AMBIGUOUS SUBURBAN SPACES: TRENDS AND PECULIARITIES OF EVERYDAY PRACTICES CHANGE

Abstract

The article presents the conceptualization of suburban space changes through the prism of changing everyday practices and its verification based on cases in the suburban areas of Kyiv and Vinnytsia. Given task is problematic both theoretically and empirically, as the suburban space is not only a physical residence place of the inhabitants, but also an environment of their life with all interactions and social relations. It is possible to speak about several main types of suburban spaces in Ukraine, each characterized by the specific nature of changes and the way of residents’ life. Moreover, it is almost impossible nowadays to talk about the typical everyday life and everyday practices in the suburbia, as the latter becomes more and more heterogeneous as a result of the mixing, interaction and hybridization of various forms and practices, quite often within individual settlements. Investigating suburban inhabitants in the context of their daily life as residents, consumers, workers, and citizens through everyday practices provides an opportunity for a comprehensive understanding of the economic, social, cultural, and urban planning domains of the suburbia functioning in its relationship with the central city. Analyzed daily practices are related to the main components of human activity: accommodation, consumption, reproduction and upbringing of children, work, recreation, leisure and sports, education and cultural development, civic activity, mobility. The transformation of everyday practices is presented in the context of urban environment changes and emergence of new residents, orientation of residents to external interactions and meeting the needs in the central city/own settlement, mutual transformation and combination of old and new everyday practices. Changes in everyday practices have been identified in connection with the transformation of specific suburban areas, the behavior of residents and, ultimately, identity, and the factors of changes in everyday practices were revealed for different types of suburban spaces on the examples of Kyiv and Vinnytsia. The case studies show that transformations of the suburban spaces of Kyiv and Vinnytsia have similar driving forces, and the main consequences as well: radical change in population structure; loss or hybrid nature of the local identity of suburban settlements; advancing development of housing with underdeveloped engineering and social infrastructure; increasing heterogeneity, fragmentation and polycentricism of suburban spaces; growing the suburbia’s dependence on the central city