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Keywords:

3304 Urban and regional planning

Abstract:

The rapid transformation of suburban neighborhoods, driven by development and changing demographics, is causing feelings of loss, disconnect and a perceived diminution of political representation. This study examines socio-spatial relationalities that affect sense of belonging in such neighborhoods-in-flux. We propose a re-imagined participatory research process with residents from the perspective of “walk-ability”. Go-along walking methodology enabled us to gather emplaced narratives that revealed how emotions and memories influence different aspects of sense of belonging.  This jointly moving through the environment gave us a sensory exposure to sights, sounds, smells and tactical sensations of the neighborhood. It also deepened our understanding of how residents mentally and physically navigate the proposed social and spatial transformations outlined in a municipal development plan. Our analysis, informed by a New Materialist framework and visualized in a deep map, demonstrates how walking methodology can generate new knowledge about socio-spatial dynamics to plan and design place. These methods facilitate spontaneous and affective encounters with both human and other-than-human agents. The diverse range of emplaced emotions, memories and stories shared, provided insights into varying perspectives on the changing built environment and identity producing multiple belongings. The findings suggest that go-along walking praxis offers a unique socio-spatial window into the affective flows of belonging in neighborhoods-in-flux.