**1. Introduction**

Developing sustainable cities is currently one of the greatest global challenges. Cities face a wide range of social, environmental, and economic challenges that require change. The majority of Western cities possess unique cultural and architectural qualities, strong social inclusion forces, and exceptional economic development opportunities. Cities are centers of knowledge and sources of growth and innovation [1]. As the population influx places new demands on the physical structures, residents, and city management, the need to think across disciplines and sectors arises. At this stage, the use of analytical interpretation is required, which is a sophisticated analysis that inputs evidence for all parameters involved in the investigation process [2]. The keynote speaker "Jan Gehl's" message was that human beings can only achieve sustainable urban development if we start with the people living in cities. A human being can build high-rise buildings with green roofs, green walls, and high-energy efficiency [3], but that does not necessarily mean that the cities are pleasant to live in [4]. Green sustainability, as a broad concept, must have a strong social element [5]. Additionally, Gehl pointed out that if many children reside in a big city—and you see them in the urban space—it is often an excellent city to live in, a livable city [3, 6]. According to an article published by Emma Lauridsen, there are now 29 residential areas in Denmark that meet the new ghetto criteria, which is eight more than last year. Three of the areas are located in the municipality of Aarhus, which are the same as last year, namely, Gellerupparken or "Toveshøj, Bispehaven," and "Skovgårdsparken." One of the

new features of this year's ghetto list is that both Gellerupparken or "Toveshøj" and "Bispehaven" are on a whole new list of "hard ghettos." A hard ghetto area is defined as a residential area that has been on the ghetto list for the past 4 years. It also entails a requirement to submit a development plan by June 1 of the next year that shows how the residential area should meet the need to reduce the proportion of public housing to a maximum of 40% [7]. It is necessary to develop a concept for improving the formation of public spaces, taking into account the complexity of the influential factors. In scientific studies, only certain aspects of this problem are considered. The urban area is the territory where the interaction between space and the person takes place, where the person's spatial behavior is formed, and this largely depends on how the person relates to this place, whether it is emotionally attractive to him.

The city becomes not just buildings, roads, parks, fences, abandoned corners, water pipes, and cable networks, but it grows as an especial interaction among citizens, contacts, social relationships, direct, and indirect communication interactions [8]. Social sustainability revolves around the human factor as a crucial prerequisite for a sustainable city and a sustainable society. The government's sustainability strategy thus describes the concept in terms of everyone participating in social development and possessing real equal opportunities, regardless of background [9]. Focused and sustained work on social sustainability helps to ensure diversity, democracy, and equality in our cities. As urban settlements have grown, the visual environment has become more monotonous and typical (the country has been faced with the task of solving the housing problem). The quality of public space—its architecture, equipment, design, as well as its level of accessibility and openness to the different needs of the residents—has a direct impact on the number of users and the quality of life in the city [9, 10]. Therefore, its features can affect residents' activation. To identify the relationship between the forms of activities favored by city residents and the features of public spaces in which they are undertaken, a binary classification has been made. The first approach divides activity spaces into formal and informal ones, while the second one categorizes the different needs of their users according to their age and physical abilities. Every effort should be made to integrate all groups, irrespective of their social and economic situation, age, gender, cultural background, and physical skills, and find a place for them in urban public spaces. Sports and recreation, thanks to the values they bring, can be a handy tool for social inclusion and integration. The design of physically activating public spaces should also constitute an expression of these values [11].

The current unsatisfactory ecological and esthetic state of many objects in the urban environment reduces the social efficiency of city spaces, which requires professional intervention, especially in the process of forming the subject-spatial environment of actively exploited public spaces [12]. They represent the nodes of the most significant social and communication activity of the population. Such spaces include, first of all, urban squares, which are quite diverse in their functional purpose. As the city develops, their existing spatial and spatial structure becomes less effective in terms of providing a comfortable, ecological environment with positive esthetic characteristics [13]. An urban area for people should be livable, safe, attractive, sustainable, and healthy [14]. This is a city where people often want to be on the street and spend time outside the home and office, where most residents can move freely on foot or by bicycle and other environmentally friendly vehicles, and where it is pleasant and comfortable to be at any time of the day. Classification and operative analysis are the leading instrumental procedures used to determine the critical thinking model, which places expectations into requests to detect whether a given right is factual or untrue [15]. Based on this concept, it is necessary to identify several criteria for a successful and high-quality public space and to lay the foundation of our research and future architectural projects:

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restored.

*Urban Social Sustainability - Case Study; Gellerupparken–Denmark*

• The appearance of positive emotions and desire to linger in visitors

• Sociality: orientation to different user groups, a variety of social groups, activi-

Buildings are profane elements that give rise to social spaces, time as an "event" in the mythological sense. Therefore, space is not exclusively the physical extension but rather the sacred place in which the individual manifests and updates itself.

A participatory or participatory approach implies that experts in public spaces are architects, designers, and their end users, residents. All of them may have a different experience in using the place, habits, needs, and ideas about how this place should be, and these ideas do not always coincide with the vision of the designer. This raises some difficulties: it takes time and effort to determine how each space function, by whom and at what time of day it is in demand, what kind of people are there, and what their needs are and how they imagine the future of this space [16]. The collected data are analyzed, and project proposals are created on their basis. Despite the additional cost of time and resources, the participatory approach has several essential advantages. First, inclusion of the end user in the design process from the very beginning increases the sustainability of the project: it is more likely that people will feel a personal connection with the place and maintain it in good condition—this reduces the risk of vandalism. Second, the joint creative process helps people get to know each other, establish good neighborly relations, and form local communities [17, 18]. Third, in joint design, its participants begin to better understand the decisions that are made; they have an understanding of how the object will be used. In the long run, such projects strengthen the personal connection of people with a city or district: when people know that the city is developing with their participation and taking into account their needs and interests and when they feel a part of the local community, their perception of the whole city changes for the better—activating public space by creating public space to be more attractive. Examples of attractive spaces can be amazing gardens, squares, and museums, as well as monumental heritage buildings, which attract the public through their history but also by what they represent in memory of the city. Unfortunately, however, aggressive or rather desolate spaces are found by the present researchers because of many buildings left in comparison, which are not renovated or not

A sustainable city is socially linked by the fact that there are democratic spaces where people can meet, regardless of social, economic, and cultural backgrounds, and which provide the opportunity for development and accessibility for all citizens of the city [19]. When a city has many offerings for both everyday life and when something unusual happens, it becomes more vibrant and attractive—this can

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93124*

ties, modes of use, functions

• Open access for all, inclusiveness

**1.1 Why is participative important?**

• Pedestrian friendliness

• Original atmosphere

• Rich symbolic content

• Visual appeal

*Urban Social Sustainability - Case Study; Gellerupparken–Denmark DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93124*


Buildings are profane elements that give rise to social spaces, time as an "event" in the mythological sense. Therefore, space is not exclusively the physical extension but rather the sacred place in which the individual manifests and updates itself.
