Project Details
Projekt
Social Structure and Forms of Sociality in the New Suburbia
Applicant
Professor Dr. Carsten Keller
Subject Area
Urbanism, Spatial Planning, Transportation and Infrastructure Planning, Landscape Planning
Empirical Social Research
Empirical Social Research
Term
since 2023
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 466529662
In view of an apparently diversifying suburbia that is gaining in independence, the question arises how its social structures and lifeworlds are changing. Within the joint project "Urban Expansion in Times of Reurbanization", the proposed project poses the question of the specificity of forms of sociality in suburban settlements, i.e. settlements located on the edges and in the surrounding areas of cities. It will be investigated whether, against the background of the diversification of suburban space diagnosed since the 1990s, a specific form of suburban sociality, i.e. of interaction and community, can still be identified or whether it is rather differentiated along different settlement types. It is assumed that the forms of sociality are primarily influenced by the socio-structural characteristics of the residents (socio-economic status and position in the life cycle) and the infrastructure of a settlement in the form of publicly accessible facilities and open spaces. With the concept of sociality, the view is directed to the area of the residents' way of life, which appears to be particularly characteristic for the living environment of settlements: to the social forms of contact and interaction there. Forms of sociality can be located in a hypothetical spectrum between "urban" and "suburban" and it is investigated whether and to what extent sociality in suburban settlements takes on an urban character, in which purpose-related and socially heterogeneous relationships and communities emerge. A central step towards the investigation of forms of sociality will be a quantitative, micro-scale analysis of social and infrastructural patterns and developments in the three metropolitan regions of Berlin, Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg. The aim is to show how socio-structural developments are reflected in suburban areas and how they overlap with the provision of infrastructure. For this purpose, different data sets on raster level (RWI-GEO-GRID data set and microm data) as well as official data will be analysed. With the involvement of interviews with experts, a typology of settlements will be developed on this basis. Finally, extensive qualitative case studies will be conducted in two settlements in order to investigate sociality forms in depth and to relate them to the settlement typology. Within the framework of these two case studies, which are also ethnographically designed, expert interviews, participatory and non-participatory observations, short surveys in public space and qualitative interviews with residents are planned.
DFG Programme
Research Units
