Urban Empowerment

Developing capacity-building processes in which residents are involved

This project aimed to seek out new forms of participation that allow citizens to actively take part in urban development processes. It was a pilot project within the research program Mistra Urban Futures and carried out in Hammarkullen, a city district in Gothenburg. The project sought the answers to four overall questions:

  1. What characterizes capacity-building processes in which residents participate? ↗
  2. How can we encourage the creation of such approaches in urban transformation processes? ↗
  3. What are the possibilities and weaknesses associated with working in this way? ↗
  4. How can we deal with identified weaknesses? ↗

Funder:

Mistra

Budget:

2 million SEK

Time period:

2010–2011

Participants

Jenny Stenberg, Chalmers Architecture, Project leader
Eeva Bolin, City District East, Project leader
Lasse Fryk, University of Gothenburg
Pia Borg, City of Gothenburg
Pål Castell, Chalmers Architecture
Ulrika Evenås, Göteborgslokaler
Vanja Larberg, City of Gothenburg

PROJECT RESULTS

— What we learned

”On a broader scale, the society needs to undergo a change we labeled as institutional transformation (in Swedish: omgestaltning), which may be considered as the social counterpart to the generally accepted environmental concept transition (omställning).

Download short summary ↗ Ladda ner kort sammanfattning ↗

Network mapping of Hammarkullen

The project initiated or participated in ten local processes (dashed white circles) and learned from their implementation. The network analysis shows that a large number of actors were involved in the implementation of the processes and the relationships between the actors played a major role in how the processes and results were experienced. Participant observation of meetings and interviews with actors provided valuable information about how stakeholders view citizen influence in urban transformation.

Articles and other texts

Stenberg, Jenny (2013). ”Citizens as Knowledge Producers in Urban Change: Participation Changing Procedures and Systems.” Footprint – Participatory Turn in Urbanism 7(2): 131-142. Download ↗
Stenberg, Jenny (2012). »The Strength of Codesign: Citizens as Community Builders«. In: Design, Participation, Sustainability, ICT: Sustainable Public Open Spaces and Participation through Interaction and ICT. Ooms and Verbeke. Ghent, Belgium: 78-93.  Download ↗
Castell, Pål (2012). »Dialogues and citizen initiatives in stigmatized urban areas: reflections on the development of participatory planning principles in Gothenburg«. Paper presented at IFHP 56th World Congress: Inclusive cities in a global world, Gothenburg, September 16-19, 2012. Download ↗
Stenberg, Jenny & Lasse Fryk (2012). »Urban Empowerment through Community Outreach in Teaching and Design«. Elsevier Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 46: 3284–3289. Download ↗
Stenberg, Fryk, Bolin, Castell, Evenås, Larberg (2012). »Urban Empowerment: Cultures of Participation and Learning«. In: Open access paper. Gothenburg, Mistra Urban Futures. Download ↗

Films about the project

[Swedish]

One of the project leaders, Jenny Stenberg, talks about the project’s background and starting points.

Gloria Esteban is involved in empowering cultural workers in the city district of Hammarkullen in Gothenburg. Among other things, she talks about the gulf between those who lead and those who live in Sweden.

José Romero is a cultural worker in the city district of Hammarkullen. He talks about involvement in associations and dialogue as a tool in a democracy.

The Meeting Place is an initiative that Urban Empowerment followed and supported. The driving force behind this initiative, Magdalena Djurachkovitch, talks about their efforts to increase integration.

Project participant Pål Castell talks about the search for new approaches to research.

Lasse Fryk, another participant in Urban Empowerment, talks about the need for institutional transformation in our increasingly complex society.

Iftiin (‘hope’ in Somali) is an association run by young people. In this clip we hear Yasmin Hashi and Sarah Sunshine talk about social exclusion and the importance of young people having more influence.

Pia Borg, project participant and employed by the municipal administration, talks about citizen participation from a whole-city-perspective.

Anita Molin, teacher at Emma School and involved in the project, talks about how the school works in close cooperation with the local community: children are community builders.