2019 - Trondheim, Norway - Group 1

ROMOLSLIA

Trondheim

ROMOLSLIA TRONDHEIM

Fieldwork in Romolslia, Trondheim, Norway

Fall

URBAN ECOLOGICAL PLANNING

AAR4525 - Urban Informality Project

of Architecture and Planning Faculty of Architecture and Design

Students: Gouse Kutbuddin

Mohajermoghari Matthew Rodgerson

PREFACE

Arriving from different countries and com plimenting each other with various back grounds, we begin our first semester in the Urban Ecological Planning Program at the Norwegian University of Science and Tech nology with a fieldwork effort focusing on area-based approaches to city planning. And so, we take a look at the situation of the neighborhood, Romolslia in Trondheim, Norway.

To gain a more comprehensive under standing of Romlingan lives and experi ences, we struck out to interact frequent ly with its residents. We attempted to join the community in several distinct ways -

whether they be in mundane daily routines or relatively momentous occasions (such as advent or charity events). Progress to ward the development of our intervention proposals hinged strongly on collaborative inspiration with the local community, en gagement with them using highly interac tive participatory methods, and to a lesser (yet significant) extent, through leveraging our connections with the Trondheim mu nicipality and Borgerkraft. The theory underpinning these area-based approaches acknowledges the necessity and wisdom in focusing on contributions by local stakeholders. It furthermore explains

the usefulness of spending adequate time to understand the real experience and arrangements of a neighborhood before proposing plans (Thomas, page 1, u.d.). It seeks not only to engage the residents but to amplify their ideas and foster a co-cre ative atmosphere between everyone in volved: ourselves and stakeholders alike (Rakodi, 2002). The principal outcome sought for Romolslia is to reinvigorate the community involvement, which we found nostalgically missed by longer-term resi dents. Involvement which would help to improve social networks, sustainable solu tions to practical pursuits, and the transfer

of ideas between residents in Romolslia (Rørtveig & Setten, 2015). Conceptualization of our proposals is sought to be reflexive and constructive, reflecting the input of community mem bers and requesting reflexive responses. Our highest priorities, those of area-based approaches, mandate that our progress is borne directly through co-creative ideas and community ascent. The implementa tion of our intervention proposal should be reasonably sustained without continued management, external from Romolslia.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We must acknowledge those at the Nor wegian University of Science and Technology who made it viable to pursue fieldwork in Trondheim in recent years and continually work to improve the program year after year. Dr. Peter Gotsch, Dr. Rol ee Aranya, Dr. Brita Fladvad Nielsen, and Hanne Vrebos, who patiently considered our experiences and asked for us to re flect on them. Thank you for hearing us out and making yourselves available to us throughout the semester.

We would like to express our deep gratitude to those who have helped us navi gate this fieldwork by selflessly offering their time and expertise during this semester. To the neighborhood superheroes who

introduced us to their friends, spread the word, and could be counted on to tell us about the next community event. Thank you to the residents who took a special liking to us, welcoming us in their homes to break bread, make crafts, and offer hours of insight. Especially to you, Arne Kristian Gansmo, for so generously sharing your time and knowledge about Romolslia and Norway.

Many thanks should be shared with Eszter Marklund-Nagy and David Smith of the NTNU faculty for their patient advice on our deliverables. Your advice is so valued. We hope the respect we hold for your in sight shines through as you read this report.

Preface

TABLE

Participatory Learning

Limitations

TRONDHEIM

Founded in 997 as a trading post, Trondheim served as the Norwegian capital for 220 years. It was thereafter the seat of the Catholic Archdiocese of Nidaros. Trondheim was incorporat ed to the Trøndelag municipal county in 1838. The county as it is now has been unchanged since 1964, “when Trondheim merged with Byneset, Leinstrand, Strind and Tiller” (Official Website of Trondheim, 2019).

Trondheim, lying within the Sør-Trøndelag Coun ty, Norway, is called home by 196,939 (as of January, 2019), which makes it the fourth larg est city in the country (Trondheim Kommune, 2016). The largest sources of employment in Trondheim are “the Norwegian University of Sci ence and Technology (NTNU), the Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research (SINTEF), St. Olavs University Hospital, and other technolo gy oriented institutions” (SSB, 2019).

Functioning as the seat of the Trøndelag Coun ty Mayor, though the administrative district center lies in Steinkjer to the north east, Trond heim balances out the population density in Trøndelag, now the second largest county in Norway (Trondheim Kommune, 2016).

ROMOLSLIA

HISTORY OF ROMOLSLIA

In Heimdal County, Romulslia is a residential area around 7 kilometers south of the city of Trondheim. Romolslia is situated today on the property originally owned by Flatås farms in the Leinstrand municipality. Romolslia, which was built in about 1970, is located east of Flatåsen and west of Okstad (Selsbakk and Romolslia Workers Team, 2018). Romolslia’s recorded history dates back to the early 1600s. The same name is derived from Romulslia after the Romul farm in Melhus; a municipality immediately south of Trond heim and within the Trøndelag area. The ti tle Romolslia, though, is not a clear name for the Romul ranch. Another estate, which pre cedes the existence of Romolslia as a district and which was situated farther south in the Leinstrand municipality, was the first to take inspiration from the name of the Romul farm. The district of Romolslia was named after the farm of Leinstrand, but the exact name of the farm proved difficult for us to find (Trondheim Municipality, 2015).

It was not until the 1970s that Romolslia itself was officially titled a “district.” It had been operated by Flatås Farm until documents became better-kept, later in the 1600s. The area was soon after subdivided. The Church, the agricultural families and a few agricultur ally employed inhabitants exchanged duties and stewardship, which were presumably encouraged through commercial relations between the estate, the parish and Trond heim (Trondheim Kommune, 2016). Romolslia established a more metropolitan background during the 1960s, due to de mand for housing units in existing residential areas and the increasing economic growth of the Trøndelag region to drive it (Trondheim Kommune, 2016). Between 1960 and 1974, the city of Trondheim developed the area of Romolslia with plans to reinvigorate the area such that people with lower incomes might feel more pride and duty (Trondheim Kom mune, 2016). Across the world, in post-war towns of the 1950s through the 1990s this was almost omnipresent. This evolutionary histo ry suggested that the city continued to see

a significant increase in commuting people, which from 1984 onwards had become more normal. It is now possible to consider Romolslia a residential area by promising new accommodation to more than eight hundred families, many of which commute to and from Trondheim or Heimdal for work (Trondheim City Council, 2012).

ROMOLSLIA

CENTER

ROMOLSLIA TODAY

Our own perception and what we can tacitly understand from the community to be the reputation of Romolslia as a suburb, is reinforced by a visible obvious lack of employment in the area itself (as com pared to residential space) and the pro portion of open green space in contrast to the built environment (Situational Analysis, 2019). Now that Romolslia is home to an approximate 2000 Romglinans (residents of Romolslia), it includes a moderate num ber of residential facilities on what used to be farmlands. All tower projects, lower buildings and rustic homes can be used as housing (Trondheim City Council, 2019). Statistically, Romolslia is a neighborhood of slightly lower income today and gener ally lower levels of educational attainment (Bratberg, 2008). It is stigmatized as one of the districts of Trondheim with a sense of “lower status” and while the area has been seeing structural improvements and rising incomes over the past few decades, the stigma persists [Hundegruppe Meth od].

Romolslia may be understood by “low er-than-average housing costs” but community within Romolslia is now relatively less independent yet somewhat self-governed by the housing cooperative (borettslag). This follows decades of fundraising and re construction that proceeded and restored the middle of Trondheim (Trondheim City Council, 2012). For starters, every May, a full spring cleaning activity takes place in the community. Annual Christmas tree dec orating, soccer cups, summer party and planting, volunteership activities, a knitting club, regular elderly meeting, and week ly football matches serve as evidence of the opportunities to activate Romolslia as an outdoor community of strong relation al welfare (Rørtveig & Setten, 2015).

Infrastructure

The community contains its own elementary school and a bus line which stops in the area roughly every 20 minutes (Situa tional Analysis, 2019). The houses have run ning water and electricity - in other words, this is a fully developed, transit-serviced, post-industrial suburban neighborhood in a wealthy country. The electric is supplied via underground cables and the water, sourced from mountainous watershed and sheet flow, is collected at the River Nidelva and processed to be made po table by the Trondheim Municipality (en vironment, 2017). Nonetheless, we were struck early on in the fieldwork to learn that Posten, a mail service for packages of 0.5kg or heavier, did not service the Ro molslia residents at Bunnpris anymore. This, along with some issues revolving around bus routes and stops, was causing some (especially the more elderly) to figure out how to get their packages from 2km away in Tempe. We later learned that Posten planned to resume service in Romolslia.

Rolia Grendahuset

Rolia Grendahuset is located on the first floor of the Housing Association. It is available for rental for small or large parties and events, and is equipped to accommo date up to 70 people. Stereos and a pro jector may be rented and a well-stocked kitchen is a distinctive feature. Also known as “the alley house,” Rolia Grendehuset is very popular on weekends and requires early booking. We have been given free access to this place every Tuesday and Thursday during our fieldwork.

Rolia Rental Price Schedule

Weekdays Evenings: kr 1,000

24 hour Party Rental: kr 3,000-4000

Entire Weekend: kr 4,000-6,000

Project Rental: kr 400

Borettslag Political

Structure: Borettslagsstyre

Romolslia is divided into 7 zones, each of which elects a member to the Borettslag (literally, cooperative) board (borettslagsstyre). The Executive Board manages the values of the housing cooperative in accordance with kommune provisions (Romolslia Housing Cooperative, 2019). Because they can better understand the community and receive additional information from the kommune, borettslag board members maintain a posi tion where they can potentially organize the community and act as a vehicle of self-gov ernance. In matters involving the kommune, the borettslag board represents the commu nity. This is quite natural, as nearly the entire Romolslia population lives in housing owned by the borettslag [Focus Group]. To decide who joins the board, the electorate are presented a list of candidates, prepared by a selection committee which consists typically of three residents . If, hypothetically speaking, the board were to gather around an area-based proposal then they could present it to the kommune as a potential area uplift project (områdeløft project).

One example of the borettslagsstyre affect ing change in Romolslia would be when they organized to collectively pay for the rehabilitation of the Flatåsaunet Borettslag’s building exteriors. The general assembly (generalforsamling) may choose to com pensate the board up to 60.000kr (Lovdata, 2019). Due to mis-projected costs on previous projects, the community’s trust in the borettslagsstyre has diminished. How this will impact the next board elections is un known - they will occur in January, 2020. The most active eligible voters, according to one board member, are the elderly. New comers and parents of young children tend not to show up and therefore may be un derrepresented [Focus Group].

“

It must be said that most people regard borettslagsstyre as a time consuming, low status activity, and thus they avoid being elected. I think mainly because the scope of activity is restricted to being shopkeepers for the borettslag. “ - Community Resident

NTNU SMART SUSTAIN-

ABLE CITIES BORGERKRAFT THE IMPORTANCE OF REFLEXIVITY

The European Union funds a research and innovation program, a smart city project named +CityxChange, by Horizon 2020. NTNU hosts the consortium and leads it in partnership with the Light house Cities Trondheim and Limerick. Smart Cities aims to improve aspects of urbanization, such as energy usage, with technological design innovations (City Exchange, 2019). Though we do not ultimately propose a technology design, the Smart Cities initiative is very relevant to our report. The Borgerkraft Citizen Jury, described below, will decide on a community in tervention proposal. One of the criteria in their judgement is based on whether the project is working toward Sustain able Development Goals (SDGs). With this in mind, we frame our proposal in such a way as to explain how it may im prove the wellbeing of Romlingans sus tainably. With the community feedback described in this document, we can dis cuss improvements toward the SDGs: 1

(No Poverty), 3 (Good Health and Well being), 10 (Reduced Inequalities), and 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) (United Nations, 2019).

Borgerkraft is an NGO contracted by Trondheim Kommune and is working throughout several districts of Trondheim to develop citizen-created com munity proposals working toward Sus tainable Development Goals. They are acting as one of the many implementers of the Smart Cities Initiative. As such, part of their work is conducted in Ro molslia. They plan to develop proposals which are to be judged by a citizen-ju ry. This jury is aiming at, by Borgerkraft, the true representativeness for specific Trondheim areas via random selection of residents. That is to say, residents of the districts will be invited to serve as part of a jury panel to review proposals (Borgerkraft, 2019). Though a small part of their wider task, Borgerkraft’s involve ment in Romolslia will be shown to act as a springboard for us to launch into our methods.

Reflexivity can be described as a mu tual exchange and impact shared between ideas from multiple perspectives. As each perspective expresses itself, it in turn, receives an update on the other perspective’s ideas. In other words, as we develop and present our progress, the community returns its own ideas and critiques about it. This rela tionship persists throughout the devel opment toward our final proposal. As it progresses, so does community consen sus. So does our sensitivity to this neigh borhood’s particular context (Olander & Landin, 2004).

PARTICIPATORY

LEARNING & ACTION

Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) is an approach for learning about and engaging with communities. It combines a . . . toolkit of participatory and visual meth ods with natural interviewing techniques and is intended to facilitate a process of collective analysis and learning. The approach can be used in identifying needs, planning, monitoring or evaluating proj ects and programmes (Thomas, page 1, u.d.).

This public participation mindset allows us to “tap into the unique perspectives of the [residents], helping to unlock their ideas on . . . the issues that affect them, but also on realistic solutions” (Thomas, page 1, u.d.). We believe this philosophy appraises and prioritizes issues or solutions from the com munity’s knowledge of its local conditions. Participatory learning tools create an ex change of insights and thereby provide a catalyst for the community to act on what it uncovers (Thomas, page 1, u.d.). Many methods we used in developing our situa

tional analysis involved PLA. We catego rized these as “engagement methods.” We employed PLA this way by consulting residents and attempting to co-create pro posals with them during interviews, work shop, and some design thinking activities. We continued this reflexive PLA throughout the fieldwork term.

LIVELIHOOD FRAMEWORK ANALYSIS

This fieldwork collected data, conducted methods, and interpreted results under a framework of capitals introduced by Carole Rakodi’s work, “A Livelihoods Approach - Conceptual Issues and Definitions.” Ra kodi lays out a method to compartmen talize livelihood-related findings as social capital, human capital, financial capital, physical capital, and natural capital.

Social Capital

Social capital is referred to as the avail able resources to both individuals and groups through their membership in social networks (Villalonga-Olives & Kawachi, 2014). “These resources vary from stocks of social trust to norms and networks that people can draw upon in case of com mon problems (Siranni and Friedland, 1998). These networks involve activities of “civic engagement” such as neighbor hood associations, service and charitable clubs, volunteerism and the like. In both ru ral and urban communities, social capital refers to the institutions and mechanisms

whereby residents relate to and interact with each other to solve problems for the common good” (Debertin, page 1, 1996).

“In communities where social capital is accumulating, local residents increasingly work with each other to identify problems, share ideas and identify solutions to problems which benefit the entire community” (Debertin, page 1, 1996).

Human Capital

Human capital is the stock of habits, knowl edge, social and personality attributes (in cluding creativity) embodied in the ability to perform labour so as to produce eco nomic value (Debertin, page 1, 1996).

Financial Capital

“Financial capital refers to the financial re sources that people use to achieve their livelihood objectives. There are two main sources of financial capital:

1. Available stocks: Savings are the preferred type of financial capital because they do

not have liabilities attached and usually do not entail reliance on others. They can be held in several forms: cash, bank deposits or liquid assets such as livestock and jewellery. Finan cial resources can also be obtained through credit-providing institutions.

2. Regular inflows of money: Excluding earned income, the most common types of inflows are pensions, or other transfers from the state, payments for environmental services and re mittances. In order to make a positive contri bution to financial capital these inflows must be reliable (while complete reliability can never be guaranteed there is a difference between a one-off payment and a regular transfer on the basis of which people can plan investments). Financial capital is proba bly the most versatile of the five asset catego ries. It can be converted with varying degrees of ease, depending upon Transforming Struc tures and Processes into other types of capital. It can also be used for the direct acquisition of livelihoods outcomes, such as when food is purchased to reduce food insecurity. How ever, it is also the asset least available to the

poor and most disadvantaged populations.

Consequently, for the poorest in society other forms of capital tend to take precedence. Equally there are other forms of asset or ob jective which cannot be obtained directly us ing financial capital, such as certain kinds of wellbeing or knowledge.” (United Nations Development Programme, page 9, 2017)

Physical Capital

Physical capital is the basic infrastructure (ac cess to road and transport; housing and safe buildings, access to water and sanitation; clean and affordable energy; and access to information (communication)) and the pro duction equipment and means which en able people to pursue their livelihood. (Car ney, page 7, 1998)

Natural Capital

Natural capital can be defined as the spec trum of physical assets within the natural envi ronment that deliver economic value through ecosystem services (Voora, page 3, 2008).

Methodology Statement

The methods described in this document were utilized in response to themes: ar ea-based approaches, co-creative pub lic participation, complexity, and infor mality; underpinning the first semester of our UEP experience. These themes, in turn, are reflected upon during the practical and informative phases of the fieldwork. The approaches we used to investigate possible interventions in Romolslia largely depended upon the feedback and clari fication by residents to understand rather than assume their needs. This methodol ogy helps us avoid errant conclusions by tapping into the collective wisdom and experiences of the community.

What we learned through third-party in terviews, previous research, and online resources relate reflexively with the ar ea-based approaches. As an example, our situational analysis, which precedes public participation efforts, developed

for us a foundation of knowledge before formally approaching the community. In teracting with locals in ways such as in terviews, workshops, focus groups, and participation in community events updat ed our comprehension to become more intimate and empathetic, and to adjust our proposals concurrently and gradually over the three-month fieldwork period.

Precursory methods

Precursory methods are those which helped us organize, prepare, develop, and understand our fieldwork progress. We call them “precursory” because they preceded our public participation efforts and the development of our intervention proposals. Precursory methods were nec essary to more efficiently plan and under stand our fieldwork. The methods used include measures to organize data, find clarity, make connections, draw conclu sions, and generate ideas. Many of these

were exercised during group meetings but some took place during lectures and a couple of them with assistance from Borgerkraft.

Precursory methods responded to vari ous forms of interviewing and feedback received after community events. They comprised the bulk of our idea genera tion and public participatory planning. Precursory methods helped us plan for en gagement methods. After engagement methods were conducted, they helped us organize, synthesize, and communicate the data we collected from them.

secondary sources such as interviews with community members, previous research ers, or professionals with knowledge of the area. Tertiary sources such as compendia on development standards in Trondheim, likewise, have been helpful in informing us as we developed and executed our field work plans. Using engagement methods, we expanded our data and increasingly understood Romolslia. They showed us, in various ways, the perspectives and ex periences within the community. We be came better-informed as we engaged residents both directly and indirectly.

Limitations of the Fieldwork

Engagement Methods

Engagement methods are those which informed our proposals through collabo rative efforts and participatory methods within Romolslia. They are the methods deployed to interact with primary and

Because Romolslia is a bedroom commu nity, people spend relatively less time out of their home but in the nearby area. As such, most people that we see through the ethnographic phase of the fieldwork, we see in their cars as they head in and out of the neighborhood. This neighborhood’s

spatial context limited the opportunities for us to gain face-to-face interactions while in the study area (Situational Analysis, 2019). Furthermore, Norwegian locals tend to be more reserved, or shy [Appendix D: Focus Group Transcript]. In other words, we are less likely to strike up a conversation with passers by.

The Romolslia district is almost entirely residen tial and the type of commercial activity does not offer many resting facilities. Therefore, it is difficult for us to spend prolonged periods in the area. If we required facilities, we would need to take the Romolslia bus line back to Trondheim center to find them. This limited the length of time in which we could spend there, conducting our methods (unless they occurred inside Rolia Grendahuset).

On the subject of time, it is important to note that this fieldwork project spanned only Sep tember through November. Whereas, a truly reflexive participatory process in professional planning might require a longer time-span.

Methods

Precursory Methods

Affinity Diagram

An affinity diagram is a tool developed in the 1960s by Jiro Kawawita and is used to generate and organize a sizable set of ideas or amount of information. Each group member records each idea they think of on a card (in our case, a post-it note). Afterward, they are placed on a wall and grouped by similarities. It can take some time for similarities to become apparent and for cohesive groups to form. We used this method twice. Once to give structure to the responses we received from the community and another time to provide structure to a session on exploring creative interventions. (Project Manage ment Articles, 2017)

Stakeholder mapping

Stakeholder mapping helped our group to spend time on and consider possible parties of interest in our fieldwork. Stakeholder mapping is an important part of area-based approaches and PLA, as it requires the com munity to express itself for a planning project to progress successfully. We debated each other for some time on the power and interest dynamic of stakeholders. The stakeholders we managed to identify include individuals and organizations which could be affected by or find opportunities arising from an inter vention in the area. This analysis built further upon the underpinning knowledge we have of the area, as we spent this time to explore and consider various potential parties of in terest - public and private alike.

Situational Analysis

The situational analysis was the first meth od used. Like an expanded SWOT analysis, it is used to examine the internal and exter nal environment of Romolslia to analyze its background, needs, capabilities, threats,

and opportunities. Through this analysis, we formed a foundation for our understanding of and relationship with Romolslia. In search of data, we entered the community (but did not yet formally organize with any residents) and researched various arenas such as gov ernance, history, environment, economics, transportation, and lifestyles.

Roundtable Discussions with Group 1

Working as two groups (in addition to the MSc Industrial Design student groups) in the same area meant preventing overlap. We found it important, as the community is small, to allow ample opportunity for each group to engage the same stakeholders simulta neously, where possible, to avoid fatiguing them. It became apparent that this is a real possible threat to our progress when one of the groundskeepers of the neighborhoods stopped responding to requests. Romolslia contains one school, one football club, three groundskeepers, one daycare, one grocery store, and two thousand residents. Therefore, we met at the university and the

Bytorget office, offered to us by Trondheim Kommune, to plan several activities collaboratively. Later on, we met yet more to discuss the results.

Conferring with the Experts

During our situational analysis, we referenced Hilde Nymoen Rørtveit’s & Gunhild Setten’s work, “Modernity, Heritage and Landscape: The Housing Estate as Heritage.” From this, we gleaned the underrepresented role of studying housing estates toward under standing [geography] (we extrapolated this to an urban planning context). This paper in cluded a case study performed in Romolslia. We were able to meet with Dr. Hilde Rørtveit and Dr. Rolee Aranya. The meeting filled in a few research gaps, provided new leads, and showed us some alternative pathways to engage the community. We furthermore gained insights on how the typology of hous ing affects the relationships people share with their community.

We would like to have once more returned

with our proposals, as updated by experts, to the community. Such reflexivity was limited by the semester time constraint. As such, the last input received was days before the final presentation. We met with an NTNU faculty member and urban planning expert to discuss practicalities, timeline, a reasonable cost estimate, and political pathways toward the implementation of our interven tion proposal

Borgerkraft Involvement

We met sporadically with a Borgerkraft repre sentative to exchange informative updates between their efforts and our situational analysis. We invited their suggestions re garding our upcoming participatory events and planned together a presentation for the community of our draft proposal ideas. We reflected with them at other meetings the ways in which our findings might lead to pro posals and then implementation. With Borg erkraft, we delineated a few avenues of ac tion within the Norwegian context and local government in Trondheim.

Engagement Methods

Borgerkraft Workshop

Leading into the situational analysis, we were invited to assist in the facilitation, gather results, and interact. This method marked the beginning of our data collection and we gained the ability to leverage contacts made within the community between the groundskeepers, barnehage, and several residents. Roughly 20 participants showed up and we mingled also, for the first time, with students of MSc Industrial Design. More importantly, we gained our first glimpse into the lives of Romlingans.

Hundegruppe

Hundegruppe is a Romolslia-Flatåsen on line group for dog lovers. It had once been a meetup group for walking but this ended when a mysterious canine dis ease in mid-2019 caused calls for further restrictions on leashing. While only a few dozen dogs in Norway were afflicted by illness, not many people were interested in risking contact between them. None theless, we managed to go for two sep arate “exception walks.” The first walk was with just one woman and her King Charles Spaniel. We were shown her usu al route, including some of the obstacles she faced (in short, speedy cyclists and cars) and some of the things she enjoyed most (a wooden bridge and the path ways near the woods). Throughout the walk, she shared stories about her friends and family spending time in the area, her personal history growing up there, and her many thoughts regarding opportuni ties for the area.

A couple weeks later, we met for a sec ond walk with the Hundegruppe moder ator and her best friend. We showed her where we went last time (it turns out to be a rather common route according to them) so they showed us around the Ok stadøy Borettslag, a spatially segregat ed neighborhood within the south east part of the Romolslia district. They were both mothers and working profession als. They shared thoughts on education, child-rearing, teenagers, transportation, work opportunities, and traditions in the area. They gave examples of teenagers trying to create spaces to spend time in with privacy. We learned of annual tem porary structures and events such as the winter ski jump and advent tree lighting.

Figure

Språkkafé

Språkkaféer (language cafés) are host ed in many libraries throughout Norway. They are volunteer-based and mainly served by Norwegians of retirement age. English speakers of various conversation al levels comprise only half or fewer of the guest immigrants. Sometimes as well, a Spanish or French speaker or two (for example) might meet each other. With such a setup, for the conversations to proceed as a group, it must happen in Norwegian. The volunteer kindly facili tates a discussion and provides a theme for people to speak on. First, we intro duce ourselves and talk about why we are in Trondheim, where we live, what we do, and so on. Second, we go through some fun quizzes and stumble, as best we can, through our conversations over the next hour.

The Saupstad language cafe is held in a public square just south of Romolslia. The square offers the closest legevakt

(emergency care), library, church, and swimming facility to Romlingans. While there, we met 2 residents of Romolslia, 1 of Saupstad, and 1 of Ringvål, and 1 of Tanem. All (not counting the volun teer) participating in the “beginner’s room” were immigrants living in Trond heim less than the past two years. This made it clearer to us that immigrants can be found spread throughout Trondheim. Some are tech professionals (data sci entist, NTNU faculty, software developer) without any express need to study Nor wegian. Of the internationals we have met at language cafes so far, their daily jobs are typically conducted in English, so they wish to practice Norwegian for everyday home life and easier integra tion.

Coffee Stand

Our coffee stand was inspired by the pre vious year’s fieldwork in Lade, Trondheim. We saw this as a good means to engage people going to and fro during their typ ical day. Not all residents are available to meet us during scheduled workshop hours, so we aimed to expand our pres ence and simply become more visible. Indeed, we met a few residents who nev er attended our other events and pro vided some unique perspectives. Most of all, we learned that parents of young children often need to put their kids to bed after 18:00. We positioned ourselves close to the bus stop, next to the grocery store, and along the largest footpath, be lieving this would provide the most expo sure. In total, we met 7 residents and ate over a dozen cookies.

Photovoice Posters

While we had covered scheduled meet ings, meetups, and participant observa tions, we thought we could furthermore broaden community feedback by open ing an avenue of correspondence which residents can access at their conve nience. We proffered an email address and provided some more information in a poster, which we mounted throughout the neighborhood.

On the left side, the poster asks residents to send us photos of their favorite and least-favorite things in/about Romolslia. We planned to later use the responses in the Rolia Community Workshop. How ever, someone had removed our posters from the neighborhood. We received only one response. That response, none theless, was one of the most vocal com munity members we’ve met and he has since then taken a vested interest in our work. While we failed to gather data from photovoice, this may have been our most valuable method. After building rapport with this local, we more rapidly expanded our network, learned of new events, and were introduced (in Norsk) to other residents.

Knitting Club

Open to anybody in the city who man ages to learn of it, the knitting club in Romolslia is hosted every second Tues day of the month on the first floor of one of the three condominium towers in the neighborhood. The space pro vides furniture and a capable kitchen. With Norwegian heart-shaped waffles, topped with brown cheese and butter (“pålegg”), and cream-topped muffins, we set about learning to knit.

We explained our fieldwork and prog ress; they were rather curious and asked us more questions than any other group we’d met. They offered keen insights regarding a common loneliness experi enced by the retired and they highlight ed the potential that can be tapped into to create robust social networks in Romolslia. Their ideas and explanations directly led to improvements in our inter vention proposals - as we learned more about a history of decreasing social

connectivity in the neighborhoods. We learned, also, of their elderly acquain tances that we aren’t likely to get to meet.

Box-Making

The Box-making session was organized by a group of ladies who invited us after we joined them at the knitting club. This was the first time we got to spend much time inside someone’s home and the first time we got to see the inside of the Flatåsaunet Borettslag’s buildings. We talked about all sorts of things during this meetup, including life in other countries, languages, living in Romolslia, their friend circles, families, food, dogs, and even instagram. While a few times we did talk business (fieldwork), we considered this one participant observation. On this evening, we were kindly invited to a glimpse of their lives and wanted to fo cus on seeing that rather than discussing Romolslia as a whole.

TV-aksjonen

TV-aksjonen is an annual fundraiser event, hosted since 1974 by the Norwe gian public broadcasting company, NRK (Norsk Rikskringkasting, 2019). We signed up as volunteers to the Romolslia neigh borhood and a previously mentioned resident (the very helpful individual we met thanks to photovoice method) was in fact facilitating the event. We were paired with the Norwegian family pic tured above and together, we meticu lously work through our assigned share of the neighborhood to ask for charitable donations, door-to-door. This method shared the Hundegruppe walks’ benefit to speak on friendly terms with these resi dents prolongedly and to ask about their lives and perspectives. Furthermore, we got to see what the interior of the condo minium towers are like. This helped us un derstand how people might interact with their neighbors and navigate the com mon spaces of Romolslia. As such, we continued to construct our understand

ing of relational welfare in Romolslia by catching a view of the private residential spaces and considering how they relate to the surrounding neighborhood.

Football Tournament

Romolslia Sportsklubb was founded in 1975 with the name Center BK. The team moved up to Romolslia in the ear ly 1980s, following the community-fund ed construction of the football turf. With the field in place and the league estab lished, Romolslia became a hotspot for children’s and youth’s league games. With a foothold in Romolslia, the club changed its name to Romolslia Sportsk lubb in the early 1990s. The club contains approximately 210 members divided into 11 teams, from 6 years old and up, growing gradually over the years and expanding its involvement across Trond heim as more fields are created (Ro molslia Sportsklubb, 2019).

Rightfully proud of this accomplishment, the community would host annual tour naments of 3v3 for very young children in subdivided sections of the field. Over time, however, fields in other neighbor hoods came online. The tournaments

then took turns to be hosted from neigh borhood to neighborhood each year. The RSK football club therefore found di minishing returns in community sponsor ship interest. Now, they look for solutions to address what was meant to be a tem porary garderobe (changing room) and the snack stall was deemed out of code per the municipal building manual (Ro molslia Sportsklubb, 2019).

The rain progressed from a nervous driz zle to torrential status soon after we ar rived to the event. Yet the games con tinue. Those who finished their matches trickled out and walk home but those still waiting remained steadfast in the rain. During this event, it became clear that the makeshift parking lot situated at the Skårgangen bus stop becomes increas ingly important during any event that brings outsiders into the neighborhood.

Romolslia Barnehage Event

We knew that we couldn’t expect much from our visit to the kindergarten, kids in this age range would have a little at tention span and most likely unable to articulate their urban issues. By the way, we went there for an hour and a half to have a little workshop with them. The tools were simple, papers and color pen cils. We asked the kids to draw what they like and dislike about Romolslia. As ex pected, most of them just drew lines and affected by their recent exercises, they drew hands and the alphabet. Howev er, in a common theme, they were quite satisfied with the nature and playgrounds in Romolslia.

Rolia Community Workshop

The Rolia Community Workshop felt like our magnum opus. Over several jointgroup planning meetings, we delineated and prepared the activities and setup for this method. Much of our engage ment efforts focused on qualitative data via personal interviews and observations when taking part in community activities. As such, we chose to organize this work shop in a way that would deliver a large amount of codifiable data. We prepared priority-list cards to rank potential areas of intervention; a “What If…” de sign thinking exercise lifted from lectures earlier in the semester curricula; and a bird’s eye SWOT-like analysis using large maps with markers, stickers, and comment cards to record the many ideas that residents generate when viewing the neighborhood extents together.

Whilst the priority for this workshop was placed on gathering a large amount of

concrete information (albeit this setup confers comparatively superficial data), we realize an opportunity here to introduce ourselves, the project, and to com municate the possibility for this fieldwork to become truly actionable. With their thoughtful co-creation, our proposal could develop robustly enough for submission to the Borgerkraft citizen jury pro cess and this could lead to a practical pathway toward implementation.

Priority Analysis

During the introduction of our work shop, participants were asked to rank the themes we inferred were the most unan imously desired from previous methods. The themes include: youth recreation, transportation and accessibility, retiree so cial life, indoor gathering place for various activities, community gardens, and social equality. We collected the responses and ranked them, using a simplified single-cri teria decision making matrix.

Maps with Emoji Stickers, Markers, and Post-Its

This mapping exercise is the only method we used during the fieldwork to gener ate feedback based on spatial and visu al cues. We ask participants to use the map to label with themed stickers and markers, the good, the bad, and the potential. What resulted was not just struc tural or fixtural, as one might imagine. To be sure, participants told stories about the elderly, school children, traffic safety, history, social organizations, and even biodiversity.

What If…

The What If… activity asks participants to think of any ideas, outlandish, normative, or otherwise, and to list them. Each table is provided topic areas (transportation, social life, open space) to get them start ed. Aware that providing topics before hand is an act of framing the problem, we continued nonetheless because we

had noticed in previous events that with out at least a basic structure and intro duction, it takes quite a while for things to get moving. The ideas generated are listed in the appendix.

Bird’s Eye Map Activity

This mapping exercise is the only method we used during the fieldwork to gener ate feedback based on spatial and visu al cues. We ask participants to use the map to label with themed stickers and markers, the good, the bad, and the potential. What resulted was not just struc tural or fixtural, as one might imagine. To be sure, participants told stories about the elderly, school children, traffic safe ty, history, social organizations, and even biodiversity.

Romolslia Skole Event

The Romolslia Skole event was planned to give us a better look at how children ex perience Romolslia. In the following meth ods, we asked the young Romlingans to show us how they see their neighborhood and how we could improve it.

Kids’ Romolslia Collage

The children were separated into two rooms because we had multiple activi ties in the works simultaneously. On one side, they were asked to draw their men tal map of Romolslia and to describe the neighborhood by cutting and collaging pictures of people, greenery, etc.

Children’s Proposal Drawings

We asked the children to draw pictures of what they would like to see in Romolslia. To our pleasant surprise, the responses were thoughtful and made salient a desire for more recreational options. In reality, most of their proposals are not economically

self-sustaining for a neighborhood of only 2,000 residents unless they were proposed as destinations for the rest of the city. Some of these ideas included a club house for a very specific age-range (5th and 7th grade only), a taco van, a race track, an enormous candy store, and a public swim ming pool. We asked the children if they ever get to have fun at places like these and the resounding answer was basically, no. To entertain themselves, children turn to online social apps, video games, and from time to time, are taken to the center by their parents.

Story Telling

We prepared scenarios for the children to complete stories for us. The stories were designed to be fun and creative yet hope ful to evince any sort of struggle, solution, place of respite, transit option, social net work, or so on - it was an open-ended ex perience.

Story 1: The group at your table is in charge of creating a plan for “PROJECT RO MOLSLIA!” What if you had received mon ey and all sorts of help to create something completely new? What do you want to build that can give you a more enjoyable and fun life?

Story 2: You wake up on a day off from school and find that your phone isn’t work ing. The parents can’t help you take care of this until they’re home from work. And to make matters worse, the WiFi isn’t work ing! So, today I....

November 5th Preliminary Proposals Community Presentation

Culminating the first two months of pub lic participation and ethnographic ef forts, we organized a community event at Rolia Grendahuset. Here, we pitched the first iteration of our ideas as an im portant step in developing them reflex ively. Checking in with the community in this way allowed us to meet yet more residents and acknowledges the impor tance of collecting design input from the community. In general, those attending were excited to participate and provid ed much needed feedback, which we used to adjust our proposals.

Focus Group

The focus group, in planning, was our second round of proposal feedback fol lowing adjustments inspired by the No vember 5th Community Meeting. How ever, the first November 5th presentation did not generate the volume of feed back we anticipated before making substantial changes. Therefore, we used the focus group to further investigate the feedback from the presentation. Specif ically, we asked how the proposal could improve the lives of immigrants, the el derly, and teens. We found that, gen erally speaking, something these three groups share is a lack of meeting places, indoors or outdoors, to grow a social sup port system.

Meaning to make this method relatively representative to these groups, the focus group included the only Romlingan teen ager we managed to speak with, two Norwegian long-term residents, and one immigrant.

PHYSICAL CAPITAL

Road Infrastructure and Safety

In terms of connectivity, one major thor oughfare road is passing, which is initially a dead-end (shown on the map with a red dotted line.) The community complained that to access the Bjørndalen road from the southern parts of Romolslia, they have to drive back to the north and first exit. Another issue with this form of connectivity is that if an accident were to happen on this road and it gets blocked, there is no ac cess for emergency vehicles. Based on an expert opinion which we got from Yngve Karl Frøyen, the low vehicle traffic in this region is a result of “this way of modern planning.” The community holds a rather positive general opinion about the rela tively low traffic volume in Romolslia. However, to encourage people to use their cars less, the pedestrian infrastructure ought to be improved. In terms of safety, in some areas, no sidewalks can be found. If there are any sidewalks, the footpath and cy cling lane is not always specified. Resi

dents tend to be hesitant to use the walk ing paths during peak hours because they feel unsafe when bicycle riders hurtle past them down the steep hills. This lack of side walks is more evident in the northern parts (Forsøkslia road and Tamburhaugen).

The Kommune has previously created shortcuts throughout the area through the “Snarveien” initiative. We were shown a staircase built into the hillside to give the neighborhood easier access to a bridge along the back paths. Another issue made apparent during our methods was the knowledge that the in frastructure generally overlooks people with disabilities and the elderly. This is un fortunate, as “sidewalks and trails serve as critical links in the transportation network by providing pedestrian access to com mercial districts, schools, businesses, gov ernment offices, and recreation areas. Because sidewalks and trails provide such fundamental services to the public, they should be designed to meet the needs of

of the widest possible range of users” (De signs et al. 1999).

It can be argued that the existing passive lifestyle we observe in the area is a conse quence of this negligence. Parking space in Romolslia is one of the topics that we received contradictory comments about. Some people urge that too many areas are dedicated to parking spaces in Romolslia and could be given other, more crucial land uses. Yet some others (representing workers in the area) had the impression that the existing parking spaces in some parts are in fact not enough.

Transportation

We spoke with some who used private ve hicles as their primary means of transportation and some who used public trans portation, receiving complaints from both groups. When asked to prioritize the issues in Romolslia, they signaled transportation as the second most concerning issue. The main issue with public transportation is that there’s no direct access by bus to the south of Trondheim. Romolslia Øvre is the last stop in the “Romolslia” bus route line 20 and in order to reach further south, the residents are imposed to go back to the city center and transfer route from there. The NSB train lines, 25 to Støren and 26 to Røros, pass by the west range of Romolslia. The neighborhood was once able to board the NSB there but several years ago the stop was removed. However, we noticed that other stops, such as Ranheim in the northeast of Trondheim, are active de spite lower population density compared to Romolslia, Saupstad, and Flatåsaunet

(the two districts neighboring Romolslia). The surprising thing about this train stop was that it was many times mentioned in the Romolslia Skole Workshop. 5th and 7th graders, among other residents, would like to see it returned. Their concern is the far distance between Romolslia and the airport. The train could take them directly there.

Due to the connectivity issues described here, many residents prefer using their pri vate vehicles in order to navigate the region, especially the residents of Okstadøy, who do not have convenient access to any kind of public service. Biking is quite popular in Romolslia, particularly among the youth.

Public Spaces

In spite of suburban building density and strong natural capital, which can be seen with great potential for providing public spaces, public spaces are sparse in Ro molslia. The only age range offered ad equate public space is children young enough to take joy in playing in the playgrounds. As such, it has been mentioned several times that Romolslia is a great liv ing area for younger children.

Public spaces do not only serve as boosters of physical capital, but their more im portant role is in strengthening social cap ital. As Don Mitchell describes, The notion of urban public space can be traced back at least to the Greek agora and its function as: “the place of citizenship, an open space where public affairs and le gal disputes were conducted . . . it was also a marketplace, a place of pleasur able jostling, where citizens’ bodies, words, actions, and produce were all literally on

mutual display, and where judgements, decisions, and bargains were made” (Hartley 1992:29-30). Politics, commerce, and spectacle were juxtaposed and inter mingled in the public space of the agora. It provided a meeting place for strangers, whether citizens, buyers, or sellers, and the ideal of public space in the agora encouraged nearly unmediated interaction-the first vision of public space noted above. In such “open and accessible public spaces and forums,” as Young (1 990:119) has put it, “one should expect to encounter and hear from those who are different, whose social perspectives, experience and affili ations are different.” (Mitchell, 1992)

The Community has at times mentioned that they have no place to meet each other or to hang out, other than in their homes. The severity of this issue is more concerning among the youth. If chil dren meet outside, they usually do so in side Bunnpris or next to the football field.

In response to the lack of viable spaces for youths, they once tried to make their own outdoor clubhouse along the Bjørndalen path near the Skårgangen AtB bus stop. They stole furniture and tarps from the school and neighbors. Since then, the spot has been abandoned and eventually dismantled. When it was around, it created an exclusionary group and became a place to smoke and drink. As a teenager in Romolslia, one might feel as if they don’t be long there. When they sit on benches near the playgrounds, they feel like they have to leave when parents of children are there so that they wouldn’t take up their space. When they gather near the football field, they are told to leave when a match or practice takes place. When they spend their weekends in the kindergarten yard, adults com plain about the trash and empty cans they leave behind.

The Kahoots quiz game, a survey in disguise, that we administered during the Romolslia

Skole workshop showed that 7 out of the 8 groups of participants preferred having a youth club in Romolslia most of all.

In the area highlighted on figure no. 40, there used to be a basketball field but due to the complaints of the neighbors about the noise, it has been demolished. This happened as a direct result of the basketball court’s success. The residents of C-Houses in the north of Ro molslia complained for years that the teens were dribbling and shouting late at night. In response, the borettslag shut it down. So far, it hasn’t been replaced. During a workshop, the area to the west of the football field was suggested for a basketball field.

Having public spaces in Romolslia has been demanded by the community in different participatory methods. Looking back at the history of farming in this area, people sug gested many times that they would like to participate in community gardens.

Many people in Romolslia are pet-parents,

mostly of dogs, so it was often that we heard they would want to have a place in Romolslia where they can unleash their pets - a place such as a dog park. However, some others pointed out that in such a setting, dogs usu ally don’t get along well. Another negative comment was that this place can attract people from other regions to Romolslia, which for some undetected reasons (at least by us) yields an unfavorable impact. This duality of opinions was also evident as we asked the community whether they want a coffeehouse in Romolslia or not. Some said that it can be a good hangout space, oth ers mentioned that they need reasons to get out of Romolslia more often so having everything here can make the community more isolated.

Social Services

As shown in the land-use map (fig No. 7), the existing public services in the area such as the school and kindergarten have been introduced. According to the community,

Romolslia faces the following challenges in terms of social services:

Health care: Often pointed out by residents, no pharmacy or public health centers lie within Romolslia other than the primary school nurse.

Education: The capacity of the kindergarten is not enough for all the children living in Romolslia and some parents are obliged to take their children to kindergartens in other districts.

No high school is situated in Romolslia and some teenagers must make two or even three bus transfers to get to school each day, according to focus group responses.

Post: In the past, people were able to send and receive packages from Bunnpris, locat ed in the center of Romolslia. Then, Posten was removed and residents were required to travel to Tempe for this service, two kilo meters to the north. Halfway through the fieldwork period we found announcements that Posten would return service to Romolslia in 2020.

A Man Walking at Night with A Headlamp, last episodes of Game of Thrones had bet ter lighting than Romolslia

COMMERCIAL LAND-USE

A supermarket, a beauty salon, and arestau rant are the only sources of commerce in Romolslia. This lack of variety compels the com munity to travel to other districts to meet basic needs such as grocery shopping. It seems as though the residents would unanimously agree that the existing supermarket (Bunnpris) is among the most expensive chains in Norway and they prefer to avoid shopping there. One of the shopping malls frequently visited by the community is City Syd in Tiller with a ten-minute drive from Romolslia according to Google Maps. However, it takes more than forty minutes to reach this shopping mall on foot.

We have learned that in stead of diverse com mercial activity, the community desires more effective versions of what is already offered.

As we found from Hundegruppe and the Fo cus Group, the residents are quite aware that Romolslia was intended as a commuter hub. That it may not yet be dense enough to sup port more robust economic activity.

URBAN FURNITURE (A Haiku by Nikoo)

Such long walking paths and no place to rest along the way, just a few

Such beautiful greenery and no bench to sit on and enjoy it just a few

Such slopes and no setting to make them climbable. none at all lighting, inadequate

Workout equipment, more dog bins we want said they

All in all, such potential.

Aerial Map and The Community Comments

1. Sunny: ideal for food production (potential)

2. Skolevei: Many near-misses between cars and school students walking and cycling. (negative)

3. The old stream which goes through pipes now (negative)

4. Why is there just a parking lot in the center of Romolslia (negative)

5. Build a skateramp or a basketball field for youth (potential)

6. Romolslia station: commuting via train to St. Olav/city center/ NTNU/Lade/airport (potential)

7. Picnic place by the pond: build a picnic place and outdoor exer cise facilities. (potential)

8. Bridges across the abyss: create access to the green area (poten tial)

9. The secret garden: with secured meeting points for all ages. Build up flower beds (potential)

10. Sidewalk: build a sidewalk so ppl and kids do not have to cross the parking lots. The pedestrians crossing leads to nowhere. (nega tive)

11. Build a health center (negative)

12. Pedestrian crossings: there is a stair from the store that leads out to the street. Move the pedestrian crossing. (negative)

13. Ski jumping: build ski jumping and other ski-activities (potential)

14. Lake for skiing (potential)

15. Playground: new playground for kids, good because the play grounds need an upgrade. Maybe add some more playground equipments (positive)

16. A coffee house which is facing the south (potential)

Narrow sidewalk: bicycle with high speed (negative)

Moose watching ZIP-line to school (potential)

Room for improvement for the foodball field in Okstadoy (poten tial)

Smelling problems (negative)

Bike paths & bus stop during the night time going to Heimdal. (negative)

Bicycle highway of Trondheim: Trondheim to Heimdal (positive) bike repair shop potential and bike rentals by the road. (potential)

Bike parking (potential)

Solar panels on the roof of the building of Flatåsaunet. (potential)

Exercise stairs. View point with benches. (potential)

Cafe (potential)

Make it more exciting for kids to use the forest “Trollsti” (potential)

Trash bins & dog bins (potential)

Festival potential with natural stands all around (potential)

Ski loop and competition / want to keep it? (potential)

Fixtures for children’s play and exercise equipment (potential)

Mountain bike pathing (potential)

Bike parking for the school and Flatåsaunet

SOCIAL CAPITAL

Relational Welfare

Relational Welfare, as a term, describes the level of capability of an individual’s human bonds: their relationships. Because all people experience setbacks and [varied] forms of suffering, they are able to leverage support from their personal contacts. Simply stated, knowing more people in ones neighborhood makes one more capable of adapting to conflicts and overcoming obstacles. This resilience is made possible by increasing the ability for people to exchange resources, support, and ideas. Relational welfare is an affordable approach for everybody (Cottom, 2019).

As we have learned from the methods used (Borgerkraft Workshop; Rolia Community Workshop; Focus Group; Hundegruppe), Romolslia is a district of low relational wel fare. We have observed that Romolslia and its residents most typically live in a “bedroom community.” That is to say, they spend their weekdays outside of the district but return

each night to make dinner and sleep. This lifestyle, exaggerated by the spatial aspects of the neighborhood, makes it sometimes inconvenient and unnecessary for neigh bors to interact (Office for National Statistics, 2016). We did not explore the sources con tributing to decreased neighborly interaction in this report but have instead attempted to understand the consequences of it in Romolslia.

Community

Even before we visited Romolslia, we had been told that this area has a background of social problems such as drug dependen cy. As such, when we reached the area we began actively looking for such prob lems. Some people were spotted wandering around this district who seemed to suffer from such problems, but during our meth ods, we could never come to direct contact with them. When we asked the commu nity, in most cases, they replied that it was a matter in the past. Some of the residents

moved out of Romolslia to escape its stigma and moved back years later. During one of the Hundegruppe walks, a woman with this experience told us that she was hesitant to come back but her daughter convinced her that the social climate has changed in recent years.

Other than this blindspot, there are other issues that we could actually approach and gather information about.

In our first few weeks in Romolslia, based on our initial encounters with residents, we gained the impression that what people have there is not an active communi ty. However, we updated this inference as time passed and we met more people. We found that in actuality, a sense of communi ty ownership is quite strong (yet dormant)especially among the longer term residents. Our understanding of the sense of commu nity is based on our personal observations and hearsay. More accurate data can be achieved by using the theory suggested by McMillan and Chavis. In their article, Sense

of Community: A Definition and Theory, they

offer a wide range of elements that can measure the strength of the sense of community.

However, based solely from our methods, it’s evident that this region is in need of facilities, which can make interaction and communication easier for the residents.

We have discussed the situation of the youth in Romolslia in the physical capital. They are strongly dependant on the neighboring re gions and the city center for recreational activities. Based on what we heard during the Romolslia Skole Workshop, apart from the kids who have football or classes in Flatåsen, others simply spend their time inside when they come home from school. The community calls for more cultural activities for all age ranges.

Inclusion

A resident who moved to Romolslia 6 years ago still does not feel like a part of the community and feels as though Romolslia is a closed-off community. She feels that if she had a younger child, she could connect with other people more easily. Nonetheless, when we brought this up to Hilde Nymoen Rørtveit who wrote her Ph.D. thesis with data gathered in Romolslia, she mentioned that this issue is not just restricted to Romolslia and is, in fact, a common trend in Norway. Examples of such issues with inclusion are also frequent among the immigrants of varying age groups. They mainly feel socially mar ginalized because they are not “brought into the fold of Norwegian life,” according to a focus group respondent. Similarly, an immigrant we met during our focus group expressed that without her fam ily, she would have nobody to talk to in the neighborhood.

Community Events and Networks

Some of the regularly hosted events in Ro molslia are listed below.

Hundegruppe

One of the very first social networks that we came across was a Facebook group called Hundegruppe, which is used as a tool to connect dog-owners within Romolslia and Flatåsen. Contrary to expectations, this group is not used to plan hikes or events. Members, for the most part, just post pictures of their dogs in this group. Though as mentioned by the community, this group has the potential to initiate more social interactions.

Christmas Tree

Every first Sunday of advent, people gather to light a large Christmas tree located near the c-shaped houses, sing songs, and eat gingerbread cookies.

Knitting Cafe

A knitting cafe is organized by elderly women every first Tuesday of the month, its main benefit is social interaction for elderly peo ple. We have been told during this event that craft sales, bake sales, and holiday events were hosted in Rolia in the past but not in the last 2 years.

Football Tournaments

The RSK used to host yearly football youth league tournaments but other districts have constructed fields so now it rotates every year. Every Wednesday, RSK hosts primary school level football matches

Romlingan

Romlingan is a self-organized and self-fund

ed group of over a dozen retired elderly people in Romolslia. The group has been running for about eight years, led by one of its members. Most of the members have lived in the area for several decades. They have a meeting every last Thursday of the month and furthermore organize Christmas dinner and Easter lunch every year. As a tradition, they go on an annual day-trip together. Every time they meet, someone has the responsibility to bring snacks, cakes, coffee, and tea. They say that it is important to feel the responsibility and to see that their actions are important for others in soci ety. Such a network gives these few elderly residents additional purpose and a sense of usefulness in their lives.

FINANCIAL CAPITAL HUMAN CAPITAL NATURAL CAPITAL

Albeit we never reached official docu ments that would verify this, it appears those residing in Romolslia possess comparatively low and middle- income. Com munity responses, in addition to our own observations, are in support of this state ment. Having this in mind, nearly every person we spoke with pointed out that the goods which are locally available are too expensive. We have been told by some that they simply refuse to shop inside the neighborhood.

We also received complaints regarding the road taxes that apply to vehicles that travel from Romolslia to the city center. So if they want to go to work every day by car, it could inflict a financial burden. According to Urban Access Regulations (2019), drivers are charged 30 kroner daily during the rush hours, each way. People even pay taxes for the Saupstad uplift project which is not directly benefit ing them. Saupstad has received consid erable investment from the kommune in recent years by harnessing property taxes

from multiple districts. However, the up graded facilities are mainly accessed by Saupstad residents only. Financial assets matter in considering how relational welfare can be impacted. For example, if not for the high day rental price, which is not justifiable for many casual activities, the knitting club and annual crafts sale would still be hosted in Rolia Grendahuset.

Apart from standardized education and the football field, Romolslia confers no offers for skills or knowledge development.. They are accessible, to be sure, but lie outside of the district. Music, language, tutoring, training, and so on are found in Sentrum and Heimdal. We believe this is partly due to the spatial layout of the neighborhood and its chief function as a residential hub. Needs such as these may be reasonably met by Romlingans with mi nor investments in transportation and time. Nonetheless, we understand that addition al resources to build skills and knowledge within the neighborhood, especially if of fered to youths and immigrants, would be well-received.

Covering almost 70% of the land, every one in Romolslia agrees upon the fact that the greenery in Romolslia and surrounding areas is of great potential for further development. In figure No. 33 all the sug gestions that people have for these areas, ranging from fruit trees to moose-watching ziplines, can be seen.

PRIORITY ANALYSIS

BASE COUNT OF COMMUNITY EXPRESSIONS

At the beginning of the Rolia Grendahuset Workshop, we passed around papers for participants to rank intervention themes for us to think about on a scale of 0 to 6. The themes ranked are youth recreation (scoring 5.50), community house with var ious activities (5.25), social equality (3.15), community gardens (3.00) , elderly social life (2.5), and transport and accessibility (2.00) [Appendix A].

The data we gathered is difficult to accu rately quantify as some responses are more impassioned or cross-sectoral than others. Some are expressed more by impactful res idents than others. Nonetheless, to help in terpret the story or Romolslia, we counted each response into one of the above categories. These responses were captured across each engagement method used. The base count can be viewed in Appen dix C) Community Mentions Counted.

Aware that our tacit comprehension regarding Romolslia could be further strengthened, our proposal hinges fixedly on the knowledge and the experiences of Romlingans. As discussed earlier in this document, we have gained this insight through participatory methods and for mulated this proposal with their continued input and wisdom. As such, this addresses our findings related to social, natural, physical, human, and fi nancial capitals in Romolslia and does so in a way that especially helps those whom we found to benefit from the fewest assets (such as Romlingans aged 12-16 and the retired elderly). First, we aim to create a space for the com

munity to interact with each other. We un derstand, through our conversations with residents, that Norwegian locals may not be the most amenable to frequent social gatherings or building informal networks. Though what has been made most clear is that the possibility for such things is sim ply not yet there. We seek to reintroduce the Rolia Grendahuset community space as a place of high civic activity. The focus of this proposal is to activate a co-cre ative space for residents to gather. Space to meet and have a sip of coffee with a bite of freshly-baked carrot cake, which has been made out of the carrots picked in the community garden.

INFORMATION GATHERING USING PARTICIPATORY METHODS TRANSLATING AND TRANSFORMING THE GATHERED INFO INTO URBAN DE SIRES AND NEEDS

PROPOSING SOLUTIONS BASED ON THE CONTEXT

Area of Intervention

The area that we have chosen is considered as the center of Romolslia and it has been pointed out by the community that it has a great potential for further development. It has the following assets:

• Accessible from Different Parts of Romolslia

• Near The Bus Stop

• Foot Traffic

• Rolia Grandehuset

• In close distance to most public ser vices

Reactivating Rolia Grendahuset

From November 2018 through November 2019, this space was rented on fewer than 20% of all Mondays (8 times) and Wednes days (10 times). Because this space is un derutilized, we propose that the borettslag executive board opens it, free of charge, to the community on these days. Stewardship can be maintained if community events are to be scheduled and approved by the bo rettslag. Responsibility over the space (main tenance and cleanup) can be assumed by the leading community members of each network. We believe that if Rolia were to be come more accessible, social groups that already exist (Knitting Club and Romlingan elderly, for example) can expand - become more visible. New informal communities, fur thermore, may develop if adequate space is provided. If this space remains flexible through the fruition of the proposed project, then it could very well open ways for further community activities such as a tools library, coffee klatches, language cafes, a notice board, and alternative income opportuni ties, to name a few.

Harnessing Outdoor Space

To open the community itself may not be enough, however. Perhaps the knowledge that the community hall is free to use would be slow to permeate the community and gain relevance. After all, if a Språkkafe is or ganized there, the word must still get around. Though it is not a magic formula for subur ban networking challenges, we believe that this burden can be reasonably reduced if people simply spend more time around this important shared space. Therefore, we pro pose improvements to the outdoor space in front of Rolia Grendahuset to make it more interactive and flexible.

Community Garden and Square

A community garden may create addi tional roles for community leadership and organizing to emerge. This can be created adjacent to and surrounding the current Skårgangen stop parking lot. The square, now currently gravel, can be made into a flexible space with picnic tables, seating, and shade. It can serve as the entrance to the Romolslia community garden and

a pleasant space to greet everyone at the neighborhood’s busiest bus stop. To improve mobility options and assure this is offered to all of the Romolslia district, we would install lockable bike storage here.

In addition to creating a space where a wide range of residents can participate, the community garden and square can be used as a waypoint for activities such as future volunteering events and Christ mas tree sales. Our goal is to create an accessible space and for the community to derive a variety of uses from it.

© Monica Lovdahl

Basketball Court

It is important for this proposal to address issues of public space cross-sectorally. We hope to bring residents of varied backgrounds and ages out into their own community. There fore, we must work toward making Romolslia more interesting for the youth. Such a task can be pursued on two fronts. The first is to introduce new options for recreation. The second, not yet addressed in this proposal, is to simply make it more comfortable to be outside in the neighborhood. In our findings, we discussed the old basket ball court and that it was shut down due to noise during sleeping hours. With youth rec reation so prioritized by the community and with nowhere for them to simply relax out side, we propose to reintroduce the basket ball court in an area farther away from pri vate homes and more in the public eye.

Outdoor Comfortability

Simply spending time outdoors is made com plicated in Romolslia by a lack of fixtures and furniture. We experienced this first hand.

Therefore, we propose that creative and multi-functional seating (that which adults sit on but children play on) be added to the central lawn and throughout the district. Additional lighting along important path ways can be installed. Namely, pathways connecting the neighborhood to bus stops and Rolia Grendahuset. Such lighting would point toward the ground, limiting light pollu tion against the northern lights.

Lighting assists dog owners and parents of young children, especially. However, dog walkers would be further-served if dog poo and rubbish bins are installed at more fre quent intervals along the paths.

Emergency Vehicle Stopgap

The final intervention we propose does not relate as closely to the relational welfare of residents or creating the potential for infor mal social networks. However, we would feel remiss not to propose it as well. Be cause the neighborhood has exactly one entrance or exit for over 2,000 residents, we find it prudent to create alternative poten tial access for emergency response vehi cles. The pathway linking the Skårgangen bus stop and Bjørndalen can allow this by slightly widening the sidewalk. If a breakdown or accident were to occur on Ro molslia road, the neighborhood should at least have an emergency alternative. Ordinarily, the slope is too steep for vehicular traffic but we are assured that this is viable for seldom use from service vehicles. With the Bjørndalen pathway widened, a pedestrian lane can be painted to sepa rate high-speed cycle traffic from morning walkers.

Community Feedback on Proposals,

5th of Nov

Urban Farm: They liked the idea very much and were already talking about the ways that they could make it happen. Howev er, the criticized the location that we saw fit for our proposal. They mentioned that this location can have a more important use than becoming an urban farm.

Make Rolia Free of Charge: They also were positive about this one. We mentioned that they can rent this pllace themselves with a very little monthly fee from each household. They were against this idea and mentioned that the municipality should rent this space for them and they use it free of charge.

Urban Furniture: They liked the example concerning the outdoor activities but they suggested that they can have it in a more steep area of Romolslia.

Basketball Field: In our proposal presen

taion workshop, people suggested that the youth don’t want to be seen by adults, so they weren’t so fond of this idea. How ever, in our focus group session, where we were in direct contact with a teenager, she mentioned that they really don’t care to be seen or not as long as they have a space to spend time in Romolslia.

We also asked them whether they like to have a dog park in Romolslia, given the pros and cons of such area. They were pos itive and gave us ideas about the specific location. The community has been asked to give feedback about the location of a future Bike shop.

Expert Opinion

Just a few days before submitting our re port, we had a meeting with Yngve Karl Frøyen who is a Ph.D. associate of the fac ulty of architecture and planning at NTNU. With his background in physical planning, he had good knowledge about transpor tation and development plans of Trond heim in general, he also happened to be a former resident in Flatåsen. Other than his comments on the current situation in Romolslia which have been discussed in the findings chapter, we also asked him for feedback and practical information on our proposal.

Rolia

He mentioned that people have votes in the decisions made by Borretslag so they can vote for using Rolia on weekdays. If Rolia as an active community becomes a reality in Romolslia it can initiate pressure groups among people, who will demand infrastructure improvements in the area.

Community Garden

He instructed us on how to get access to land ownership data from Trondheim mu nicipality which is quite an important fac tor for evolving this part of our proposal.

First, we have to know who owns the lo cation that we have in mind for the com munity garden which is either Borretslag or the municipality. Then we can move forward with getting legal permissions to use that land.

He also mentioned that there are some other urban farming projects in Trondheim which have private ownership, in Røtvoll specifically. Private Ownership, however, can cause leadership and consumption problems. It’s possible to ask for funding from the municipality as well.

Key(est) Stakeholders

We recognize that many stakeholders will need to be addressed not only in the de velopment of the proposal, but especially so in its implementation. Furthermore, as we develop, manage, and implement ur ban projects, we will inevitably learn of new stakeholders. Through participatory learn ing and action, we have made attempts to find and address as many stakeholders with interest possible. Though we have narrowed this down to key stakeholders, it is nonetheless important to continually reevaluate and check in with a versatile stakeholder map.

Miljøpakken: Translated to “the environ ment package,” Miljøpakken is a Trond heim-based partnership for sustainable transport. Over the course of 19 years, they are planning to spend over 55 billion kr on roads, facilities for pedestrians, safety and networks for cyclists, and public transport options. The entity is a key stakeholder as a potential strong proponent or sponsor of this proposal. To gain Miljøpakken’s at

tention, we would highlight how our inter vention proposal would encourage the use of public transit, cycling, pedestrian safety, and environmental sustainability. The committee includes the mayors in Trondheim, Stjørdal, Malvik and Melhus, the county mayor in Trøndelag, the coun ty governor in Trøndelag and a represen tative of the management of the Norwe gian Public Roads Administration and the National Rail Administration, respectively (Miljøpakken, 2019).

Borettslagsstyre: The political structure, as explained in the introduction of this doc ument, consists of seven executive board members - one of them as chairman of the board. The borettslagsstyre owns most of the land in Romolslia, including the entire proposed area of intervention. With community ascent, we would have to take our proposal to them as another step toward complete approval. The bo rettslatsstyre would furthermore interact with the kommune, as the property own er to clear permitting and code manu als. The vaktmesters work on their behalf and would act as subsidiary stakeholders, as they have practical knowledge of the property and better knowledge regard ing construction contractors.

Residents of Romolslia: This proposal seeks to benefit all residents of Romolslia. It is therefore pertinent to gain community approval, ownership, stewardship, and maintenance of the ultimate outcome. Residents especially targeted by this pro

posal are the elderly, youths, and all who are (or will be) interested in spending more time outside or within a tighter community. As we have continuously checked in and collaborated with the community in the development of the proposal, we must take care to foster a more prolonged re lationship them.

Conclusion

Public participation efforts based on hu man-centered design, comprehensive placemaking exercises, and continual stakeholder follow-up were used to inform our situational assessments and made the next steps in the community and the devel opment of our proposal better-aligned to address opportunities in Romolslia where they can be done so effectively. This ideal has led to the generation of dozens of the community’s ideas toward improvements and creative solutions for practical subur ban problems. These practices have led us to understand the perspectives of dif ferent stakeholders as they expressed their desires and watched their input manifest in each iteration of our proposal. With this reflexive relationship between local residents and city planning, a communi ty may strengthen their relationships with the city and neighborhood. Such rela tionships help form the bedrock of a sus tainable culture: a culture of inclusiveness

and community action, and which leads to firmer social networks.

This effort began with a situational analy sis, as most plans do. To build upon these original observations, however, the com munity was asked to reflect on our own ideas and to guide our designs. With their input, it can be reasonably inferred that while Romolslia is a good place to reside in... like any community, it can yet be im proved and better-served. We can learn how to facilitate this best through consis tent and thoughtful civic engagement.

We found it most appropriate to propose an intervention that serves the standard middle-aged family unit and yet more, al leviates some of the burdens of immigrants and residents possessing a lesser degree of inter-neighborhood mobility by creat ing the conditions for social networks to form. Social networks that otherwise do

not yet thrive within this geographically segregated district. A proposal working toward these goals can be used to im prove the welfare of all Romlingans, and disproportionately confers benefits to im migrants, youths, and the elderly; those who spend the most time inside Romolslia. While most Romlingans can capably de velop their social capital outside of it, we must also seek to improve conditions for this to occur within Romolslia.

The most common, cross-sectoral, explic itly expressed, desires for the community are centered around creating new recre ational options for teens and a common gathering area to host various activities. As such, our proposal reflects solutions in tended to bring residents into contact with their neighbors more often and to encour age the use of a flexible gathering loca tion. The proposal we submit aims to ac complish this by opening the community

spaces for low-cost or free access and to improve the fixtures and connections re lating them to each other.

As an ultimate goal, informal networks may form among the residents as they more of ten meet each other outside of the home or office. They may meet around the out door furniture as their children play togeth er. Or possibly crossing paths as they more frequently navigate them to and from the public spaces we hope to activate. They might meet during events such as craft sales and specialized social gatherings if the Rolia meeting house were more freely available to use. We aim to create rea sons to spend time in the area of interven tion, leading to increased face-to-face in teractions. More interaction means more “eyes on the street,” cross-pollination of ideas, and stronger networks to swiftly respond to practical and dire problems alike.

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Appendices

Appendix A) Priority Analysis Data

Legend:

A) Youth Recreation

B) Transportation and Accessibility

C) Elderly Social Life

D) Community House with Various Activities

E) Community Gardens

F) Social Equality

Appendix B) Romolslia Skole Story Telling Activity

Story 1: The group at your table is in charge of creating a plan for “PROJECT ROMOLSLIA!” What if you had received money and all sorts of help to create something completely new? What do you want to build that can give you a more enjoyable and fun life?

Story 2: You wake up on a day off from school and find that your phone isn’t working. The parents can’t help you take care of this until they’re home from work. And to make matters worse, the WiFi isn’t working! So, today I....

1. I go to the store to buy something delicious and I visit my best friend. I ring the bell and ask him if we can jump on his trampoline. That is a great idea, he says. So then we jump. But then the father of my friend comes and ask my friend if he is ready. He asks for what? To the cab in, the father says. Then I ask if they have electricity there. The father says yes. I tell him that we do not have electricity. He says that it is strange. I go home. Bye.

2. I go to the store and buy something delicious, then I visit my best friend to do something together. We go to the center and watch something at the movies. After that we go to the trampoline park. We ask if anyone else wants to join. We go to the jacuzzi. We eat a nice ice cream and we have a good day.

3. I go to the city center to buy a new cell phone. I go to a café before I go home. My parents fix the electricity when they come home, and I hang out at my friends place to use the internet. I also ask for money from my parents.

4. Find more money, go into the city centre to buy a new pair of pants, buy something at Starbucks, take the bus back. The trip into the city centre lasted until 403pm. Then my dad came home and fixed the power. After my dad had fixed the power, we went to get a new phone. An iPhone 11 pro. We also bought pizza. While we waited for the pizza, my sister and mom arrived. When we got home, we ate the pizza. A couple of friends asked me if I wanted to join them outside. I said yes. We went out, and then I went home. And then I was going to facetime with some other friends. Then I brushed my teeth.

5. I’m going to buy an ugly pair of pants and an iPhone. Sick.

6. First, I’m going to the store. I can’t buy much and then I go to the city centre, but I have a tiny bit of money left. I look for some money on the ground. I found a 10kr coin. That was all I found. I need ed more money. I went to a friend and asked if I could get some money, but he said no. It was a crisis. I was at his please and when I got home, my mom and dad was already there. And the power came back on again and I got a new phone. 7. I’m going to sell my cake for thirty kro

ners so that I have enough money to buy a new phone. And then I had some mon ey left over. Now I have 100kr left so I went to the food store Kiwi and bought choc olate for 100 kr in total. Then I went to see a circus show. We bought popcorn and cotton candy. Then I went to my friend Saga’s house and bought a pizza. Then we ate it and then I (...). That was fun. The end.

8. I’m going to go to my friend and there I can repair my phone since his dad is working with that sort of stuff. Now I’m at my friend’s place. “What are we going to do?” I asked. “I don’t know,” my friend answered. Then I remembered that the power hadn’t went out at his place. So, I suggested that we could watch television. He said that we could. “What move should we watch?” my friend asked. I said, “we can watch Hercules, but do you have popcorn?”. My friend said that they did, and added, “We have soda too.” I said, “Good”, and then we went to make some. Two hours later the movie was finished. I ask him if his dad is home. My fried said he was. I go to his dad. He can fix my phone. My phone is repaired one hour later. I go back home. The pow er is back on. My mom and dad are also back home.

9. I buy a new phone on sale. It was 10k NOK, but it was supposed to cost one million. So, I just start walking. The store is 20000 km away. I’ve only walked one meter. I only have 5kr, so I rob a bank.

Then I buy the phone.

10. I go to the phone store. It’s only 5000 km away. So, I start walking. Now, I’ve walked 3500 km. Then I meet a wrestling. I am 5 years old, and I make him pee him self. I kidnapped him.

11. Go to the city centre, tried to get hold of some money, buy a phone, iPhone 11 Pro Max, call my mom and say, “Help me!” Then he went home and called the pizza delivery guy.

12. I am going to go to the city and see if I have money to race go kart, and maybe try to work a bit, so that can earn a bit of money. And when I’m finished doing that, I’ll go to the store and buy A LOT of candy. Then I’ll go home and watch nothing with all the candy. And then go to bed.

13. I’m going to school and then I’m going home, find some more money, go into the city centre and buy a new phone. I find some money that is. When I get home, I start looking for some money. I find a but ton and a sewing needle, but no mon ey. But I do find a scratch card [lottery]. I scratch and realise I’ve won 100 000 kr. I ask my neighbor to withdraw the mon ey for me. When he came back with the 100 000kr, I went into the city centre, to apple store and buy an iPhone 11 pro. I had lots of money left. I also needed a lot of new clothes. I bought two pair of jeans at Bik Bok which were each 600 kr. I also bought a lot of sweaters, tops etc, so I spent 10 thousand kr there. I can’t be

bothered to name all the things I bought, but I were only left with 100 kr by the end of the day. Enough for the bus ride home.

Appendix C) Community Mentions Counted

We reviewed the data stored in our shared google drive. Each item we recorded (proposals, complaints, hopes, etc) was recorded as one “men tion” and categorized under the themes listed here. We considered this, along with the priority analysis during the development of the intervention pro posal.

Appendix D) Focus Group Transcript

On Parking:

Interviewer: We received some pushback from the idea of messing with parking in the front. It sounded like most of that came from the few barnehage employ ees and other solutions were proposed in real time. However, I noticed when attending the football matches that the parking lot is full and even parking over flow extends over the grass.

Respondent 1: If nobody tells you otherwise, you expect to drive there. You come from other parts of town . . . you can still use parking in the school yards for those occasions - they organize parking for the occasions.

Respondent 2: They do this every wednesday. I see the yellow vests and think oh the games are going on.

Respondent 1: They must carpool or use a taxi

Respondent 4: We can’t really allow peo ple from the outside to park where it’s the most valuable spot [in the community]

About Teenagers:

Respondent 2: Everyone knows some one. It becomes like, where can you be because you always know someone. It’s hard to find out where you can be outside because it’s a small place. People my age, I know I don’t like having people over because it’s like “why can’t I go to your house because there’s nothing to do here”

Interviewer: Do you mean your house or Romolslia?

Respondent 3: Romolslia

Respondent 2: The adults living here, they’re kind of not open to our ways of having fun. They’re kind of being offend ed and taking things the wrong way.

Respondent 1: Teenagers don’t feel entitled to speak their minds about anything like we do. It’s a village dilemma, a vil lage problem

Interviewer: Are these experiences transgenerational? Did you parents live here too?

Respondent 4: Yes but you can’t really compare it because it was so different than it is now. For many years all teenagers just thought oh, we’ll just go where our other friends are - other parts of the town instead of here. You’ll see on the weekend there aren’t a lot of teenagers here. That’s kind of bad because then adults are not used to seeing them. Interviewer: I figure, also, they are spend ing a lot of time inside on the computer, phone, reading, so on Respondent 4: Yes, a lot of time it’s not worth the effort to take the busses to go see your friends so we spend a lot of time at home inside.

Respondent 1: If they’re something cool over here, it would attract kids from all over . . . have you heard of the forest camp? . . . It was out of sight and it was there

Respondent 4: Well it was kind of a bad

place. They stole lots of things from the school. They stole lots of material. We saw them kind of go down and make their own kind of place. Theres been lots of drugs and alcohol in that place. My friends would send snapchat of things that aren’t exactly good.

Respondent 3: Yea the point is that when you have something good it brings peo ple over and you can have more inter esting things. So there is a balance there. When I grew up, we had internet cafes so we would spend time together.

Respondent 4: Then if we do that again, we have a new problem. Everyone would have their own new private hang out group and it would exclude people from using the space. And then another parent would hear about [the space] and they would choose which other par ents friends they want to tell about it.

Respondent 2: So you have to take con sideration. On one hand, you must have arenas and people to organize activities. On the other, you need people to con trol access . . . because of the diversity of the teenage population

Interviewer: I agree that if you create a destination that’s attractive, it would bring people from other places. How ever, right now there is kind of a void of what can be done or used in Romolslia. Respondent 4: Furthermore this isn’t really a problem for all youth. As a teenager, I am old enough to go into town and see my friends and do things, go shopping.

There’s nothing for younger teenagers to do. They aren’t allowed to leave the neighborhood. So this is really a problem for 7th and 8th graders. The parents need to know that they are just right across the hill. On weekends you will see them sit ting in the chairs at Bunnpris and talking because they just don’t know where to go or what to do if they don’t want to be home around their parents all the timeif they’re with friends. I think something has to happen now otherwise it’s never going to happen.

On Rolia: Interviewer: It [Rolia] brings in money with rental. Even people who live here rent it - but, if it demands this price, do you believe its used Mon-Fri that much?

Respondent 1: It’s not used much Interviewer: So if it’s opened for use and is open and people may reserve it and take responsibility in maintaining it, do you think this creates a financial loss?

Respondent 3: Trondheim municipality has income tax and property tax. If you look at Romolslia, we are not a benefac tor. The money is going out . . . I can’t see the money going in. There is no oth er activity from the kommune coming in here.

Interviewer: So you think Romolslia is subsidizing other areas?

Respondent 1: Yes, Saupstad center is paid for with community taxes and the kids here don’t have the access. It takes

30 minutes to walk there . . . from the shop here to the library there.

Interviewer: If it’s not used every day, then the borettslag isn’t collecting the mon ey anyway . . so if it’s open to be used for [various purposes] and if people go there, perhaps it could be used more often, including on weekends.

Respondent 1: I think that is optimistic . . . it would need an organizing group . . . that group hasn’t been formed yet.

About Social Networks:

Respondent 1: People aren’t so instru mental that they say for example, “I want to go organize a group for carpentry.”

Interviewer: For our proposal we want to introduce a space that can be used and provide the opportunity for things like this to happen more naturally.

Respondent 1: It’s not just a question of space, but of culture as well . . . nobody says hello to each other on the sidewalk, it’s very strange.

Respondent 3: There’s a place up here . . . by the ice rink you know with this barbeque, and when we go by there we think if there is somebody there, oh I can’t go there, it’s occupied. It’s just like on the bus.

Respondent 2: In [their country] we say hey come over here and we know how they live their life in just one day, what’s your age, everything. We learn all about you but it’s not like that here. Respondent 4: I can say most of us are in

troverts. The hardest age group is teen agers because they just want to be left alone.

Interviewer: Yea, this seems like their pre ferred way too. At school you have your social time then go home and connect with friends as much as you please with phones. But if there were places in Romolslia that are obviously designed for you to spend time there just for the sake of meeting up, do you think it would be used?

Respondent 4: Yea definitely. We would go to the football field and stay there a lot . . . watch games. It was our place to hang out but since there were games we were chased out. So we couldn’t stay there anymore . . . a lot of people don’t have much money to pay to be somewhere just to be in a more interest ing place. You just want to meet for a couple of hours and don’t want to real ly bring money and get dressed just to have a life. You don’t want to go to town, that’s a problem.

Interviewer: So do most of the people you know live over here?

Respondent 1: Well no, usually when I meet other people I have to plan a trip across town and sometimes this is really far. I never invite friends over because there just aren’t things to do.

Respondent 2: When I have people come over we just walk around Romolslia but we don’t last that long because there’s just nowhere to sit. The thing is, when you sit

down in benches around the playground,

I feel like i’m occupying someone else’s place. So when a family comes around I feel like I have to move.

Respondent 3: But nobody says that, you just feel that way.

Respondent 2: No i’m just feeling it . . . if I sit there and someone else approaches I feel like I have to move because i’m not going to barbeque . . . but if there were other benches... places around then it would be easy to just sit down and for other people to come and join you…

Interviewer: So it’s as if the barbeque is the destination but if there were other places to sit then it would be more like a feature to an overall good place.

Respondent 3: If you have a bench by a playground it’s obvious who that is for.

Appendix E) What If…

To give an example from one of the re sponses (translated from Norwegian):

List of Figures

1 Picture-in-picture-in-picture: Trondheim in Trøndelag County in Norway

2 Google Maps Aerial View of Trondheim. World Geodetic Survey 1984

3 Google Maps Aerial View of Romolslia. World Geodetic Survey 1984

4 Romolslia Road from Skårgangen AtB Bus Stop

3-D Rendering of Romolslia (Situational Analysis, 2019)

Map of Romolslia

7 Romolslia Land Use Map - (Situational Analysis, 2019) 11-12

8 “Welcome to Romolslia Borettslag” Sign 14

Livelihoods Assets Diagram (Carney, 1998) 20

Affinity Diagram 28

11 Stakeholder Mapping at Bytorget 29

12 First Stakeholder Map 31

13 Borgerkraft Workshop 34

14 Hundegruppe Photo 36

15 Nikoo and Gouse During Free Coffee Stand Method 38

16 Photovoice Poster 40

17 Box-Making Session Photo 42

18 TV-Aksjonen Method Photo 43

19-22 Romolslia Kindergarten Drawings 45-46

23 Rolia Community Meeting (What If… Activity) 49-50

24 Romolslia Skole Event Collages 51-52

25-26 Romolslia Skole Event Drawings 53-54

27 November 5th Preliminary Proposal Meeting Photo 55

28 Tamburhaugen Road, Romolslia 60

29 Snarveien Hillside Steps 60

Burslia Semi-Public Sandbox 63

31 Man Walking Through Area of Intervention at Night 66

Matthew on back hills in Romolslia

Aerial Map of Romolslia with Community Comments 67-68

34 Forest Density Map of Romolslia (Situational Analysis, 2019)

Pie Chart of Community Expressions

Google Maps Aerial View of Area of Intervention: WGS 1984 81-82

Rolia Grendahuset

38 Rolia Community Workshop

Map Activity 86

Urban Garden Example - Photo Credit: Monica Lovdahl 88

Basketball Court Relocation Visual 89

Outdoor Furniture Example 1 - Photo Source: Carve 90

Outdoor Furniture Example 2 - Photo Source: Miran Kambie 90

43 Intervention Proposal Visualized 91-92

Google Maps Aerial View Showing Bjørndalen Pathway: WGS 1984 93

Google Maps Street View Showing Bjørndalen Pathway 94