MEMORY OF THE “BEDROOM COMMUNITY”: (NOT) FOR TOURISTS

Abstract

This article is an analysis of “bedroom community” - a residential neighborhood – in the prospects for its transformations, as in the past and so in the future. Attention is focused on residential neighborhoods, primarily in post-Soviet cities. The “bedroom community” is considered here from the economic, cultural and spatial aspects in the context of the formation of the memory of the place in the city and in the everyday life of a separate social subject - a resident of the city place. In a biographical context, as an element of identity. Local identity is often more significant for a person than state or national. Residents of settlements mostly rather positively assess the environment of their everyday life, than outside observers and analysts. They are sometimes biased in their assessments. But they should form their analysis not exclusively from the standpoint of “best experience”, but from immersion in the specifics of local history and everyday life practices. The article analyzes the elements of criticism of dormitory areas in the advocacy position: what has been defined as a negative characteristic for a long time, has been rethought from the perspective of positive effects and prospects for renovation. Indeed, there is a sense in transforming the social space of «bedroom community», but moderate ones, with attention to the elements of the local sociocultural space.

The article pays attention to the fact that the predicate “bedroom” in modern realities no longer corresponds to reality and is gradually becoming rudimentary. Because gradually the so-called “bedroom community” are turning into residential areas, or, as they are more accurately defined, “large residential complexes”, which include small business and trade, educational services, sports and leisure locations, and often branched transport systems. Large residential complexes – micro-districts - spaces of wide opportunities for the formation and strengthening of local urban communities through the development of “third places” - institutions and spaces that form communication links between local residents that satisfy such needs as small purchases of goods, beauty and recreation services, and etc.

“Bedroom community”, being formed mainly by “first places” (home), actively form the memory of the locals - those who spend a significant part of their lives there, satisfy the basic needs of comfortable rest and a place free from work. Accordingly, when analyzing social memory, it is worth paying attention to the contexts of everyday life, which are no less significant in the formation of identity as a component of a broader context - historical memory.