Managing Otherness: Segregation, sociality, and the planning of a sustainable Helsingborg

The city of Helsingborg in southern Sweden has long been divided by its residents between North and South – first because of economic development, and later due to immigration. The City Planning Department hopes to address this division as part of an ambitious 25-year urban development project in the industrial harbour which borders the two central, divided districts of the city – Centrum and Söder. As segregation is a phenomenon existing within a physical environment, it is necessary to investigate the roles played by buildings, landscaping, infrastructure, economic development and the many people, objects and uses which inhabit spaces. As a social discourse, it is necessary to question what values underlie the choices that people make about where they will and will not go, and how these choices relate to the materiality of spaces. This study utilises a combination of interviews, resource and location mapping, and observation in order locate discourses of segregation relevant to Helsingborg, and examines the role of spatial design and community and commercial resources in constructing these discourses. With this knowledge, the study aims to suggest relevant interventions for Helsingborg’s current planning project, as well as contribute a unique combination of methodological and theoretical approaches which can inform the study of other locations where planning, perception and the emotional experience of spaces are implicated