Document Press released the book Läget I Staden (The State of the City), a thought-provoking volume edited by Erik Jönsson, Johan Pries, and Miriam Negash. The book features contributions from members of the Institute for Urban Research (IUR), including Carina Listerborn, Guy Baeten, and Maria Persdotter.
Description:
The State of the City provides insights into the ongoing two-decade transformation of the Norra Sorgenfri district in Malmö. The focus is a critical review of how the area was framed in the planning process, the visions that guided the transformation, what has emerged, and what has been lost in the process.
The texts follow how planning visions, work, and opportunities in the city have changed over time, using Norra Sorgenfri as a starting point for a study of Malmö both as a city and as a symbolically charged place.
Norra Sorgenfri was long seen as a gap in the middle of Malmö, a largely deindustrialized area between the city’s central and eastern parts. Politicians and planners envisioned a new, socially sustainable neighborhood district to unite a segregated city.
But the district was already “occupied.” Graffiti artists worked undisturbed, skateboarders rode in their cement park. The homeless slept here. The Utkanten activity center was established here. The music from nighttime underground clubs resounded here. There were both small business owners and larger industries.
It is in the sometimes disharmonious encounter between politicians, planners, and the district’s residents, with their dreams and visions, that the authors seek the stories of Norra Sorgenfri.
