10 – 2010

The Suburbs

The word "Vorstadt" (the German word for suburbs) has almost vanished from the language as used today. The term only crops up here and there, when talk is of the ìacerbic charm of the suburbî or even of a ìsuburban avant-gardeî. This probably has to do with the difficulty of drawing clear boundaries between core city, suburb, agglomeration and suburban belt; given the extensiveness of urban regions today, the definition of the suburb no longer appears up-to-date: if everywhere is, to an equal extent, the city, then logically there can no longer be any suburbs. However, this view ignores the variety of different formulations of ìcityî within a densely settled area. City may indeed be everywhere, but with very different degrees of intensity. When we speak of suburbs in this issue, we are looking at those communities in the immediate surroundings of core cities that were urbanised before the Second World War. In places such as Schlieren, Dietikon, Kloten, Renens, Pratteln, Emmen or Kriens transformation processes are occurring at a scale and speed previously unknown. Reason enough, therefore, to devote an issue to these areas that are unknown and yet commonplace and to which we attribute far more qualities than the impersonal agglomerations.