At ease in the city: Neighbourhood as an extension of the cosy Swedish home

Abstract

This paper contributes to deliberations about wellbeing in relation to home spaces by considering how professional expectations and everyday experiences of the neighbourhood, as an extension of home, relate to the cultural situatedness of individuals in Sweden. To do so, it presents and discusses findings from a case-based investigation of two developments in Stockholm that represent contemporary urban design and neighbourhood planning efforts influenced by New Urbanism. Building on the work of Lefebvre, Massey and others, our findings reveal a particularly Swedish construct of place that allows for and celebrates the interplay between an individual's cosy home environment extending into the public and communal spaces of their neighbourhood, with more complex or challenging urbanity beyond. Future research could examine neighbourhoods situated elsewhere to understand the extent to which similar experiences or social meanings exist outside of the Swedish context, and what impacts on community formation and human wellbeing result.

Keywords

• Urbanism
• Sweden
• Community formation
• Wellbeing
• Home spaces
• Neighbourhood planning