Suburban Regeneration through Capacity Building: Two case-studies from France (Périgueux) and Denmark (Viby)

Across Europe, many suburban areas strive to boost their vitality through intensification of uses and densification of their vast existing urban fabric. Urban participatory practitioners working from external positions to urban administrations can play a vital role by introducing new co-creative formats for collaboration between public and private actors. Drawing on theories of capacity building and participatory planning this article explores two case-studies from France and Denmark. Through two models of action led by two different urban participatory practitioners we investigate capacity building as long-term and multilevel processes that are structured through different phases and processual goals: (1) To Mobilize: How to create a group of action. (2) To Involve: How to work together in the same direction (3) To Flow: How to anchor the process. The juxtapositioned cases then establish a nuanced perspective on interdisciplinary approaches of urban practitioners and their implications for capacity building in a suburban context.