Urban Development and the Refrain: A new materialist perspective on current urban development practice

Research about storytelling within urban development is often framed as the crafting of grand narratives or a tool used to promote urban ideologies (Gunder & Hillier, 2016; Lindner & Meissner, 2018 among others). This human-centred understanding of storytelling seems increasingly contested with the threat of climate change. Non-human agencies, such as water, landscapes, geological resources, temperature, and air, to name a few, are becoming harder and harder to ignore. With this paper, we analyze the urban development project called Jernbanebyen and its initial attempts at establishing itself as an attractive destination in the city. Thinking with Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the refrain (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 311), we interpret storytelling as an affective material assemblage. We aim to understand the process of urban imaginaries as an interrelated web of small stories and actants in the city, including memories, materials, and landscapes, rather than a grand narrative.