Regions threatened by urbanisation

Abstract

This chapter discusses how new urban suburbs are becoming contested icons. During industrial modernity, suburbs were constructed to solve urban problems. The homogeneous middle-class suburbs were the antithesis of the city. The private family home with a fenced garden and a car was the refuge of the middle classes from the overcrowded and dangerous city with its slums and proletariat. New urban suburbs are no longer an antithesis to the city but an extension of the city. They embody a new, more sustainable, car-free, diverse, and cosmopolitan urban milieu, which no longer opposes the city but becomes iconic places valued in cosmopolitan identity discourses. Many nearby inhabitants of traditional suburbs oppose them, making them important icons in parochial identity discourses as iconic places showcasing the more elusive societal changes like migration and urbanisation. This chapter analyses this based on the discussion between supporters and opponents of the planned new neighbourhood of Oberbillwerder in Hamburg.