal changes such as globalization. The segregation within the suburbs weakens the social cohesion in society. Furthermore, marginalized groups risk being even more excluded. This is especially the case in social housing neighborhoods that experience a high concentration of social and physical challenges. Today these neighborhoods are not only segregated from the surrounding city, but also face stigmatizing from especially the political ghettoization.
This thesis explores the social housing neighborhood Vangkvarteret in Holbæk. Due to classification as a so-called ghetto, Vangkvarteret faces a transformation process focused on bringing down the number of family apartments and integrating the neighborhood within the city.
Building on Hajer and Reijndorp’s theoretical concept of public domains and cultural exchange, this thesis investigates how public spaces can contribute to social integration and prevent stigmatization. By mapping the diversity of amenities and especially social practices, the analysis identifies and discusses, which public spaces in Holbæk contains the potential to function as a public domain.
The methodology is a case study combining a map-based survey between residents in Holbæk, follow-up interviews, registration of stationary activities in Vangkvarteret, and amenities data from Open Street Map. Data is processed through visual mapping tools that allow for spatial explorations of social practices reported primarily by survey participants.