MACMILLAN Reclaiming Cities as Spaces of Middle Class Parenthood (The Contemporary City)

For nearly a century families have been out-migrating to suburbs and peri-urban areas. In this book, Johanna Lilius conceptualizes the relatively recent phenomenon of families choosing to live in the inner city. Drawing on a range of qualitative data, the book offers a holistic approach to simultaneously understanding changes within parenting practices and changes connected to city development. The book explains not only why families choose to stay in the inner city and how they use the city in their everyday lives, but also how families change the landscape of contemporary cities, and how the family is, and has been, perceived in urban planning and policy-making. The Nordic perspective provided by Lilius makes this book an important contribution in helping understand inner city change outside the Anglo-American context, and will appeal to an international audience. Review “Urban policy analysts … will find this book a helpful source of hypotheses, literature and research resources, and ideas about the pull of cities for millennials not only in Scandinavia but well beyond.” (Jeffrey A. Raffel, Journal of Urban Affairs, July 23, 2019) Review “Johanna Lilius provides a fascinating account of families living in vibrant and transformed inner cities.  The book moves between individual parenting experiences to media representations of parenting, urban theory and planning perspectives to suggest ways that urban living practices and uses are changing inner city structures and forms in radical and sometimes problematic ways. Using Helsinki as her touchstone, Lilius opens a thoughtful discussion on the patent domesticfication of inner cities in the Global North.”(Stuart C. Aitken, Professor and June Burnett Chair, Director of Center for Research on Youth, Environments, Society and Space at the Department of Geography, San Diego State University, USA)  “Lilius offers important insights that will greatly enhance understanding of the role of parents in the gentrification of the central city.  This is a timely and important topic with crucial policy implications, and Lilius’ comprehensive and engaging book is a must-read for those interested in the contemporary city and its transformations.” (Japonica Brown-Saracino, Associate Professor of Sociology, Boston University, USA) From the Back Cover For nearly a century families have been out-migrating to suburbs and peri-urban areas. In this book, Johanna Lilius conceptualizes the relatively recent phenomenon of families choosing to live in the inner city. Drawing on a range of qualitative data, the book offers a holistic approach to simultaneously understanding changes within parenting practices and changes connected to city development. The book explains not only why families choose to stay in the inner city and how they use the city in their everyday lives, but also how families change the landscape of contemporary cities, and how the family is, and has been, perceived in urban planning and policy-making. The Nordic perspective provided by Lilius makes this book an important contribution in helping understand inner city change outside the Anglo-American context, and will appeal to an international audience. About the Author Johanna Lilius is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Architecture, Aalto University, Finland, who has explored the phenomenon of families returning to inner cities for more than ten years. She has also researched urban and suburban regeneration, multi-locality, single household dwelling, street level consumption, sense of community in planning and everyday life, and strategic urban planning in the Nordic context.