Showing papers in "City in 2005"
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TL;DR: In this paper, Bulent Diken shows that binary urban logics produce more grey than they do black and white, and the notorious favela outside of Rio that is the subject of Meirelles' film is simultaneously included and excluded from all that Rio represents.
Abstract: Well over a millennium and a half ago, Augustine distinguished between two cities: the Heavenly City and the Earthly City. While one was the site of all that was holy and spiritual, the place of faith, the other was foul and wicked, the realm of the flesh. Such dichotomies, expanded into a full‐fledged binary logic, persist in the way that we think about cities today. But as Bulent Diken shows in these reflections on Joao Fernando Meirelles' film—entitled, appropriately enough—City of God, cities today are bound up with the very things they try to exclude: ghettos, slums, and shanty‐towns. Binary urban logics in fact produce more grey than they do black and white. The notorious favela outside of Rio that is the subject of Meirelles' film is simultaneously included and excluded from all that Rio represents. It is at once a dumping ground for the city's byproducts—the (human) waste generated by its own development—and its products. It is a zone beyond the civilized city, which, as the city's inverted, carni...
539 citations
TL;DR: The term "restructuring" was coined by Soja as mentioned in this paper to convey a break in secular trends and a shift towards a significantly different order and configuration of social, economic and political life.
Abstract: Over two decades ago, the term “restructuring” became a popular label for describing the tumultuous political‐economic and spatial transformations that were unfolding across the global urban system. As Edward Soja (1987: 178; italics in original) indicated in a classic formulation: Restructuring is meant to convey a break in secular trends and a shift towards a significantly different order and configuration of social, economic and political life. It thus evokes a sequence of breaking down and building up again, deconstruction and attempted reconstitution, arising from certain incapacities or weaknesses in the established order which preclude conventional adaptations and demand significant structural change instead […] Restructuring implies flux and transition, offensive and defensive postures, a complex mix of continuity and change. In the 1980s and early 1990s, scholars mobilized a variety of categories—including, among others, deindustrialization, reindustrialization, post‐Fordism, internationalization...
329 citations
TL;DR: In this article, Fox Gotham explores a number of urban festivals in the US city of New Orleans, namely Mardi Gras, the Jazz and Heritage Festival, and the Essence Festival, to highlight the conflicts and struggles over meanings of local celebrations and highlight the irrationalities and contradictions of converting cities into tourist spectacles.
Abstract: In this paper Kevin Fox Gotham critically explores a number of urban festivals in the US city of New Orleans, namely Mardi Gras, the Jazz and Heritage Festival, and the Essence Festival (previous articles in City have looked at similar topics—see for example Tony Harcup (Vol. 4, No. 2) in relation to Leeds, and Kim Dovey and Leonie Sandercock (Vol. 6, No. 1) in relation to Melbourne. Gotham’s central concern is to develop a critical theory of urban spectacles, using the ideas of Guy Debord and Henri Lefebvre, to highlight the conflicts and struggles over meanings of local celebrations, highlight the irrationalities and contradictions of converting cities into tourist spectacles, and wider concerns about the relationship between tourism and local culture. Rather than seeing this spectacularisation of local cultures as simply negative or positive, Gotham discusses how tourism is a conflictual and contradictory process that simultaneously disempowers localities and creates new pressures for local autonomy an...
122 citations
TL;DR: A bus stop in a typical working-class neighborhood of inner-city Los Angeles, a city with an extraordinary array of peoples and cultures as discussed by the authors, is described in the book "Two-tiered transit system in the making".
Abstract: A preface and a bus rider’s story: “two‐tiered” transit system in the making? Imagine a bus stop in a typical working‐class neighbourhood of inner‐city Los Angeles, a city with an extraordinary array of peoples and cultures. The bus pulls up with standing room only, filled with a variety of people: Mexican, Salvadoran, Korean, Filipino and African American; men and women going to jobs, some of them janitors, some street vendors. People on the bus include women clutching children and grocery bags, kids going to school, elderly folks off to the Senior Centre. The ride is like always: hot, noisy and desperately crowded. The riders come from decidedly different backgrounds, yet share the same experience daily—jostled against one another, staring blankly out cracked windows, minding their own business, intent on getting where they need to go. And getting it over with as quickly as possible. In another part of town, people of a different income class are riding in a new train. They come from the suburbs, clacki...
89 citations
TL;DR: Rogers and Coaffee as discussed by the authors examine the effects of quality of life policies which target UK city centres and highlight the exclusion of young people from the spaces of the city and from the policy processes which seek to re-shape those spaces.
Abstract: As cities around the world are re‐shaped by urban renewal policies underpinned by a concern with enhancing quality of life, tensions inevitably arise about whose quality of life is enhanced, and at whose expense? In this piece, Rogers and Coaffee critically interrogate the effects of quality of life policies which target UK city centres. Their particular concern here is with the exclusion of young people from the spaces of the city and from the policy processes which seek to re‐shape those spaces. They explore these issues through an analysis of the ways in which the agencies promoting Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne’s urban renaissance have positioned young people’s various uses of the city centre. Their paper highlights the exclusionary consequences of single‐minded attempts to enhance quality of life which fail to give recognition to the diversity of lifestyles or urban populations, thereby displacing and dispersing some populations to the margins. Nonetheless, Rogers and Coaffee also find evidence of alternative ...
69 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a detailed portrait of the tactics and techniques of contemporary urban warfare and suggest that the greater threat to metropolitan existence comes from systematic attempts by traditional powers such as the United States to disrupt urban networks, thereby effectively switching cities off.
Abstract: In this follow‐up to a piece originally published in City 8(2), Stephen Graham offers a detailed portrait of the tactics and techniques of contemporary urban warfare. As cities have become more reliant than ever on networks, and as their infrastructures have become more fragile due to the vagaries of neoliberal privatization, urban‐based warfare, which targets the systems—informational, medical, agricultural, and technological—that sustain the civilian populations of cities, has had disastrous consequences. Although terrorists have chosen to target urban infrastructures in an attempt to disrupt modern urban life, Graham suggests that the greater threat to metropolitan existence comes from systematic attempts by traditional powers, such as the United States, to disrupt urban networks, thereby effectively ‘switching cities off’. Policies of what Graham calls ‘deliberate demodernization’ have become the hallmark of US air power. Although such policies are thought to bring about asymmetrical military advantag...
56 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the meaning of the phrase "London's success" is explained using an ellipsis, where the part of London becomes the whole of London, and the part is implicitly equated with the whole.
Abstract: “London’s success”? In colloquial usage, there is not doubt of the meaning: the strength of the financial services industry located in the geographical area defined as London contributes to a set of desirable outcomes for certain persons or firms in that city—although possibly the reference may be specifically to the government of London, and possibly only to that government’s fiscal health. But not spelling out the full meaning permits an ellipsis to occur—in the metaphorical use ‘London’ becomes the whole of London, the part is implicitly equated with the whole. The limited colloquial meaning of the sentence is transformed, and ‘London’s success’ becomes a success for all the people of London, all of the businesses, the built environment, a whole entity that is ‘London’. ‘London’ becomes identical with that part of London that is connected to the global economy at its upper levels, through its financial services and the people that manage them. ‘London’ becomes “the most international place on earth”, and that is measured by five items on a check list:3
31 citations
TL;DR: In Canada, public-private involvement in the planning, financing, and operation of public transit has become increasingly popular in Canada as discussed by the authors, with the busway network in Ottawa being an innovative and successful alternative to capital-intensive urban rail systems.
Abstract: Canadian cities are widely recognized for their effective provision of public transportation. Both Montreal and Toronto are often cited as models of public transit, with system performance and ridership figures comparable to the best in the world, including Europe, the USA and Australia. The busway network in Ottawa is internationally acclaimed as an innovative and successful alternative to capital‐intensive urban rail systems (Cervero, 2001). In 1996, Vancouver was acknowledged as the North American Transit System of the Year by the American Public Transit Association. These Canadian transit systems experienced their greatest capital expansion as a result of public‐sector planning and financing, and each system is currently operated predominantly by public‐sector corporations. Yet at the beginning of the 21st century, private‐sector involvement in the planning, financing and operation of public transit has become increasingly popular in Canada. Seen as latecomers in experimenting with private‐sector invo...
31 citations
TL;DR: The meanings of terrorism and anti-terrorism are socially constructed and highly contested as mentioned in this paper, and the meaning of terrorism is linked to a war of signs each deed can be mobilized for different interests to energize and embed each act with layers of politics and culture as a frame for retaliation.
Abstract: The meanings of “terrorism” and “anti‐terrorism” are socially constructed and highly contested Timothy Luke’s (2004) term “propaganda of the deed” suggests that terrorism is linked to a war of signs Each deed can be mobilized for different interests to energize and embed each act with layers of politics and culture as a frame for retaliation According to Robert W Williams, “Contemporary terrorism is characterized by the randomness of its attacks against an entire population or society—attacks which could include such possible effects as the mass destruction of targets and the mass disruption of social life” (Williams, 2003, p 282) While internationally these definitions of what constitutes terrorism will be played out between powerful governments and international courts (Beck, 2002), domestically, the use of the discourses of terrorism has become not only politicized, but also anchored in existing and expanding domestic policies and programmes Post‐9/11, in the USA, a conservative political agenda
28 citations
TL;DR: The period between 1970 and 1990 was, with the exception of a few years, a time of significant and sustained growth in the U.S. economy as mentioned in this paper. But not all local communities enjoyed the benefits of t...
Abstract: The period between 1970 and 1990 was, with the exception of a few years, a time of significant and sustained growth in the U.S. economy. However, not all local communities enjoyed the benefits of t...
18 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the results of metropolitan governance restructuring in Canada's largest city, Toronto, during the 'long 1990s', the time period roughly between the collapse of international property markets in the late 1980s and the events of 9/11/01.
Abstract: This article reflects on the results of metropolitan governance restructuring in Canada’s largest city, Toronto, during the ‘long 1990s’, the time period roughly between the collapse of international property markets in the late 1980s and the events of 9/11/01. We alsodiscuss more recent developments including the establishment of more moderately liberal and social democratic administrations in Ontario and Toronto. Based on this context, we develop our arguments about globalization and unequal re‐scalings, and the re‐territorialization of political action and social movements. Through a discussion of the search for new ‘fixes’ at the city‐regional scale in Toronto, particularly in the sectors of competitiveness, transportation and the environment, we highlight how social movement demands have been rearticulated in the period following revisions of municipal governance mechanisms such as the debates about the municipal charter in Toronto.
TL;DR: In this article, a just and fair comment from a knowledgeable researcher on p. 8, No. 3, pp. 399-402 was made to my debate article in City.
Abstract: I appreciated Phil Hubbard's response in City (Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 399–402) to my debate article in City (Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 237–245), as a just and fair comment from a knowledgeable researcher on p...
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TL;DR: In this article, Eduardo Mendieta dissects the production, dissemination, and consumption of a new discourse of urban fear and exposes one of the latest manifestations of anti-urbanism.
Abstract: Exposing one of the latest manifestations of anti‐urbanism today, Eduardo Mendieta dissects in this essay the production, dissemination, and consumption of a new discourse of urban fear. He takes as his starting point the SUV, or Sport Utility Vehichle, which simultaneously represents and replicates the main tropes of this discourse. In the image of the gas‐guzzling, martial‐like SUV, Mendieta sees a ‘double negation of the urban.’ Insofar as the SUV, like a tank, runs roughshod over the urban environment while it simultaneously displays its own conspicuous consummation of scare resources, it encapsulates the inherently anti‐urban sentiment of the new American imperialism. Whether on the streets of the wealthiest American cities and suburbs or the beleaguered streets of Baghdad, were it is thevehicle of choice for private and public occupation forces alike, the SUV represents the excesses of neoliberalism at work.
TL;DR: The Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) is one of the most popular forms of satisfaction for urban dwellers in the developing world as discussed by the authors, and it has been shown to be a substitute for the external wall that protected residents against external enemies.
Abstract: ‘Progress’ has reached a point at which it engenders mounting fear and insecurity. As a response, Zygmunt Bauman argues, we seek substitute forms of satisfaction that appear to guard us against danger. One such substitute is the Sports Utility Vehicle (considered at greater length in Eduardo Mendieta’s contribution to this issue). These fears and the attempt to escape them are increasingly played out in cities. In the massive urban agglomerations of ‘the developing world’ such progress takes the form of an increasingly gross and exploitative imbalance between town and country which creates severe problems that were once, though not once and for all, addressed with extreme difficulty, in the cities of ‘the developed world’ Cities, in a sad reversal of progress, have now reached the point where they are characterized, instead of by the one‐time external wall that protected residents against external enemies, by a multiplicity of internal walls protecting some residents against others within the city. What i...
TL;DR: Ruggiero as discussed by the authors explores the dichotomy between theories of new social movements that draw upon rationalist/resource mobilization approaches and those that focus on collective identity and cultural difference as key motivators.
Abstract: In this essay Vincenzo Ruggiero explores the dichotomy between theories of new social movements that draw upon rationalist/resource‐mobilization approaches and those that focus on collective identity and cultural difference as key motivators. Taking contemporary social movements (CSMs) engaged in opposition to globalizing neo‐liberalism (from anti‐G8 protests to the World Social Forums) as the focus of analysis, the paper argues that because ‘the different components of the movement have extremely diversified needs’ it is as difficult for activists as it is for researchers to identify a common purpose or set of unifying principles. However, Ruggiero suggests that by refusing to succumb to traditional organizational ‘leader‐follower’ paradigms, CSMs begin to resemble the ‘free city’ of ‘the multitude’, which so bewildered Kreon's messenger from the dictatorial city‐state of Thebes. The multitude do not speak with one voice, however, and in this ‘movement of movements’ we find rejectionists that eschew all ...
TL;DR: Borders, and their iconic images of gates, walls and fences, are ubiquitous representations of immigration policy and experiences, and they express the control of territorial boundaries of a nation-state and its people, distinguishing those inside from those outside as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: “Democracy generally stops both at the gates of the workplace and the borders of a state.” (Anderson, 2002 , p. 34) “The border seemed to move with me, hanging overhead like a cloud.” (Blaise, 1990 , p. 5) “I now understand that a man’s place in society is the one he takes.” (Tar Angel, 2001)1 Borders, and their iconic images of gates, walls and fences, are ubiquitous representations of immigration policy and experiences. They express the control of territorial boundaries of a nation‐state and its people, distinguishing those inside from those outside. They also represent the physical, social and cultural transition in the lives of those who cross a border to settle in a new nation, and in the lives of the people left behind (Chavez, 2001). Points of arrival are perpetual points of departure in the journey of a migrant. Powerful metaphors of the immigrant journey, borders are determined and maintained by economic and political imperatives constructing the flows of capital, goods, ideas, technologies, etc....
TL;DR: Deffner as discussed by the authors argues that the planning of time is increasingly important: the opening hours of public and private services, the relationship of work rhythms, travel patterns and cultural practices need to be considered together.
Abstract: Writers on the city have only rarely focussed on how time is spent and how time is managed as part of planning. Alex Deffner gathers together and develops this work (most recently Arantxa Rodiguez’s paper in CITY vol 8 no 2) and argues that the planning of time is increasingly important: the opening hours of public and private services, the relationship of work rhythms, travel patterns and (especially) cultural practices need to be considered together. He shows how important it is that ‘time planning’ is linked with planning for cultural development and presents the argument through an analysis of Athens. The paper relates issues of time to some of the dilemmas of cultural planning: What are the strengths and weaknesses of culture‐led urban regeneration? Should the focus be on high or popular culture? Should it be on spatial or time planning? And, finally, should the emphasis be on the past, the present or the future?
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The question is no longer how we become capable of love and knowledge, but rather what keeps us from loving and knowing as discussed by the authors, how do we come not to know our experience, our feelings, and the feelings of others? How do we become divided from others and from ourselves? What leads us to forego pleasure for the sake of gaining competitive advantage?
Abstract: ‘The question is no longer how do we become capable of love and knowledge, but rather what keeps us from loving and knowing? How do we come not to know our experience, our feelings, and the feelings of others? How do we become divided from others and from ourselves? What leads us to forego pleasure for the sake of gaining competitive advantage? And how do we find our way back...?’ (Carol Gilligan1)
TL;DR: In this paper, a case study of Milton Keynes in the UK, Christopher Baker looks at how new urban forms and phenomena have affected the ability of the Christian Church to engage with the community and concludes that it must reconceive urban community as a "process of flows" rather than a geographical place.
Abstract: In this case‐study of Milton Keynes in the UK, Christopher Baker looks at how new urban forms and phenomena have affected the ability of the Christian Church to engage with the community. Drawing on North American concepts such as Joel Garreau’s ‘Edge City’ and Ed Soja’s ‘Exopolis’, he uses the term ‘exurban communities’ as ‘a generic description of those urban spaces that have developed over recent years as a result of continuous urban decentralization’. These postmodern spaces are characterized by consumerism and privatization. The Church, held back by a ‘quasi‐rural and romanticized’ image of itself in which it operates as the heart of the community, has been unable to adjust to these newly decentralized urban forms. To become relevant once more Baker concludes that it must reconceive urban community as a ‘process of flows’ rather than a geographical place. Building on previous work in CITY linking theology and urbanism (see Andrew Davey’s ‘Theology, theory and urban praxis’, in CITY 7(3), pp. 419–422,...
TL;DR: In this paper, Ditchev plays with the theory and reality of the Eastern European utopian project of the communist period, tracing their effort to create an urban form that erased the spatial contradictions of human settlements, and promote a way of living in line with socialistic values.
Abstract: In this essay, Ivaylo Ditchev plays with the theory and reality of the Eastern European utopian project of the communist period, tracing their effort to create an urban form that erased the spatial contradictions of human settlements, and promote a way of living in line with socialistic values. From the theory, Ditchev uncovers two competing visions for the ideal socialist territoriality, based on either an ameliorated form of concentration or a decentralization of population to erase the division between core and periphery. Yet as Ditchev illustrates, the daily reality of living under communist spatial organization of population was far from the utopia envisioned by their theoreticians: ‘mobility and urbanization did not become a tool of liberation, but one of tightening control over the population’. We are shown how stringent internal restrictions on travel and settlement shaped complex geometries of citizenship, where the privilege of mobility contributed to definitions of status, appropriate individua...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors sketch and illustrate an alternative paradigm, a "revolutionary" or "weird" approach to social science/knowledge, drawing on: work by Derrida, contemporary non-academic sources including the arts, particularly two murals by Joel Bergner; and on work from and/or on relatively distant pasts, in philosophy, drama and history.
Abstract: In order to be able to move beyond neoliberalism there has to be a theoretical paradigm that can contribute to charting the characteristic silences and blind spots that give plausibility to neoliberalism and implausibility to its contestation. The paradigm of normal social science that underlies mainstream urban studies, though valuable within limits, cannot ultimately chart such gaps and distortions. This essay—one of a series—seeks to sketch and illustrate an alternative paradigm, a ‘revolutionary’ or ‘weird’ approach to social science/knowledge. It draws on: work by Derrida, contemporary non‐academic sources including the arts, particularly two murals by Joel Bergner; on work from and/or on relatively distant pasts, in philosophy, drama and history; and on recent studies of aspects of contemporary society, particularly neoliberalism and its contestation. Reference is made particularly to entrapment and disjunctions in general and prisons in particular. Neoliberalism is ‘located’ here within a dislocate...
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this article, auteur schetst in dit artikel drie ontwikkelingen in de betrokkenheid van burgers bij het Nederlandse stadsbestuur.
Abstract: De auteur schetst in dit artikel drie ontwikkelingen in de betrokkenheid van burgers bij het Nederlandse stadsbestuur. Tevens gaat hij in op de uitdagingen die deze ontwikkelingen voor stadsbestuurders met zich meebrengen.
TL;DR: Pensky as discussed by the authors argues that the modern city is a site of collective memory, and that Benjamin's dialectical approach is more capable of capturing the redemptive, or utopian, potential of the urban environment.
Abstract: For some time now, urban theorists have looked for inspiration to the pioneering metropolitan works of Walter Benjamin, the German Jewish literary critic who tragically took his own life in 1940 while attempting to flee Nazi‐occupied France. In this essay, philosopher Max Pensky examines some of the key components of Benjamin's description of modern, urban life. Specifically, he contrasts Benjamin's understanding of the modern capitalist city as a locus of both myth making and breaking with Sigmund Freud's attempt to equate the urban experience with psychic development itself. While both Freud and Benjamin suggest that the modern city is a site of collective memory, Pensky argues that Benjamin's dialectical approach is, in the end, more capable of capturing the redemptive, or utopian, potential of the urban environment. Despite surface similarities, Freud and Benjamin's analysis of urban psychic life are actually quite distinct and lead to very different conceptions of the city's relation to both individu...
TL;DR: Taylor and Francis as discussed by the authors suggest Wal-Mart as an altogether more scary beast than that timid debate indicated, and also as a metaphor for developments in neoliberal city regions, especially since 9/11 in North America.
Abstract: Taylor and Francis Ltd CCIT104995.sgm 10.108 /13604810500050120 ity 360-4813 p int/1470-3629 online Original Article 2 05 & Francis Group Ltd 90 00 April 2 05 LeonieSande co k leonies@int hange. bc.ca nsofar as urbanists concern themselves with corporations like Wal-Mart it is usually on aesthetic grounds, to deride the huge, ugly box-shaped buildings, or on very practical matters of zoning for such large land-users. Several years ago in my home town of Vancouver, when Wal-Mart had purchased land and was seeking permission to build one of its typical mega-stores, progressive planners debated whether this was good or bad on grounds (good) that it provided cheap goods for poor folks versus (bad) that it put smaller businesses out of competition. In this Introduction to our special feature on ‘The neoliberal city in North America: resistances and alternatives’, I want to suggest Wal-Mart as an altogether more scary beast than that timid debate indicated, and also as a metaphor for developments in neoliberal city regions. In the spring of 2004 an academic conference was held at the University of California, Santa Barbara, devoted entirely to the topic of Wal-Mart, Fortune’s ‘most admired company’ of 2003. With its 1.4 million employees worldwide, Wal-Mart’s workforce is now larger than that of GM, Ford, GE and IBM combined. Its $258 billion in annual revenues in 2003 was 2% of US GDP, giving Wal-Mart number one ranking in the world among corporations, when measured by revenues (Head, 2004, p. 80). The impact of this corporation on everything from the transfer of goods from third-world sweatshops to suburban shopping malls in the USA, to its impact on local communities where its stores are located, to its impact on employment practices, makes Wal-Mart a subject begging for attention from critical urbanists. Let me suggest four reasons why we might think of Wal-Mart also as a metaphor for what is happening in neoliberal cities, especially since 9/11 in North America.