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City Mapping

City Map­ping is a method of explor­ing urban­i­ty and marginalization.

Urban environment with apartment buildings and a pedestrian bridge in Málaga. Young people playing volleyball

If you use City Map­ping as an edu­ca­tion­al activ­i­ty you can intro­duce the stu­dents to the themes Urban­i­ty and Migra­tion. In advance let the stu­dents read arti­cles about the city’s devel­op­ment his­tor­i­cal­ly in the west. Specif­i­cal­ly find arti­cles about the coun­try and city your map­pings will be done in. It could, for exam­ple, be arti­cles about dif­fer­ent strate­gies for plan­ning large cities.

As a teacher you can also intro­duce the­o­ret­i­cal con­cepts such as: Urban­iza­tion, indus­tri­al­iza­tion, ter­ri­to­r­i­al stig­ma, mar­gin­al­iza­tion, gen­tri­fi­ca­tion.
Based on a Dan­ish con­text, it is also impor­tant to review ini­tia­tives and poli­cies such as the neigh­bor­hood promise, the area renewals, com­pre­hen­sive plans, pol­i­cy for vul­ner­a­ble hous­ing areas, the par­al­lel soci­ety pack­age, etc.

After the intro­duc­tion, the stu­dents are giv­en the task of choos­ing a local area as a case for their research work. 

A city map­ping con­sists of exam­in­ing the select­ed area in two dif­fer­ent ways:

  • A sur­vey of the area’s demo­graph­ics with a focus on what is inter­est­ing for spe­cial and social pedagogy.
  • An explorato­ry fieldwork.

To map the area of ​​your choice, you must pro­vide knowl­edge that can answer the fol­low­ing questions:

  • How is the area’s demo­graph­ics? Includ­ing socio-eco­nom­ic composition
  • How many peo­ple live in your area?
  • How many and what are the insti­tu­tions, with a spe­cial focus on SOS institutions?
  • Are there any polit­i­cal objec­tives for your area?
  • Are there any major con­struc­tion and / or oth­er plan­ning ini­tia­tives under­way, or on the draw­ing board?

If there are words you do not under­stand then it is part of the task to find out what it / they mean — it could, for exam­ple, be “demo­graph­ics”.

An explorato­ry approach as part of the field­work means that you are not look­ing for some­thing spe­cif­ic, but that you are explor­ing the place. You must both move around and, for exam­ple, sit on a bench while observ­ing:

  • Who hangs out where, are there squares, kiosks, train sta­tions, bridges, roads, parks that are used by tar­get groups?

You must note:

  • Time and place of observation
  • Who uses the place?
  • How is the place used?
  • How many people?
  • How many dif­fer­ent people?
  • What does the place invite to and why?
  • Where would you like to sit / be in this place for a long time and why?

and

  • Take a pic­ture of the whole AND of a detail

Stay on site for a while.
Remem­ber: GPDR, (research) ethics and gen­er­al orderliness

  • Write down your obser­va­tions so that it becomes sys­tem­at­ic documentation
  • Take a pic­ture of a sit­u­a­tion, a per­son, a group or some­thing else that illus­trates a stigma

Remem­ber again GPDR, ethics, pro­pri­ety, etc.

After the assign­ments are com­plet­ed, the team gath­ers, where the groups present their research work, and the teach­ers relate the stu­dents’ pre­lim­i­nary work to the­o­ries, con­cepts and research studies.

Learn more

Urban methods

Spaghetti Diagram

City Mapping

Future Workshop

Lifeline

Upturned Participation

Partners

Partners Denmark

Partners Spain

Partners Sweden

About the project

PSP Denmark

PSP Spain

PSP Sweden

Contact:   Ph.D., Associate Professor Ditte Tofteng, Copenhagen University College   DITO@kp.dk