Planning for community in Swedish housing.A survey of research on social networks in the residential environment1

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Abstract
The article summarizes Swedish research on local social networks during the last fifteen years. The summary is made against a background of planners' ambitions to build for community among residents, which has been a leading theme in the planning of Swedish housing since the middle of the 1970s. Bringing the results together indicates the limited importance of local roots for a majority of the grown up population. This is also shown by the lack of observed simple and direct relations between the physical environment and the presence of strong local networks. This does not imply however that the physical environment is of no importance for social relations in a housing area. Some examples of such relations are given. Finally it is suggested that creating possibilities for the population to jointly influence local conditions may be a better way of creating a lasting local community among residents than by arranging the built environment in a certain way.

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