Reclaiming Cities as Spaces of Middle Class Parenthood

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.

• 1. Introduction.- 2. The Family and the City – a Historical Overview.- 3. The Contemporary Inner City and Families.- 4. Why Are Families Staying in the City?.- 5. Parenting Practices in the City.- 6. Urban Parents and the Changing Consumption Landscape in Helsinki.- 7. New Urban Figures in Contemporary Urban Reality?.- 8. Conclusion: The Domesticfication of Neighbourhoods.- 9. Research Design.

“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)