Public spaces in post-war housing areas : A Swedish and French comparison

Sammanfattning: This master thesis explores and compares through two case studies the characteristics of public spaces in post-war housing areas in terms of appearance and uses in two different countries: France and Sweden. Through observations, interviews and readings, it aims at understanding to which extent public spaces can take part in the creation of social interactions and influence the general perception about such areas, and their importance in such processes. Public spaces play a great role in the democratization, the development and the identity formation of a society and of a place, but in post-war housing areas, criticisms raised about the deadness of these spaces which struggle in fulfilling these important roles. Still, Mermoz (Lyon, France) and Husby (Stockholm, Sweden), the two case studies considered in this paper, showed a different reality. If their structure and organization is still quite characteristic of post-war housing areas, public spaces in these neighborhoods are not the ´empty´, ´blank´ spaces often described in theories, and people meet and interact. Still, it shows some limits in terms of meeting quality, accessibility and attractiveness. Moreover, these areas suffer from really bad reputation due to strong negative connotations attached with ´suburbs´ in these two countries. Public spaces could help in changing this ´image´ by bringing openness, changing aesthetic and creating different kinds of relations between people – by reducing the dominance of groups of young men and the drugs traffic that often characterize public spaces in these areas for instance. Still, changing an image of an area and creating different social interactions is a much more complex process that has to take into account several factors including public spaces, buildings, employment rates, education etc.