VIRTUAL Lisbon Livable Cities

Abstract

Unequal access to societal resources and urban opportunities is reinforcing urban inequality and risk to increase social polarization and segregation (Fainstein 2010). Architecture and urban design are significantly affecting the distribution of urban resources and, importantly, the accessibility to them. Accessibility to key urban functions is highly important for what living conditions will emerge locally and influencing life chances (Fraser 2009). To create favourable conditions from a social sustainability perspective, it is not only access to key urban amenities that matters, but the opportunity to encounter a mix of people, for example in public space (Jacobs 1961; Young 1995; Hanson 2000). Interactions and exchange between people from diverse backgrounds and age groups foster social cohesion and enhancing the collective problem-solving capacity. This is important for social processes such as building social capital and foster social networks based on both weak ties and strong bonds (Amin 2012; Granovetter 1983). This paper develops approaches to mapping living conditions and by doing so identify urban inequalities with the city of Stockholm as an example. Places where a diversity of people with diverse backgrounds may be co-present and places where different social groups may encounter and share public space are of special interest (Hägerstrand 1991; Klinenberg 2018; Legeby 2013). Taken together, the accessibility to urban opportunities and a diverse urban life is argued to foster livable cities and support social sustainability. Thus, architecture and urban design has a crucial role as it has an impact on people’s potential to participate in urban society and expanding their ‘right to the city’ (Harvey 2003).