Invisible interstices: from social buffers to transformative potentials

Abstract

The city is a complex world of animate beings and inanimate objects. To live in the city, and to manage and transform it, a thorough knowledge of the urban environment and the workings of the city is needed. This knowledge is developed by professionals through scientific methods, and by citizens through the course of living in the city. As built environment professionals and as citizens, we may think that we know our city, at least the parts that we are engaged with, work on, and visit every day. In this paper, my aim is to draw attention to the many places that remain invisible and unknown, even when they are in front of our eyes. This invisibility, I argue, is sometimes implicit in, and contributes to, a particular social order through the mechanisms of placing and distancing. At the same time, invisible places have transformative potentials for the future of the city.