Showing papers in "City in 2010"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the current geological era should be re-named the anthropocene to better reflect the impact of humans in reshaping planetary ecology, and the key concern for 21st-century global urbanism is to critically understand the wider societal and material implications of strategic responses to the pressures of climate change, resource constraint and their interrelationships with the global economic crisis.
Abstract: Earth scientists now argue that the current geological era should be re‐named the anthropocene to better reflect the impact of humans in reshaping planetary ecology. Urbanism encompasses the social, economic and political processes most closely linked to the rapid transformation of habitats, destruction of ecologies, over use of materials and resources, and the production of pollutants and carbon emissions that threaten planetary terracide. Consequently, the key concern for 21st‐century global urbanism is to critically understand the wider societal and material implications of strategic responses to the pressures of climate change, resource constraint and their interrelationships with the global economic crisis. Eco‐cities, eco‐towns, eco city‐states, floating cities and the like represent particular, and increasingly pre‐eminent, forms of response. These types of response appear to promote the construction of ecologically secure premium enclaves that by‐pass existing infrastructure and build internalised...
155 citations
TL;DR: The role of the wars on graffiti have played in the creeping militarization of everyday life in the city is explored in this paper, where the role of war on graffiti has been explored.
Abstract: An ever‐expanding number of urban authorities have declared ‘war’ on graffiti. This paper explores the role the wars on graffiti have played in the creeping militarization of everyday life in the city. Wars on graffiti have contributed to the diffusion of military technologies and operational techniques into the realm of urban policy and policing. Furthermore, new Western military doctrines of urban warfare have sought to ‘learn lessons’ from the wars on graffiti (and other crime) in their efforts to achieve dominance over cities in both the global South and the Western ‘homeland’. The blurring of war and policing has deepened with the declaration of wars on terror. The stakes have been raised in urban social control efforts intended to protect communities from threats of ‘disorder’ such as graffiti, for the existence of even ‘minor’ infractions is thought to send a message to both ‘the community’ and ‘enemies within’ that there are vulnerabilities to be exploited with potentially more devastating consequ...
86 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a series of interviews and focus groups with urban and social policy makers and practitioners in Vancouver, Canada, Zizek's 1989 critique of the cynical functioning of contemporary ideology is used to interpret the city's engagement with sustainability.
Abstract: The rise and rise of sustainability in urban and social policy circles has transformed the discursive terrain of urban politics. In 2009, Gunder and Hillier argued sustainability is now urban planning’s central empty signifier, offering an overarching narrative around which practice can be oriented. This paper takes up the notion of sustainability as an empty/master‐signifier, arguing that the recognition of its nominal status is central to understanding how it operates to produce ideological foundation. Drawing upon a series of interviews and focus groups with urban and social policy makers and practitioners in Vancouver, Canada, Zizek’s 1989 critique of the cynical functioning of contemporary ideology is used to interpret the city’s engagement with sustainability. Focusing on ‘social sustainability’ it is argued that sustainability has provided a quilting point that has enabled new social and urban policy‐related partnerships and organizational agendas to be developed. However, this coherence remains un...
84 citations
TL;DR: Radical and critical urban scholars and activists have benefited from a wealth of recent thinking, organizing and action that has helped them to focus their conceptualisations, practices and interv....
Abstract: Radical and critical urban scholars and activists have benefited from a wealth of recent thinking, organising and action that has helped them to focus their conceptualisations, practices and interv...
84 citations
TL;DR: Graffiti art is neither simply graffiti nor simply art, but a new kind of visual cultural production that exceeds both categories as mentioned in this paper, and street art has read the signs of this historic move correctly, and has followed graffiti art in 'taking place' in the public sphere of the public square.
Abstract: Graffiti art is neither ‘simply graffiti’ nor ‘simply art’, but a new kind of visual cultural production that exceeds both categories. Graffiti art moved beyond the neo‐dada/pop art strains of (post)modern (galleried) painting and took the next dialectical step, out into the streets: no longer paintings on canvas that mimic the image‐strewn city walls, but the city walls themselves as the canvas for new image‐making. Street art has read the signs of this historic move correctly, and has followed graffiti art in ‘taking place’ in the public sphere of the public square. These new art forms are an enhancement to contemporary urban living, a welcome growth in the living city, a disruption of the unexamined assumptions connecting urban visual culture and the existing social order. Another art city is now possible if the art in the street is taken seriously.
73 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the recent history of graffiti regulation in one municipality and draw upon their experience of being appointed to develop a Draft Strategy on Graffiti for the City of...
Abstract: This paper critically considers the recent history of graffiti regulation in one municipality. It draws upon my experience of being appointed to develop a Draft Strategy on Graffiti for the City of...
73 citations
TL;DR: The idea of the urban impossible has been proposed in this article as an alternative to the right to shape, intervene and participate in the unfolding idea of a city, which is not just a movement for material rights, but also the right of shape, intervention and participation in the city's evolution.
Abstract: This paper extends the debate on the right to the city through the idea of the urban impossible. The starting premise is the fundamental and age‐old question—what actually is a city, what do we want it to be and who should be involved in its making? The right to the city is not just a movement for material rights, but also the right to shape, intervene and participate in the unfolding idea of the city. Cities, then, are living organic, conflictual entities that are constantly remade and recast in thousands of ways through everyday encounters. In different moments, new possibilities for radically different cities open up. The city, then, is an unfinished, expansive and unbounded story. The urban impossible demands a much wider political imaginary to intervene in the unfolding story of the city and calls for a radical appetite for change to inform the work of urban researchers. The agenda becomes not so much about what the city currently is or what it was, but more about what it could become, what it has ne...
54 citations
TL;DR: Wacquant as mentioned in this paper pointed out that if you look at the world through the eyes of the dominant, the social landscape does look a lot rosier than it used to.
Abstract: ‘Now, I will grant you that, if you look at the world through the eyes of the dominant, the social landscape does look a lot rosier …’ (Loic Wacquant, 2009, p. 128) As an undergraduate at Queen Mar...
45 citations
TL;DR: The Pictures on Walls Ltd (POW) company as discussed by the authors was one of the pioneers of the post-graffiti art movement in the UK, which was founded by the notorious street artist, Banksy, and his agent, the photographer Steve Lazarides.
Abstract: When graffiti writing was transferred onto canvas for sale during the Manhattan art boom of the 1980s, it was widely felt to have ‘sold out’ to the exploitative interests of the art establishment and become a ‘post‐graffiti’ art movement. In contrast, recent British street art demonstrates the capacity to be both more critical and complicit in the influential spheres of art and commerce. Yet, despite growing recognition of these ‘new directions in graffiti art’, there remains little critical attention to how such post‐graffiti aesthetic practices are mobilized, not simply by the heroic tactics of the lone male street artist, but by a significant body of cultural intermediaries, institutions and firms. Established in 2002 by the notorious street artist, Banksy, and his agent, the photographer Steve Lazarides, Pictures on Walls Ltd (POW) was a company that in many ways stood at the cutting edge of these developments. As such, it serves as a rich case study of the ways street art can be understood as a sophi...
43 citations
TL;DR: This article examined the logics and limits of graffiti management at a key site within an Australian city using writers' narratives, examining attempts to control the type of graffiti (script) against efforts to control its location (bleed).
Abstract: This paper examines the logics and limits of graffiti management at a key site within an Australian city. Using writers’ narratives, we examine attempts to control the type of graffiti (script) against efforts to control its location (bleed). Our central claim is that both these strategies demand that graffiti only speak its name when it (visually) ceases to be itself—that the ‘best’ graffiti, bureaucratically speaking, is that which functions as its own form of erasure. We conclude by posing and responding to the key question: under what conditions is graffiti permitted to exist?
41 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe a visit to the Chernobyl site and the ruined buildings of Pripyat, using their own photographs as documents, to understand the value of industrial ruin in the post-war period.
Abstract: This paper offers a reading of urban ruin through a personal experience: a visit I made to the Chernobyl site in October 2007—first to the destroyed reactor and then to the ruined buildings of Pripyat, using my own photographs as documents. The paper situates this experience in the context of wider representations of technological ruin and the city. Pripyat may not be a city, let alone a metropolis, but its scale as a ruin is unique in the post‐war period. In the West, the ruined city usually only presents itself in fictive representations: that is, in literature and film and not in the flesh, so to speak. Experiencing the ruins of Pripyat may invite thoughts about the value, or otherwise, of industrial ruin; its unprecedented scale invites an altogether different meditation on the ruin of the city as a whole and perhaps, too, of civilisation itself.
TL;DR: The city finds its own use for things as mentioned in this paper, and there are few artistic genres that have experienced as feverish and exponential a rise as street art has in recent years. Once'rebels such as...
Abstract: ‘The city finds its own use for things.’ —William Gibson There are few artistic genres that have experienced as feverish and exponential a rise as street art has in recent years. Once‐rebels such...
TL;DR: In this paper, the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany is used as an example to show how to adjust global neoliberalism through strategies of neostatism, neocorporatism and neocommunitarianism.
Abstract: With more than 200 member associations the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is one of the largest nonprofit organizations in the world. Founded in 1904 as an Old Boys Network, from the 1980s onwards, it turned football into a global business and the FIFA World Cup into its main product, thus generating billions of euros from sponsors, the sports and media industry, from host nations and host cities. Every four years and for a time period of four weeks, FIFA invades cities, beforehand setting rules and regulations the applicants for holding the event have to obey to—including but not limited to infrastructure demands, advertisement regulations, safety and security rules. Taking the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany as an example, the purpose of the paper is twofold: it firstly asks, using Jessop’s approach about promoting and adjusting global neoliberalism through strategies of neostatism, neocorporatism and neocommunitarianism (2002), whether and if so to what extent FIFA can be descr...
TL;DR: The Alternatives section of City as discussed by the authors focuses on alternative responses of resistance, autonomy, hope and creativity within the contemporary city, exploring, discuss and engaging with groups and individuals who are developing alternative urban visions, practices and policies.
Abstract: The Alternatives section of City focuses on alternative responses of resistance, autonomy, hope and creativity within the contemporary city. We explore, discuss and engage with groups and individuals who are developing alternative urban visions, practices and policies. We encourage material of a variety of types and from a variety of sources, especially from those which fall outside formal institutions and ways of doing things. In this issue of Alternatives we continue the recent debate in this journal on the ‘Right to the City’. In November 2009, a group based in Hamburg, Germany, produced a manifesto entitled ‘Not in Our Name!’. It was highly critical of the current strategy of the city authorities who were seen to be turning the whole city into a brand for the benefit of wealthy residents, business elites and tourists. The manifesto was widely circulated on the web through their website at http://nionhh.wordpress.com/ which has received a huge amount of commentary. We republish the manifesto in English...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the response they received last year from a presumptuous search engine after entering the term "spatial justice" into a search engine, "Do you mean social justice?" they were asked.
Abstract: My comments here are instigated in part by the response I received last year from my presumptuous search engine after entering ‘spatial justice’. Do you mean social justice?’ I was asked. No, I wan...
TL;DR: The Wire series The Wire as mentioned in this paper has seared unforgettable images of Baltimore and American urbanism into the imaginations of a vast, transnational audience, with a brilliance that captures 'places photographed in all their fucked-up grandeur'.
Abstract: With a brilliance that captures ‘places photographed in all their fucked‐up grandeur,’ (Alvarez, 2009, p 414), the HBO series The Wire has seared unforgettable images of Baltimore and American urbanism into the imaginations of a vast, transnational audience But we have known, ever since Benjamin and Sontag, that cinematography and photography can reinforce stereotypes, appropriate identities, and violate people and places through the assertion of epistemological power Today, critical visual theory is going mainstream Almost no‐one views photographs anymore as unproblematic reflections of reality, and popular culture has become a fragmented and politicized media landscape of niche audiences that have learned the lessons of postpositivist cynical sophistication all too well In this hostile climate, can we redeem the simple, innocent snapshot? I think we should try Armin Lobek’s (1956) Things Maps Don’t Tell Us provides the inspiration for a simple, constructive, and critical approach that acknowledges
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors respond to Tom Slater's arguments regarding gentrification and displacement, arguing that the issue is an important one, which has major social, analytically, and political implications.
Abstract: I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond once again to Tom Slater’s ( 2010 ) arguments regarding gentrification and displacement. The issue is an important one, which has major social, analy...
TL;DR: The authors argue that critical urban theory offers a crucial corrective to mainstream approaches to social conflict, which tend to see difference from the ‘mainstream’ as deviance, but in order to offer a politically potent alternative to the mainstream, critical urban theories must do more than identify and critique those forms of domination and injustice perpetrated in the name of the'mainstream'.
Abstract: One of the most exciting aspects of the papers gathered together in ‘Cities for People, Not for Profit’ was the over‐arching desire to articulate a renewed vision for critical urban theory (see City 13(2/3), especially Brenner et al. (2009), Marcuse (2009) and Brenner (2009)). Across the collection, a distinction is drawn between an emancipatory ‘critical’ urban theory and ‘mainstream’ approaches to the city which naturalise existing forms of injustice. In this piece I offer some brief reflections on a couple of the key elements of this critical/mainstream distinction. I argue that critical urban theory offers a crucial corrective to mainstream approaches to social conflict, which tend to see difference from the ‘mainstream’ as deviance. But in order to offer a politically potent alternative to the mainstream, critical urban theory must do more than identify and critique those forms of domination and injustice perpetrated in the name of the ‘mainstream’. For in the end, reading the city only for dominance...
TL;DR: This paper reviewed the current state of public debate concerning the problems of "climate change" and "peak oil" and concluded that there is still almost no admission that effective action to halt global warming will mean putting the global economy into sharp reverse and that peak oil will in any case have the same effect.
Abstract: This paper reviews the current state of public debate concerning the problems of ‘climate change’ and ‘peak oil’. Following a short analysis of what is at stake, a number of documents are reviewed, together with the public reception which some of these have encountered. There is still almost no admission that effective action to halt global warming will mean putting the global economy into sharp reverse and that peak oil will in any case have the same effect. As the political process gradually comes to acknowledge at least the basic facts, so an increasing literature of denial is appearing to reassure the public that there is nothing to worry about. Nevertheless, the ‘Transition Towns/Cities’ movement, that does acknowledge the challenge, is spreading rapidly amongst a certain segment of the population and involving many local authorities. However, the academic world of urban concern has yet to open its eyes to what lies in store. The paper ends with a brief analysis of the current planning process in Lon...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that theory, specifically critical theory, is an indispensable part of effective practice, and in turn rests on practice for its understanding and analysis, and that the relation between theory and practice is tricky.
Abstract: The relation between theory and practice is tricky. Sometimes theory seems irrelevant under the pressures of everyday crises; sometimes the problems of practice seem so overwhelming as to leave no room for theory. This paper argues that theory, specifically critical theory, is an indispensable part of effective practice, and in turn rests on practice for its understanding and analysis. Examples are given from several current struggles: homelessness, around disaster recovery, mortgage foreclosures, and others in the US.
TL;DR: The Tea Party movement in the USA is a prime example of such a movement as discussed by the authors, turning that resistance into right-wing "family values" oriented actions that counter system challenges from below.
Abstract: Everyday life is where the results of the social, economic and political systems in which we live are manifest and directly experienced—where the societal shapes and is shaped by the individual. The everyday exploitation, oppression and discontent created by the prevailing system meet many forms of progressive, system‐challenging resistance. Most can be absorbed from above by the system, using both formal repression and a pervasive acquiescence‐inducing manipulation of everyday life. The present economic crisis and the failure of traditional liberal responses open a crack in the efficacy of this manipulation through which new and dangerous resistance might emerge. One defensive response of the system to that danger is displacement: turning that resistance into neo‐conservative, right‐wing ‘family values’‐oriented actions that counter system challenges from below. The tea parties in the USA are a prime example. The displacement operates both at the societal and ideological level and at the individual every...
TL;DR: The authors argue that The Wire and its ilk represent a more public accessing of many of the social problems that urban studies has traditionally monitored, and suggest a need for more andragogic modes of teaching that lead mature audiences, both inside and outside the academy, toward greater understandings of urban problems.
Abstract: The Wire has been viewed as a panoptic and institutional dissection of the dysfunctions of late capitalist urbanism. The accomplishment and totality of this vision has perhaps provoked introspection by academics pondering their internal efficacy (engaging students through teaching) and external relevance (through the communication of research around urban problems). On both of these fronts, academic work arguably faces a crisis as new media forms of this kind compete to ‘teach’ audiences about the city. We argue that this raises two key implications. First, that The Wire and its ilk represent a more public accessing of many of the social problems that urban studies has traditionally monitored. This suggests a need for more andragogic modes of teaching that lead mature audiences, both inside and outside the academy, toward greater understandings of urban problems. Second, the series can be related to sociological perspectives that have challenged university‐based research to be critical, relevant and of ut...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the pursuit of urban sustainability may cause more problems than it solves, in part because the sustainable city is often treated as a site wherein particular policies, programmes and strategies may be enacted, with the 'urban' prefixed unreflectively to simplistic versions of the concept emp...
Abstract: Sustainable development has proved to be a most compelling concept, generating enthusiasm across the political spectrum, endorsement from various sectors and industries, and high levels of support from certain individuals. As a corollary, one could argue that the city’s right to exist (Catterall, City 12(3), pp. 402–415, 2008) must now be articulated in terms of sustainability; indeed urban sustainability is an alluring goal for many cities. Unfortunately, the idea’s popularity has not necessarily led to appreciable benefits or improvements for the residents of urban areas, or for those (both human and non‐human) in areas from which cities draw their sustenance. There are even indications that the pursuit of urban sustainability may cause more problems than it solves. We argue that this is, in part, because the sustainable city is often treated as a site wherein particular policies, programmes and strategies may be enacted, with the ‘urban’ prefixed unreflectively to simplistic versions of the concept emp...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors address the dilemma that one must choose between visionary but unrealistic utopianism and stultifying submission to a status quo in the interests of realism and draw a solution from aspects of the views of Walter Benjamin, Henri Lefebvre and Manfredo Tafuri.
Abstract: Assuming merit both in critiques of utopianism, such as those leveled by Jane Jacobs, and defences of utopian visions by David Harvey among others, this paper addresses what seems the dilemma that one must choose between visionary but unrealistic utopianism and stultifying submission to a status quo in the interests of realism and draws a solution from aspects of the views of Walter Benjamin, Henri Lefebvre and Manfredo Tafuri. Key dimensions of their approaches employed are, respectively, the ‘dialectical structure of awakening’, ‘transduction’ and the ideological dimension of utopianism. The paper concludes by indicating implications for urban theory and practice suggested by its putative escape from a realism/visionary dilemma.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine two critical analyses of garbage politics and argue that both can benefit from the insights of a critical urban theory as developed by Marcuse, Brenner and Mayer.
Abstract: Through the examination of two critical analyses of garbage politics, I argue that both can benefit from the insights of a critical urban theory as developed by Marcuse, Brenner and Mayer. At the same time, I argue that bringing garbage into the analysis both underscores the importance of certain key features of critical urban theory—especially its focus on everyday life and the Right to the City as a collective moral rather than legal claim cashed out by individuals while at the same time demonstrating the importance and necessity of including a focus on environmental crises and issues that emerge in the global South.
TL;DR: Critical urban theory is a reflexive project with practical intent that engages our present situation in order to map humane paths to the future as discussed by the authors, and critical urban theory can be considered as the tracing of a utopian map aiming at the city to come.
Abstract: Critical urban theory is a reflexive project with practical intent that engages our present situation in order to map humane paths to the future. At the heart of critical urban theory is the critique of the actually existing city and the unmasking of the ways in which its topography has been the result of different economic, political, social and cultural processes that are neither ad hoc nor inevitable. As a deconstructive/constructive project, critical urban theory can be considered as the tracing of a utopian map aiming at the city to come. Critical urban theory should be considered as the invocation of the city that is to come—the dwelling of the properly realized humanity. This city to come is configured as the topos where humans may fashion their humanity in accordance with their freedom—the contours of such a city are traced by the proclamation of the right to the city, which is to be understand as the right to have rights.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors studied the residential mobility patterns of migrants in Chinese cities and found that the majority of migrants are renters and remain so despite a lengthy residence in the cities, and the trajectories of their moves are spatially confined and involve few tenure shifts.
Abstract: Residential mobility patterns are an important indicator of the future socioeconomic standing of rural–urban migrants in the urban society. In Chinese cities there are significant barriers for migrants to settle permanently. Given this context and housing choices available to migrants, what types of housing career do they follow once in the city? Drawing from survey data from three large cities, this paper studies migrant intra‐urban residential mobility through three lenses—temporal patterns, spatial trajectories and tenure shifts. The majority of migrants are renters and remain so despite a lengthy residence in the cities. They experience a high level of mobility over time, but the trajectories of their moves are spatially confined and involve few tenure shifts.
TL;DR: The authors argue that "fictional social critique in the form of the televisual novel can be a more effective medium than mainstream social science for revealing the spaces and people that capitalism has left behind".
Abstract: In terms of its ability to hold the attention of the viewer and to require an engagement with hundreds of characters and numerous complex institutions and organisations in over 60 hours of real‐time television, David Simon and Ed Burns’ television drama, The Wire, offers the prospect of a new ‘socio‐spatial imagination’. Drawing on the work of C. Wright Mills and Theodore Adorno I argue that ‘fictional’ social critique in the form of the televisual novel can be a more effective medium than mainstream social science for revealing the spaces and people that capitalism has left behind.
TL;DR: The Wire has not only been identified as one of the greatest television studies of the destitution of the modern American city through the genre of the police procedural, but it has also been hailed as a modern work of tragedy as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The Wire has not only been identified as one of the greatest television studies of the destitution of the modern American city through the genre of the police procedural, but it has also been hailed as a modern work of tragedy. The strength and depth of its characters confer upon them the tragic status of brave and courageous individuals battling the vagaries of fate. For Simon and Burns, the contemporary gods are, however, the faceless forces of modern capitalism. While acknowledging the necessity for such a cultural reading of the dramaturgy and genuinely tragic pathos achieved by the collaborative writing and creative vision led by David Simon and Ed Burns, this paper challenges this reading since it risks reducing African Americans to passive, albeit tragic victims of all‐powerful forces. It also inhibits the possibility of imagining agency and action. Tracking one character, Colonel Howard ‘Bunny’ Colvin, who has not been feted or celebrated in the subsequent popular and academic debates about The Wi...