Childhood in a neoliberal utopia: planning rhetoric and parental conceptions in contemporary stockholm

Abstract

cele, S. (2015): 'childhood in a neoliberal utopia: planning rhetoric and parental conceptions in contemporary Stockholm', Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 97 (3): 233-247.ABStrAct. this article addresses how neoliberalism as a utopian ideal of the urban affects the practices of planners and parents, drawing on Stockholm, Sweden, as an example and foregrounding how these adult conceptions of the city are manifested, both socially and physically, and shape children's geographies. through an analysis of planning documents and interviews with planners and parents, this study shows how Stockholm's planning is clearly conditioned by neoliberal beliefs, but rather than being linked with political sympathies, neoliberalism is expressed as a contemporary urbanism. this specific urbanism is not compatible with children's independent mobility and easy access to nature and play spaces, but demands, as expressed by planners and parents, certain "sacrifices" in order to be achieved. the study shows that age is an organizing norm in terms of spatial justice in the city and that ideological beliefs about the urban development affect how this (in)justice is organized. the planning documents reflect utopian neoliberal ideas about a specific urban identity, and when private actors are given more influence over what is being built and which spaces are developed, there is a deliberate transition from welfare-planning values and the belief that children and adults have equal rights to urban neighbourhoods. this is expressed as a necessary transformation to a more urban and globally competitive city but given the extent to which welfare values are taken for granted in Sweden it is unlikely that the effect this transition will have on social and spatial justice in the city is recognized.

Revanchism via Pedestrianism: Street‐level Bureaucracy in the Production of Uneven Policing Landscapes

“…This process has incorporated sweeping restructurings of welfare systems, housing politics (Baeten 2012; Grundström and Molina 2016; Gustafsson 2019), the privatisation of a number of previously state‐run institutions (Stahre 2004) and a novel focus on producing “commodifiable neighbourhoods” within increasingly entrepreneurial cities (Madureira and Baeten 2016:373). A number of scholars working in the Swedish context have however argued that the particular expressions of “actually existing neoliberalism” in Sweden (Brenner and Theodore 2002), produced in the context of a pre‐existing discursive and institutional setting provided by years of social democratic consensus, has produced a somewhat fragmented expression of neoliberal ideology (Cele 2015; Rutherford 2008; Stahre 2004). In this sense, processes of neoliberal restructuring stand in tension with a set of distinctly anti‐neoliberal values and institutions, producing a fragmented socio‐political landscape which Christophers (2013) has described (with regard to Swedish housing politics) as a “monstrous hybrid”.…”

“…These political shifts of recent years have been spatialised in the major cities, and perhaps most visibly in the capital city. It is in Stockholm, the self‐branded “Capital of Scandinavia” where “world‐class city” aspirations are most clearly manifested through city marketing and planning processes which aim to beautify urban space with a view to drawing tourists and mobile capital to the city (Cele 2015). But it is also in Stockholm that some of the most visible trends towards ethnic and socio‐economic segregation can be witnessed (Grundström and Molina 2016).…”

Conceptualizing Youth Participation in Children’s Health Research: Insights from a Youth-Driven Process for Developing a Youth Advisory Council

“…The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child requires researchers and decision-makers to listen and give due weight to the voices of children on matters that affect them [15]. Nevertheless, meaningful working relationships between professionals (e.g., health promoters, planners, city decision makers) and children have been limited [12,16,17,18,19,20,21]. This is despite the acknowledgement by governments and policy makers of the need to address children’s political, legal and social rights through policy and in practice.…”

Governing for Child-Friendliness? Perspectives on Children as Users Among Swedish and Danish Urban Open Space Managers

“…While the Swedish local governments appeared to direct their work toward children and other specific user groups, the Danish interviewees tended to view urban open space management work as being for all users. While it is not clear which approach that is most successful, Cele (2015) showed that working for "all" runs the risk that groups like children, with special needs and requests, will not be visible. In order to adapt urban open space management for children, so that they can use urban open spaces in their own right (Elsley, 2004), special measures such as e.g., the mosaic governance approach proposed by Buijs et al (2016) might therefore be needed, going beyond the most common processes and ways of communicating with users, as well as directing governance models for specific geographical as well as user-oriented means.…”