Grønland is a innercity district of Oslo.
The district tops the statistics in the wrong end of the scale of the great living conditions statistics to Statistics Norway.
Oslo's social and economic division in an eastern and a western side has received increased attention over the last couple of years. The current city council has put the bad living conditions in Oslo's inner city districts at the top of theire action list. Also the Norwegian parliament and government have defined the major differences between people in the country's capital as a national problem.
Inner city and especially inner Oslo east is characterized by an extensive emigration and imigration. Oslo inner east has a high percentage of young adults and has been having a higher proportion educated population (more than twice the national average - and higher than the rest of Oslo). Conditions in the suburbs have become more polarized (many at both ends of the distributions of education, income, etc.). Many people with poor living conditions live in rental housing in these neighborhoods. The area's population is very complex, and all major religions and faiths are represented.
Grønland is a part of the district Gamle Oslo. Per. 1/1-2009 it lived 7 788 people in Grønland. Of these, 3 982 persons (51.1 percent) is without an immigrant background, 666 persons 8.6 percent) had other western background while the remaining 3 140 people (40.3 percent) had a non-western background.
Nine countries of origin were represented with more than 100 immigrants, while the 41 countries were represented with 10 or more. These countries is spreading to all parts of the world. The population of Grønland is seen as very heterogeneous. It is precisely this diversity that characterizes Grønland.
If we divide the Grønland population by age, we see the outlines of a pattern that characterizes Oslo. Inner city is by a far greater degree than the outer city inhabited by young people who have not yet started their establishment phase. 12 percent of the residents are social assistance recipients, twice as high as the average in the city.
In Grønland in Oslo last year, police registered 550 personran. The area is also an arena for much of the drug sales in the city.
The police have on several occasions told the media and warned people not to travel in the area. Security guards are now patrolling the area, a private vigilante of the public areas, this was initiated by the city council leader Erling Lae in the autumn of 2008 and adopted by the City Council in November of that year. Guards have been in the area 24 hours a day, a private vigilante is thus supported by the city authorities, and shows a desperate situation. The area is also one of the most heavily surveiled areas in the city, CCTV covers and records most the movements.
Media has focused on moral and social control in Grønland. Women experience to be harassed for not wearing hijab. Gays are harrased, hate crimes has started to occur frequently.
Through these examples, one can say that the area's extreme richdom in this way gives life to the surveillance of the area shows up on so many different levels.
How should we understand this? What are the mechanisms behind such events? What can we do to counteract a further negative development?
The increasingly negative focus on the area gives a somewhat skewed impression of the actual conditions in the city. Surveys show that the area's residents are somewhat satisfied, despite all the negative factors. They highlight the spots, the cafes and the restaurants and all the little familyowned shops, butcher, vegetables etc that makes the area vibrant. This constant use of the cityscape, the urban spaces and the buildings give the area a usagecycle in days rate which distinguishes it from other parts of the city. The social life and the shifting of states is done constantly, one use overlapping the other. Residents meet in much greater part here on the street than in the rest of the city, the social life is more prominent here than it is in other parts of the inner city. The social life is thereby a very important fixture in the district, but it needs to be regarded as a resource and become more visible in the streets.
The highly heterogeneous population contributes in this manner by respecting each other and by that making it livable here. A gentrification of the area is not desirable, but through analysis of all spectra of the society, is it possible to find some architectural systems that can be truly integrated but also at the same time reflect the chaotic order?
How do the functions of the city fill in these larger processes or systems on the internal structure of the city - the spatial and physical design, but above all the social, class-related patterns.
The typologi of buildings is a mixture of low rise commercial buildings and appartment blocks. They reflect somehow in a relation to the society wich they exist, they have been altered and reused in order to have fit the use. Some open voids functions as secret meeting places, do they inhibit the potential for a recreation of the society, securing the areas potential as an alternative society within the city where the richness in peoples attitudes towards life is its greatest Its a feeling of decay and the run down environment butt his is also a quality.
By respecting this and keeping this a starting point I would like to start my diploma again and find out how one can keep the richness and at the same time help the area to prosper.
