MOBILISING THE PERIPHERY #1 – Four Types / Four Cases

The subject will be explored and interpreted from a range of perspectives prevalent in cities today, including examples of physical periphery – on the edge of the city (ghettos, suburbs, segregated housing estates), unregulated periphery – outside of the formal masterplan (slums, barrios, informal cities), and social periphery – on the margins of society (homeless, disabled, elderly, ethnic minorities).

Over the course of the next years, four types of periphery, exemplified by four case studies  – informality (West Africa), upgrading (Latin America), top-down-planning (China) and segregation (Western Europe) – in connection to participation and social justice will be discussed in a range of different formats.

This kick-off symposium brought together experts from Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. They shared their work and insights into the issue of informality, upgrading, top-down-planning and segregation in the on-going process of urbanisation in the respective case-study areas.

In the afternoon, the public symposium was continued with an Internal Expert Workshop. The workshop provided an opportunity for the invited experts of the four study regions to discuss in-depth the pressing issues in an open discourse with the aim to sharpen the research questions for the project. In four working groups the need for outreaching networks and the exchange between the different investigated aspects were discussed. What can be learned from African informality and how can it be transformed to be useful in regions with strong formal frameworks? What can be transferred from upgrading favelas in South America to formal housing in Chinese developments? How to break open segregated communities with informal or upgrading strategies in unconventional ways? The working groups documented their ideas and will shape the future programme.