Abstract:
Umeå municipality sees itself as the engine for growth in North of Sweden and have a high set goal to become 200,000 inhabitants by the year 2050. Reaching this goal is part of a global competition where people and their social networks are the asset, and the urban property market is the main driving force.
In its tracks follows in many cases all over the world, gentrification of segregated areas where the user of the space has few rights and the owner have many. At the same time the group of people “at-risk-of- poverty” have doubled in Sweden in the last 30 years.
My previous report focused on bildung as a learning process that can give agency to people. Within the process of bildung, people can both participate in the structural life of society and make personal changes in their own life. By this, tools to handle segregation can be given to people in an area with difficulties. Today problems of segregation are often handled with a top-down solution of revitalization which often leads to gentrification where existing networks are pushed out. Instead, I argue, the process of urbanization needs to give space for bildung as a bottom-up solution.
This report starts with a theoretical research about gentrification with a focus on displacement due to secondary effects, such as exclusive displacement and displacement pressure. The theoretical rese- arch then shifts to focus in practical examples of how bildung associations have worked with social networks. Finally, by engaging direct in the planning process together with Umeå municipality and with a series of talk with association in Umeå five design aspects are concluded. With this five points the theoretical knowledge is translated to a concrete solutions for Umeå.
