A vibrant place is abundant in energy and life. This vibrant energy comes from the presence of a great diversity of people performing a great diversity of activities. Vibrancy is an atmosphere we can intuitively feel in certain public spaces, and likewise we intuitively feel when a place is dead. This thesis investigates why some places are alive while others are dead, and dives into the relationship between planning ideology, the built environment, and the social environment. This is situated within the context of Umeå, the largest city in Northern Sweden. I study how planning ideology and practice has shaped Umeå by interviewing two key actors in Umeå’s post war development. I also conduct case studies of public life in four of Umeå’s neighbourhoods to explore how different urban forms facilitate or impede vibrant public life. I conclude by exploring how these neighbourhoods might be made into more vibrant communities. My findings indicate that Umeå’s post-war development aligns closely with the global Modernist trend of that era. This paradigm created monofunctional suburban neighbourhoods with detrimental impacts on vibrancy. These neighbourhoods are composed of public spaces which, in ideal weather, facilitate a great deal of leisure activity, but not much else. Furthermore, I find that vibrancy can be encouraged through diversity (as opposed to homogeneity) and integration (as opposed to segregation), and that by allowing for more diverse land uses and institutions which stay open at a wider variety of times (especially later into thenight), public life in Umeå’s suburban neighbourhoods can become more lively.

In Loretta Lees's study of a new public library in Vancouver in the late 1990's, she began to explore the ideals of non-representational theories, or those everyday practices that provide evidence not just of what symbolic meaning one may assign to a space, but rather what that space does—how it is enacted through everyday practice. This exploration provided Lees with another way to think about the built environment, one that she believed could open up a new direction for architectural geographers. Lees, building on the work of Jon Goss and other contemporary scholars in the field, described this new direction as a move towards a critical geography of architecture. This dissertation explores the use of a non-representational framework to study everyday practices through a single case study in the Avenue of Fashion in Detroit, Michigan. This research considers the historical evolution of Detroit through bankruptcy to present day using two common narratives of the city, one of rise/rebirth and one of Two Detroits, to offer a critical lens through which to consider performances of everyday life in this recently redeveloped area of the city. Within a non-representational framework, this study pulls in direct observational methods such as counting, mapping/tracing, photo documentation, trace observation, and field notes derived primarily from public life studies to observe and consider how the built environment is shaped through these embodied practices. This study contributes both an example of alternative methods that may be used in non-representational research, as well as new way to think about spaces that complements findings from more representational research. The findings from this study inspire a curiosity about the unfolding of everyday life and contribute to the work of Lees and others in advancing a critical geography of architecture. / Doctor of Philosophy / Using methods from the field of public life studies, such as counting, mapping/tracing, photo documentation, trace observation, and field notes, this dissertation study everyday practices, the bodily performances of everyday life, through a single case study in the Avenue of Fashion in Detroit, Michigan. This research considers the historical evolution of Detroit through bankruptcy to present day using two common narratives of the city, one of rise/rebirth and one of Two Detroits, to offer a critical lens through which to consider performances of everyday life in this recently redeveloped area of the city.