Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Urban Space (urban + space)
Selected AbstractsDOES DIVERSITY IN URBAN SPACE ENHANCE INTERGROUP CONTACT AND TOLERANCE?GEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 1 2009Terje Wessel ABSTRACT. Contemporary urban theory has started to question the elevation of diversity as a panacea for enduring urban problems , segregation, prejudice and intergroup hostility. This critique coincides with an opposite tendency within classic contact theory and research. The latter tradition has developed an increasing enthusiasm for face-to-face interaction. The contact hypothesis, which presupposes established contact, has received conclusive support independent of target groups and contact settings. Research on ,lived diversity', which includes both contact and lack of contact, offers two supplementary insights. It shows, on the one hand, that boundaries are inscribed in social spaces. Physical proximity between ethnic and social groups tends to have a minor effect on interaction. Interaction, on the other hand, is not essential to attitude formation. Both subfields within contact research have confirmed that urban space may act as a catalyst for tolerant attitudes. This observation corresponds with increasing recognition of affective states, such as empathy, anxiety and group threat. Contact research has therefore, in summary, transcended the scope of the contact hypothesis. It has expanded into the realm of urban theory, which foreshadows future collaboration between the two traditions. Some key points for such exchange are suggested at the end of the article. Future research should combine an open-ended approach to casual contact with a diversified conception of diversity and a richer conception of urban space. A move in this direction would leave substantial space for geographical research. [source] Urban Space and Cyberspace: Urban Environment in the Age of Media and Information TechnologyINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF JAPANESE SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2002Mikio Wakabayashi Today, the many innovations and the spread of new media and information technologies are bringing new realities to contemporary society. In Japanese sociology, this social transformation is called johoka, or information,oriented transformation. The present study examines two aspects of today's urban environment, concerning this social transformation. One is the phenomenon of "Disneylandization" of the urban environment and the other is the emergence of "cyberspace" or the "cybercity". The former is the proliferation of areas and buildings filled with signs and designs that are quoted from other historical or geographical contexts, and arranged under some "theme" or "concept", such as theme parks. The latter is the emergence of "virtual spaces" and the "virtual city" in computer networks, especially on the Internet. The former is a change in the physical urban environment and the latter is a phenomenon of the non,physical environment, inside computers. However, in spite of this contrast, these phenomena can be considered to result from the same social transformation,that is, the new relationship between space and society. The semantic emptiness, and expectations and desires for a sense of "placeness" in contemporary society are the preconditions of both phenomena. Often these elements are regarded as postmodern phenomena, yet it is of interest to explore Disneylandization and the emergence of the cybercity as the latest versions of the modern urban transformation and the modern urbanism. [source] State Form, Social Order and the Social Sciences: Urban Space and Politico-Economic Systems 1760,1850JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2003Ann Firth She traces the origins of this impoverishment to the eradication of pre-industrial capitalist urban culture in the eighteenth century. The paper investigates the claim that English urban culture underwent a significant transformation in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century. A concern with the public magnificence of London as a means of representing the wealth and power of England is characteristic of eighteenth century treatise on urban improvement. The most influential of which, John Gwynn's London and Westminster Improved, published in 1766, draws upon the spatial linkage of economy, government and power typical of mercantilist thought. The paper argues that as the principles and practices of mercantilism were displaced by the spread of industrial capitalism and the liberal state, a concern with grandeur, elegance and embellishment in urban form was subordinated to the provision of the physical and social infrastructure necessary for the reproduction of labour. [source] Visualizing the Invisible: Towards an Urban Space, edited by Stephen Read and Camilo PanillaJOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2008Ted Rutland First page of article [source] Lay-Religious Associations, Urban Identities, and Urban Space in Eighteenth-Century MilanJOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY, Issue 1 2004David Garrioch Religious life was integral to the social and political organization of eighteenth-century Milan. The composition and character of lay-religious activities reflect not only official hierarchies within the city but also unofficial bonds and identities, such as those of neighbourhood. They reveal the multiple identities of neighbourhood, parish, trade and family, but equally the tensions between collective forms of piety and the new religious values and aesthetic adopted by the Milanese elites during the late Enlightenment. [source] Metropolitanism and the Transformation of Urban Space in Nineteenth-Century Colonial MetropolesAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 1 2001Robert Rotenberg In this paper, I argue that the nineteenth-century movement of "metropolitanism" was a transnational attempt to rebuild and re-imagine cities in a bourgeois image and through a capitalist process of investment. This movement began with the attempt by wealthy residents of imperial metropoles to remake their cities in ways that created greater social distance between themselves and their colonies,both external and internal. I explore how a discourse with specific urban content can engender a movement that revolutionizes people's view of the city. The analysis points toward a revitalization of this movement in the present moment of global transformations, suggesting that the reshaping of urban social organization and urban institutions through transnational processes is not new. [urban, metropolitanism, colonialism, housing, architecture] [source] The Nature of Cities: Culture, Landscape, and Urban Space , Edited by Andrew C. IsenbergTHE HISTORIAN, Issue 4 2008Randall Bartlett No abstract is available for this article. [source] Custom Contestations: Lowriders and Urban SpaceCITY & SOCIETY, Issue 1 2010BEN CHAPPELL Abstract This article examines the production of space and contestation of spatial governmentality that occurs in the everyday cruising practices of lowrider car customizers in Austin, Texas. Lowrider style, practiced mostly, but not exclusively, by Mexican Americans, is a form of automotive aesthetics which carries associations with working-class, Latino/a barrio communities. Drawing on critical theories of the production and governance of space, I trace the politics inherent in lowrider cruising and the confrontations with police it occasions. From the perspective of lowriders, I present a critique of community policing as a practice of government, which has the effects of criminalizing lowriders and subjecting them to heightened levels of surveillance. [source] Transitory Sites: Mapping Dubai's ,Forgotten' Urban SpacesINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2008YASSER ELSHESHTAWY Abstract Seeking to uncover a hidden side of Dubai, this article investigates the city's ,forgotten' urban spaces. I use a theoretical framework that responds to a shift in global city research, emphasizing the everyday as well as transnational connections in which the local and the global are closely intertwined. I argue that such processes can be observed in these ,forgotten' settings, which, as well as being major gathering points, are utilized by Dubai's low-income migrant community for the exchange of information. Through an analysis of users and their activities as well as of the morphology of these spaces, I situate them within the overall development of Dubai. A key construct developed in this study and used as a unit of analysis is the notion of transitory sites , viewed as a major element in understanding migrant cities. The architectural and urban character of these sites is identified. A key finding is that low-income migrants resist globalizing influences by claiming these settings and establishing linkages through them to their home countries. Résumé En tentant de révéler la face cachée de Dubaï, cet article étudie les espaces urbains ,oubliés' des grandes villes. Son cadre théorique tient compte d'une transformation dans la recherche sur les villes planétaires, en soulignant les rapports, à la fois quotidiens et transnationaux, dans lesquels le local et le mondial sont liés de manière inextricable. Ce genre de processus est observable dans ces environnements ,oubliés' qui, en plus d'être des points de rassemblement importants, servent à la communauté des migrants à faible revenu de Dubaï pour échanger des informations. En analysant les usagers et leurs activités, ainsi que la morphologie de ces espaces, on peut les positionner dans le cadre de l'aménagement global de Dubaï. Cette étude produit un concept essentiel qui est utilisé comme unité d'analyse : la notion de sites transitoires, considérée comme un élément majeur pour comprendre les villes de migration. Le caractère architectural et urbain de ces sites est identifié. L'un des principaux résultats est le fait que les migrants à faible revenu résistent aux influences mondialisatrices en revendiquant ces espaces et en instaurant, grâce à eux, des liens avec leurs pays d'origine. [source] The Disappearance of the State from "Livable" Urban SpacesANTIPODE, Issue 5 2009Katherine B. Hankins Abstract:, This paper examines the absence of the state from the discourses and practices of "livable" urban spaces. Drawing from an ethnography of Atlantic Station, the USA's largest new urbanist infill development, we argue that "livable" urban spaces are increasingly arenas for luxury, theater, and consumption, and that the state, while an important actor in the creation of urban spaces such as Atlantic Station, has largely been made invisible. We see this in the absence of public institutions, such as schools, parks, and libraries, and in the absence of a collective political identity among Atlantic Station patrons. The disappearance of the state in the material spaces of the city suggests that the neoliberal project of individualism and consumerism is transforming the very notion of livability and the democratic possibilities of what makes urban space "livable". [source] Un/safe/ly at Home: Narratives of Sexual Coercion in 1920s EgyptGENDER & HISTORY, Issue 3 2004Marilyn Booth This paper takes up an Arabic narrative genre that appeared in the 1920s. Its distinctive narrative properties included adoption of a first-person female experiental voice and a focus on `impolite' social realms. Combining confessional exposé and social polemic in what I am calling `simulated memoirs', these narrating voices offered readers the narrative authority of first-hand experience in Cairo's underworld and critique of elite politics and spaces of behaviour from the constructed perspective of subaltern social figures. I argue that these text's inscriptions of bodily coercion trace an anxiety about growing female visibility throughout urban space. Construction of feminine narrative voices apparently wrests authority to speak about gendered bodily violence away from elite, mostly male commentators and representatives of the state, transferring that authority to the figure of the `fallen' female who `speaks'. But this is an act of ventriloquism: complex layerings of authorial and narrative attribution recoup that authority, reasserting the disciplinary power of the patriarchal father over the lives and vulnerabilities of the young. [source] CULTURAL ECONOMY AND THE CREATIVE FIELD OF THE CITYGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 2 2010Allen J. Scott ABSTRACT. I begin with a rough sketch of the incidence of the cultural economy in US cities today. I then offer a brief review of some theoretical approaches to the question of creativity, with special reference to issues of social and geographic context. The city is a powerful fountainhead of creativity, and an attempt is made to show how this can be understood in terms of a series of localized field effects. The creative field of the city is broken down (relative to the cultural economy) into four major components, namely, (a) intra-urban webs of specialized and complementary producers, (b) the local labour market and the social networks that bind workers together in urban space, (c) the wider urban environment, including various sites of memory, leisure, and social reproduction, and (d) institutions of governance and collective action. I also briefly describe some of the path-dependent dynamics of the creative field. The article ends with a reference to some issues of geographic scale. Here, I argue that the urban is but one (albeit important) spatial articulation of an overall creative field whose extent is ultimately nothing less than global. [source] DOES DIVERSITY IN URBAN SPACE ENHANCE INTERGROUP CONTACT AND TOLERANCE?GEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 1 2009Terje Wessel ABSTRACT. Contemporary urban theory has started to question the elevation of diversity as a panacea for enduring urban problems , segregation, prejudice and intergroup hostility. This critique coincides with an opposite tendency within classic contact theory and research. The latter tradition has developed an increasing enthusiasm for face-to-face interaction. The contact hypothesis, which presupposes established contact, has received conclusive support independent of target groups and contact settings. Research on ,lived diversity', which includes both contact and lack of contact, offers two supplementary insights. It shows, on the one hand, that boundaries are inscribed in social spaces. Physical proximity between ethnic and social groups tends to have a minor effect on interaction. Interaction, on the other hand, is not essential to attitude formation. Both subfields within contact research have confirmed that urban space may act as a catalyst for tolerant attitudes. This observation corresponds with increasing recognition of affective states, such as empathy, anxiety and group threat. Contact research has therefore, in summary, transcended the scope of the contact hypothesis. It has expanded into the realm of urban theory, which foreshadows future collaboration between the two traditions. Some key points for such exchange are suggested at the end of the article. Future research should combine an open-ended approach to casual contact with a diversified conception of diversity and a richer conception of urban space. A move in this direction would leave substantial space for geographical research. [source] Obsolescence and the Cityscape of the Former GDRGERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS, Issue 4 2010Simon Ward ABSTRACT Paul Ricoeur claims that it is on the scale of urbanism that we best catch sight of the work of time in space. This article establishes two paradigmatic ways of seeing time in the city, the synchronic urban gaze and the urban memorial gaze, in order to explore how visualisations of the cityscape of the former GDR negotiate the significance of obsolescence, both ideological and physical. These paradigmatic forms can be associated with the ,official vision' of the cityscape, and ,alternative' visions respectively. While the state vision is evident in its urban planning, and the visual discourses at its disposal, the alternative visions are expressed in forms of visual culture (film and photography) that also explicitly engage with the visual discourses of urbanism. The article thus begins with an analysis of the official vision, through a consideration of the demolition of the Berlin Stadtschloss in 1950 as an act that may have been underpinned by both the ideological and physical obsolescence of the Schloss, but was ultimately justified by the need to create urban space for ideologically-motivated circulation. It then charts the changing relationship to obsolescence on the part of the regime's urban planners in the late 1960s, showing how this ostensibly dovetails with alternative ,subjective' visions of the cityscape in the 1970s in films such as,Die Legende von Paul und Paula,and,Solo Sunny, and in the photography of Ulrich Wüst. Such visions are widespread and largely permissible by the 1980s (with the notable exception of Helga Paris's study of Halle); and Peter Kahane's 1990s film,,Die Architekten, is read as offering a summary of these positions, as well as of the tensions between official and alternative ways of framing the manifestation of time in the cityscape. The article concludes by considering the afterlife of the obsolescent cityscapes of the former capital of the GDR within the new ,official' regime of representation that dominates in the ,new' Berlin. Paul Ricoeur behauptet, dass wir im Kontext des urbanen Raumes am besten betrachten können, wie sich die Zeit im Raum manifestiert. Diesem Aufsatz liegen zwei paradigmatische Sichtweisen auf die Stadt zugrunde, und zwar der synchronische Stadtblick (,synchronic urban gaze') einerseits und der zeitbezogene Stadtblick (,urban memorial gaze') andererseits, durch die Bedeutung und Rolle des physischen und moralischen Verschleißes in Darstellungen der Stadtlandschaft von Ostberlin, der Hauptstadt der DDR, untersucht werden können. Diese Sichtweisen lassen sich mit der ,offiziellen' Sichtweise, bzw. mit ,alternativen' Sichtweisen in Verbindung bringen. Die staatliche Sichtweise drückt sich in der Stadtplanung, aber auch in den visuellen Medien, die dem Staat zur Verfügung stehen, aus. Die alternativen Sichtweisen drücken sich auch in Formen der visuellen Vermittlung (Film, Fotografie) aus, die sich auch mit dem Urbanismus auseinandersetzen. Der Aufsatz beginnt daher mit der Analyse der offiziellen Sichtweise, und betrachtet den Abriss des Berliner Stadtschlosses im Jahre 1950 als einen Vorgang, der sowohl vom physischen wie auch ideologisch verschlissenen Zustand des Gebäudes ausging, aber letztendlich seine Legitimation aus dem Bedürfnis, urbanen Raum als Verfügungsmasse für ideologisch fundierte Tätigkeiten zu schaffen bezog. Diese Position des Regimes zum Verschleiß veränderte sich in den späten 1960er-Jahren, und diese neue Position hat scheinbare Ähnlichkeiten mit alternativen ,subjektiven' Vorstellungen der Stadtlandschaft in Filmen wie,Die Legende von Paul und Paula,und,Solo Sunny, und in der Fotografie von Ulrich Wüst. Solch alternative Visionen der Stadtlandschaft setzten sich mit weitgehender offizieller Duldung in den 1980er-Jahren fort (mit der berühmten Ausnahme der Halle-Arbeiten von Helga Paris); Peter Kahanes Film,,Die Architekten,(1990), bietet eine Zusammenfassung dieser Perspektiven und der Spannung zwischen der ,offiziellen' Sichtweise und dem alternativen Blick auf die verschlissene Stadt. Im Schlussteil untersucht der Aufsatz das Nach- oder Weiterleben der scheinbar obsoleten Stadtlandschaften der Hauptstadt der DDR in den offiziellen Formen der Stadtlandschaft, die im ,neuen Berlin' herrschen. [source] Designing for conservation of insects in the built environmentINSECT CONSERVATION AND DIVERSITY, Issue 4 2008MARYCAROL R. HUNTER Abstract., 1The conservation of insects is not a priority for most urban dwellers, yet can be accomplished in urban settings by the careful design of urban nature. Our goal is to foster cross-talk between practitioners of insect conservation biology who develop the knowledge base and professional design practitioners who are poised to apply this knowledge in designs and management plans for urban green space. The collaborative product promises a built environment that promotes human well-being and urban beauty while maximizing the potential for the conservation of insects. 2There is precedence for collaboration between science and design communities to achieve conservation, and existing professional and civic organizations offer a structure to formalize and expand collaboration. Design professionals, particularly landscape architects, are trained to support insect conservation in the urban landscape through land planning and ecological site design. 3Ecological site design is based in principles of sustainability and so must address the well being of humans and nature simultaneously. This powerful approach for insect conservation is illustrated in examples from around the world focusing on roadway-easement corridors, stormwater management areas, and greenroofs. 4To improve insect conservation and its public support we offer recommendations, organized in response to cultural aspects of sustainability. Considerations include: a) social drivers for support of conservation practices, b) public perception of urban space, c) applying conservation biology principles in urban areas, and d) merging insect conservation goals with human cultural demands. [source] Land Commodification: New Land Development and Politics in China since the Late 1990sINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2009JIANG XU Abstract This article examines the development of the land market in China since the late 1990s. It analyses new practices in which urban space is commodified through ad hoc market development, and argues that the structure of the land market is indeed becoming more complicated and that land sales are pervasive and rampant. Under such circumstances, the state has rearticulated its function in land governance in order to apply a more consolidated regulatory power. The politics behind the development of the land market and the rearticulation of the state are explored with reference to the changing role of the state in land commodification. It is argued that, if we understand the market as an emerging institution, the development of the market has been supported by the state. Regulatory land control is becoming a new way for the state to be involved in space commodification. Résumé Cet article porte sur l'évolution du marché foncier en Chine depuis la fin des années 1990. Il analyse de nouvelles pratiques par lesquelles l'espace urbain est marchandiséà travers le développement de marchés spécifiques; de plus, il montre que la structure du marché foncier devient vraiment plus compliquée et que les ventes de terrains se généralisent à grande échelle. Face à cette situation, l'État a réorganisé sa fonction en matière de gouvernance foncière afin d'exercer un pouvoir régulateur plus intégré. La politique à la base de l'essor du marché foncier et la réorganisation étatique sont examinées au regard du nouveau rôle de l'État dans la marchandisation des terrains. Si on considère le marché comme une institution émergente, son développement a donc reçu le soutien de l'État. Ce dernier trouve dans le contrôle régulateur du foncier une nouvelle façon d'être partie prenante dans la marchandisation de l'espace. [source] Resurgent Metropolis: Economy, Society and Urbanization in an Interconnected WorldINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2008ALLEN J. SCOTT Abstract An urban problematic is identified by reference to the essential characteristics of cities as spatially polarized ensembles of human activity marked by high levels of internal symbiosis. The roots of the crisis of the classical industrial metropolis of the twentieth century are pinpointed, and the emergence of a new kind of urban economic dynamic over the 1980s and 1990s is discussed. I argue that this new dynamic is based in high degree upon the growth and spread of cognitive-cultural production systems. Along with these developments have come radical transformations of urban space and social life, as well as major efforts on the part of many cities to assert a role for themselves as national and international cultural centers. This argument is the basis of what we might call the resurgent metropolis hypothesis. The effects of globalization are shown to play a critical role in the genesis and geography of urban resurgence. Three major policy dilemmas of resurgent cities are highlighted, namely, their internal institutional fragmentation, their increasing character as economic agents on the world stage and the concomitant importance of collective approaches to the construction of localized competitive advantage, and their deepening social disintegration and segmentation. Résumé Une problématique urbaine est dégagée à propos des caractéristiques essentielles des villes définies comme des ensembles d'activité humaine polarisés dans l'espace et marqués par une symbiose interne poussée. Les racines de la crise qu'a subie la métropole industrielle classique au xxe siècle sont mises en évidence. Est aussi étudié un nouveau type de dynamique économique urbaine apparu au cours des années 1980-1990, cette dynamique étant largement fondée sur la croissance et la diffusion des systèmes de production cognitifs culturels. Parallèlement à ces évolutions, l'espace urbain et la vie sociale ont connu des transformations radicales, et nombre de villes ont entrepris de revendiquer un rôle de centre culturel national et international. Cet argument est à la base de ce qu'on pourrait appeler l'hypothèse d'une résurgence des métropoles. Il est montré que les effets de la mondialisation ont compté de façon cruciale dans la genèse et la géographie de la résurgence urbaine. Trois grands dilemmes politiques des ,villes résurgentes' sont soulignés: leur fragmentation institutionnelle interne; l'accentuation de leur place d'agents économiques sur la scène mondiale et l'importance concomitante des approches collectives pour construire des avantages concurrentiels localisés; ainsi que l'intensification de leur désintégration et de leur segmentation sociales. [source] The Socio-spatial Conditions of the Open City: A Theoretical SketchINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2005DETLEV IPSEN Without additional immigration of several million people over the next few decades, the demographic development of most European countries will lead to a considerable population decrease. Because such a reduction is neither desirable nor realistically possible, cities in particular will be the target of increasing immigration, and hence will undergo qualitative change. Today, there are large ethnic and cultural minorities in many German cities and suburbs; in the future, whole cities will become international, and suburbs will become ethnic-cultural communities. This article presents a theory for the discussion on how such a change can be managed productively. The concept of the ,open city' is understood as both a risk and an opportunity. This article pleads for a socio-culturally segregated division of urban space for the prevention of discrimination to be possible. The multitude of separate cultures must be supplemented by a ,hyper-culture' in order to integrate the urban culture as a whole. Sans l'apport de l'immigration de plusieurs millions de personnes au cours des prochaines décennies, l'évolution démographique de la plupart des pays d'Europe aboutira à une nette chute de population. Comme une telle diminution n'est ni souhaitable ni une réalité envisageable, les villes notamment vont être la cible d'une immigration croissante, donc subir des changements qualitatifs. Aujourd'hui, il existe d'importantes minorités ethniques et culturelles dans de nombreuses villes et banlieues allemandes: à l'avenir, la totalité des villes deviendront internationales et les banlieues se feront communautés ethno-culturelles. Cet article présente une théorie comme base de discussion sur la manière de gérer ce changement de façon productive. Le concept de ,ville ouverte' est perçu à la fois comme un risque et une opportunité. L'article plaide pour une division socio-culturelle de l'espace urbain comme moyen de prévention de la discrimination. La multitude de cultures distinctes doit être complétée d'une ,hyper-culture' afin d'intégrer en bloc la culture urbaine. [source] The Architecture of Repeated RitualsJOURNAL OF ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION, Issue 4 2008Tel Aviv's Rabin Square This paper examines the relationship between architecture and civil participation by specifically looking at the formal attributes of Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, its development as a public urban space, its nationally symbolic meaning, and its civic role. A major conclusion of this study is that public assembly and the physical space in which it occurs are indivisible, revealing architecture's unique contribution to the shaping of citizenship. [source] Traces of the FlâneuseJOURNAL OF ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION, Issue 1 2006From Roman Holiday to Lost In Translation This article critically considers the trope of the nineteenth-century flâneur/flâneuse as found in two films: Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953) and Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003). Both films construct a traditional narrative from the adventures of a single female protagonist as she negotiates urban space. In tracing the references to the flâneur/the flanuese as found in these two films, one can begin to map a certain trajectory of contemporary gender relations in respect to urban space from the post,World War II era to the present, as well as to understand the context in which the "city" itself is seen as a site for such transformations. [source] PLACES OF WORSHIP AND NEIGHBORHOOD STABILITYJOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 4 2006NANCY T. KINNEY ABSTRACT:,Despite ongoing interest in religious group involvement in community development, only limited research has considered whether the mere existence of a place of worship can be linked to neighborhood well-being. This exploratory study uses a cross-sectional design to examine the relationships between the presence of churches in high-poverty neighborhoods and specific measures of neighborhood stability. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and geographic information system (GIS) software were employed to compare measures of structural permanence, residential tenure, and property valuation from a sample of two types of church (freestanding and storefront) and non-church areas or "clusters." The findings provide limited support for the conclusion that storefront churches, while modest and often regarded as less architecturally significant, may be overlooked contributors to the sort of stable urban space where residential population is preserved and investment maintained. [source] Gendering reurbanisation: women and new-build gentrification in TorontoPOPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE (PREVIOUSLY:-INT JOURNAL OF POPULATION GEOGRAPHY), Issue 5 2010Leslie Kern Abstract For over a decade beginning in the mid 1990s, Toronto, Canada experienced a massive wave of condominium development. Women make up a high percentage of condominium purchasers and condominiums are extensively marketed to young, professional urban women. In grappling with this phenomenon, this paper constructs a gendered social geography of reurbanisation and new-build gentrification in Toronto, through qualitative research into women's experiences as downtown condominium owners. Examining both the gendered ideologies that have shaped Toronto's condominium boom, and the narratives of condominium developers and owners, this paper illustrates the gendered dimensions of city building and everyday life in the context of reurbanization. I argue that the neoliberal rationality of contemporary entreprenuerial city building is constituted, in part, by gender. Gender ideologies inform the processes of privatisation, commodification, and securitisation of urban space and urban life in the city's quest for a competitive position in the global urban hierarchy. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Urban Space and the Mediation of Political Action in Nepal: Local Television, Ritual Processions and Political Violence as Technologies of EnchantmentTHE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2008Michael Wilmore This paper examines how political identities in the town of Tansen in the central western district of Palpa, Nepal, are mediated by contrasting forms of cultural and material practice: religious and secular processions and programs made by a local, cable-television production organisation. These practices and their materiality are conceptualised as ,technologies of enchantment' (Gell 1992) through which political culture is made manifest in urban space. Paradigmatically ,modern' and ,traditional' technologies are juxtaposed in order to analyse the different ways that political action is embodied within the community. The loss of life in Tansen and the destruction of buildings associated with these practices in the course of the 10-year Maoist insurgency provide a tragic confirmation of the conclusions reached in this paper. [source] Structural Adjustment, Spatial Imaginaries, and "Piracy" in Guatemala's Apparel IndustryANTHROPOLOGY OF WORK REVIEW, Issue 1 2009Kedron Thomas Abstract This article examines how urban violence influences the everyday lives of Guatemalan Maya entrepreneurs who make nontraditional clothing to sell in highland markets and Guatemala City. How urban space is imagined and experienced among apparel producers reflects a process of class differentiation linked to Guatemala's entrance into international trade and legal agreements. Realities of uneven access and unequal resource distribution allow some producers to take advantage of formal markets and official networks in the capital city, while others avoid the city streets out of fear. Such inequalities are obscured when entrepreneurs who benefit from urban connections talk about relative success in terms of a moral division between those who engage in brand piracy and those who do not. In line with an official discourse that blames "pirates," gangs, and other marginalized groups for the country's social and economic ills, apparel producers who do not copy popular brands often view those who do as immoral and illegal. The case study presented here is fruitful ground for theorizing how cultural representations of urban space influence market strategies and moral logics amidst processes of economic and legal restructuring. [source] The Spaces of Parking: Mapping the Politics of Mobility in San FranciscoANTIPODE, Issue 1 2009Jason Henderson Abstract:, Recently a "mobility turn" has entered critical geographic discourse. This mobility turn recognizes that mobility is at once physical movement and contains social meanings that are manifested in a politics of mobility. In this paper I contribute to this emerging line of inquiry by exploring how the politics of mobility is manifested in localized urban processes. Mobility, as with the broader localized urban process, is political and ideological, and this is particularly true with contemporary debates about automobiles and parking in cities. I explore parking as an example of the broader contestation of urban space, using a case study of San Francisco, California. There are three broad factions in San Francisco's parking debates,progressives that advocate for less parking, neoliberals that advocate that market-based pricing determine the amount of parking, and neoconservatives that advocate for more parking. Throughout the paper, I provide thoughts on the relationship between parking, space, ideology, and the broader urban process. [source] A Picture of the Floating World: Grounding the Secessionary Affluence of the Residential Cruise LinerANTIPODE, Issue 1 2009Rowland Atkinson Abstract:, A quarter century of financial deregulation, robber-baron corporatism and growing income polarisation has enabled the spatial partitioning of urban space into new and complex arrangements of micro-neighbourhood governance and privatism. These archipelagos of fortress homes and neighbourhoods increasingly lie outside the spaces of conventional state and city government. Yet while residential spaces of urban affluence have been unable to fully remove contact with the social diversity of the public realm, nomadic forms of super-affluence, flowing around a global,national urban system, have generated a form of networked extra-territoriality,a social space decoupled from the perceived risks and general dowdiness of the social world beneath it. This paper examines this space via the curious case of The World, a large residential cruise ship which, as its name suggests, roams the oceans and ports of the globe. Our title is taken from the name given to Japanese paintings of the new affluence and fantasy of life lived by the affluent and artists in late nineteenth century Japanese cities (O Ukiyo E, or pictures of the floating world). We suggest that The World forms a similarly disconnected realm, not only literally afloat, also detached from the reality of a world that has been strategically left behind. [source] Looking Forward by Looking Back: May Day Protests in London and the Strategic Significance of the UrbanANTIPODE, Issue 4 2004Justus Uitermark This paper deals with the question of how oppositional movements can adapt their protest strategies to meet recent socio-spatial transformations. The work of Lefebvre provides several clues as to how an alternative discourse and appropriation of space could be incorporated in such protest strategies. One of the central themes in Lefebvre's work is that the appearances, forms and functions of urban space are constitutive elements of contemporary capitalism and thus that an alternative narrative of urban space can challenge or undermine dominant modes of thinking. What exactly constitutes the "right" kind of alternative discourse or narrative is a matter of both theoretical and practical consideration. The paper analyses one case: the May Day protests in London in 2001, in which a protest group, the Wombles, managed to integrate theoretical insights into their discourse and practice in a highly innovative manner. Since cities, and global cities in particular, play an ever more important role in maintaining the consumption as well as production practices of global capitalism; they potentially constitute local sites where global processes can be identified and criticised. It is shown that the Wombles effectively made use of these possibilities and appropriated the symbolic resources concentrated in London to exercise a "lived critique" of global capitalism. Since the Wombles capitalised on trends that have not yet ended, their strategies show a way forward for future anti-capitalist protests. [source] The structure of Upper Mesopotamian cities: Insight from fluxgate gradiometer survey at Kazane Höyük, southeastern TurkeyARCHAEOLOGICAL PROSPECTION, Issue 2 2010Andy Creekmore Abstract This paper presents the results of fluxgate gradiometer survey of the Bronze Age city at the site of Kazane Höyük, southeastern Turkey. We undertook this work to test the applicability of magnetometry to the study of the organization of urban space at this site within the context of urbanization in Upper Mesopotamia. Gradiometry collection covered a total of 37 520,m2 in five parts of the site. Results from each area were mixed but the most revealing data, from Area 1, show a roughly 2,ha area in the outer town that contains monumental, elite and administrative architecture as well as a main street. Low negative values indicate that most identified architecture is built with limestone foundations, and high positive values reveal that some of the buildings burned before their collapse. These interpretations are supported by excavations that reveal much about the use of the identified spaces and features. Although the structure of Area 1 is rectilinear, evidence for strict rules of city planning is lacking. Instead, the third millennium city at Kazane has a structure seen at other Upper Mesopotamian cities: dense, semi-orthogonal architecture built along well-maintained avenues. Combined with previous research, it is clear that Kazane contained multiple elite or administrative areas, which may indicate a degree of power-sharing or heterarchy in the development and management of this city. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP)ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, Issue 1 2009Bill Menking Abstract A new generation of architects, urban designers and planners are rethinking the city. Bill Menking describes how the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) has orchestrated a number of art-based collaborations in the New York boroughs that enable the community to participate in the reimagining of urban space. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] ENVELOPING OBJECTS: ALLEGORY AND COMMODITY FETISH IN WENCESLAUS HOLLAR'S PERSONIFICATIONS OF THE SEASONS AND FASHION STILL LIFESART HISTORY, Issue 3 2006JOSEPH MONTEYNE While in London during the 1640s Wenceslaus Hollar produced a striking cycle of etchings using contemporary female figures as allegories of the seasons, followed by another series of still lifes depicting fashion accessories, in which fur muffs appear repeatedly. This article focuses on the connections between the personi-fications of winter and the still lifes, and brings out the tensions that transpire when the disinterested and supposedly objective eye utilized in Hollar's other projects of the 1640s is revealed as an eye steeped with ambivalent desires , not just in relation to the bodies of certain women, but to the commodity form as well. The fur muff in these etchings is shown to be an enigmatic entity, not only intersecting with issues related to fetishism, eroticism and urban space in early modern London, but is also poised on a threshold between different economies of the object, between residual classical and medieval systems of representation and newly emergent anxieties about the commodity and exchange value. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||