Showing papers in "Urban Studies in 2003"
TL;DR: In this paper, the role of artists as agents and aestheticisation as a process in contributing to the process of gentrification is considered, an argument illustrated with empirical data from Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.
Abstract: Summary. Gentrification involves the transition of inner-city neighbourhoods from a status of relative poverty and limited property investment to a state of commodification and reinvestment. This paper reconsiders the role of artists as agents, and aestheticisation as a process, in contributing to gentrification, an argument illustrated with empirical data from Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Because some poverty neighbourhoods may be candidates for occupation by artists, who value their affordability and mundane, off-centre status, the study also considers the movement of districts from a position of high cultural capital and low economic capital to a position of steadily rising economic capital. The paper makes extensive use of Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of the field of cultural production, including his discussion of the uneasy relations of economic and cultural capitals, the power of the aesthetic disposition to valorise the mundane and the appropriation of cultural capital by market forces. Bourdieu’s thinking is extended to the field of gentrification in an account that interprets the enhanced valuation of cultural capital since the 1960s, encouraging spatial proximity by other professionals to the inner-city habitus of the artist. This approach offers some reconciliation to theoretical debates in the gentrification literature about the roles of structure and agency and economic and cultural explanations. It also casts a more critical historical perspective on current writing lauding the rise of the cultural economy and the creative city. Two recent vignettes illustrate how gentrification has become not a sideshow in the city, but a major component of the urban imaginary (see Wyly and Hammel, 1999; Badcock, 2001). Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class (2002a), a book eagerly embraced by mayors and economic development planners in the US (Eakin, 2002), visited Toronto in June 2002 and expounded on what makes successful cities work
736 citations
TL;DR: In this article, an empirical examination of the process of supergentrification in the Brooklyn Heights neighbourhood of New York City is presented, where intensified regentrification is happening in a few selec...
Abstract: This paper is an empirical examination of the process of 'super-gentrification' in the Brooklyn Heights neighbourhood of New York City. This intensified regentrification is happening in a few selec...
454 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provided new evidence on the link between airline traffic and employment in US metropolitan areas and confirmed the common view that good airline service is an important factor for job creation.
Abstract: This paper provides new evidence on the link between airline traffic and employment in US metropolitan areas The evidence confirms the common view that good airline service is an important factor
371 citations
TL;DR: The authors argues that gentrification is best explained as the social and spatial manifestation of the transition from an industrial to an urban environment, and argues that it can be explained as a process of "social and spatial transformation".
Abstract: This paper reviews the debates over the explanation of gentrification and argues that gentrification is best explained as the social and spatial manifestation of the transition from an industrial t...
370 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore some of the more extreme tendencies in the management of public space to consider whether current policy directions, in this case in central Scotland, are driven by a desire to...
Abstract: This paper explores some of the more extreme tendencies in the management of public space to consider whether current policy directions, in this case in central Scotland, are driven by a desire to ...
356 citations
TL;DR: This article examined aspects of middle-class life by a group of 75 gentrifiers in Islington in north London and found that almost all the respondents lived in London in their day-to-day lives.
Abstract: The article examines aspects of middle-class life by a group of 75 gentrifiers in Islington in north London. The study demonstrates that in their day-to-day lives almost all the respondents lived q...
258 citations
TL;DR: This article developed an institutionalist framework for analysing transformations in urban governance, focusing in particular on assessing the potential of initiatives designed to "mainstream" citizen participation and voice in local government processes.
Abstract: This paper develops an institutionalist framework for analysing transformations in urban governance, focusing in particular on assessing the potential of initiatives designed to 'mainstream' citizen participation and 'voice' in local government processes. The framework centres on an analytical conception of levels of social formation: specific episodes of collective action; the on-going work of governance practices and discourse formation and use; and underpinning culturally embedded assumptions and habits. The central argument is that transformations in urban governance capacity need to penetrate all three levels to effect enduring changes in governance cultures. The framework is used to assess the early experience of an attempt to introduce 'area committees' by Newcastle City Council, UK, and their ability to act as a 'voice for place'. The paper examines how far the area committee initiative has the potential to achieve the objectives set for it, the qualities of the emerging governance processes in th...
233 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that the formation of territorially based entrepreneurialism is a state project in the post-socialist transition, which allows the state to tap the market to restore its role in response to perceived, as well as real, globalisation.
Abstract: To what extent is it possible to capture the experience of an entrepreneurial endeavour in the post-socialist transition within the thesis of the 'entrepreneurial city'? This paper applies an explicit definition of the entrepreneurial city--namely, the construct of three indispensable elements, including entrepreneurial strategies, entrepreneurial fashion and entrepreneurial discourses--to the city of Shanghai. It is argued that the formation of territorially based entrepreneurialism is a state project in the post-socialist transition. Marketisation and globalisation in this context are entangled processes. Whereas the state's legitimacy embedded in the public ownership of production has been eroded through marketisation, the entrepreneurial project allows the state to tap the market to restore its role in response to perceived, as well as real, globalisation. Through examining three historical metaphors of Shanghai's role in national development, this paper questions the process of the 'reglobalisation' of Shanghai as a transition to the 'global city' rather than its continuity as a globalising Chinese city.
231 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify families with children as "yupps", young urban professional parents who combine the next step in their life cycle (having children) with continuing their career and their preference for an urban lifestyle.
Abstract: Suburbanisation by families with children can be considered as a dominant factor in determining the structure of a city's population. However, due to urban restructuring programmes, a modest counter process can be observed. Some families who could afford to buy a house in the suburbs decide instead to stay in the central areas of the city. In so doing, they form a relatively new category of gentrifiers: middle-class families with children. In this paper, they are identified as 'yupps': young urban professional parents. They combine the next step in their life cycle—having children—with continuing their career and their preference for an urban lifestyle. The Amsterdam study, reported here, gives some insight in the personal characteristics of yupps, their motivations to live centrally, their activity patterns and constraints. An analysis of their daily lives reveals the significance of the neighbourhood as a crucial factor in the daily integration of such contrasting demands as building a career, caring fo...
218 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the relationship between land-use patterns and individual mobility from a comparative international perspective is explored, and a comparative analysis of land use patterns and mobility in the US is presented.
Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between land-use patterns and individual mobility from a comparative international perspective. There is a vast literature on US automobile dependence. Major ex...
213 citations
TL;DR: The citywide regeneration strategy known as 'Going for Growth' adopted by Newcastle City Council includes proposals for large-scale redevelopment of low-income, low-demand housing neighbourhoods as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The city-wide regeneration strategy known as 'Going for Growth' adopted by Newcastle City Council includes proposals for large-scale redevelopment of low-income, low-demand housing neighbourhoods a...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors review the literature on price determination in the private and public real estate markets and discuss the processes of appraisal smoothing and price discovery between the public and the private markets.
Abstract: This paper reviews the literature on price determination in the private and public real estate markets. In particular, it discusses the processes of appraisal smoothing in the private market and of price discovery between the public and the private markets. In real estate markets, the absence of good quality information on price, whether because of lack of trades or confidentiality, has led to the widespread use of appraisals for market tracking and as the basis for performance measurement. Appraisers have to make an optimum assessment of value, based on fundamental variables and market information, including transactions and a market-wide appraisal index. However, transaction prices are a noisy signal and it is the appraiser's role to extract the signal from the noise in an efficient manner. This involves a process of optimal combination of past and current information and leads to appraisal smoothing. Price discovery is the process by which the opinions of market participants about the value of an asset...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss a theoretical and analytical framework for the discourse analysis of socio-spatial relations, in terms of their practical "workings" and their symbolic "meaning", played out at spatial scales from the body to the global.
Abstract: Summary. The aim of this paper is to explore how spatialities are ‘constructed’ in spatial policy discourses and to explore how these construction processes might be conceptualised and analysed. To do this, we discuss a theoretical and analytical framework for the discourse analysis of socio-spatial relations. Our approach follows the path emerging within planning research focusing on the relations between rationality and power, making use of discourse analytics and cultural theoretical approaches to articulate a cultural sociology of space. We draw on a variety of theoretical sources from critical geography to sociology to argue for a practice- and cultureoriented understanding of the spatiality of social life. The approach hinges on the dialectical relation between material practices and the symbolic meanings that social agents attach to their spatial environment. Socio-spatial relations are conceptualised in terms of their practical ‘workings’ and their symbolic ‘meaning’, played out at spatial scales from the body to the global—thus giving notion to an analysis of the ‘politics of scale’. The discourse analytical approach moves away from textually oriented approaches to explore the relations between language, space and power. In the paper, we use examples of the articulation of space in the emerging field of European spatial policy. It is shown how the new spatial policy discourse creates the conditions for a new set of spatial practices which shape European space, at the same time as it creates a new system of meaning about that space, based on the language and ideas of polycentricity and hypermobility.
TL;DR: In this paper, a comparative analysis of neighbourhood renewal processes in Brussels and Montreal based on a typology of such processes wherein gentrification is precisely delimited is presented, and a comparison of the two cities is made.
Abstract: This article provides a comparative analysis of neighbourhood renewal processes in Brussels and Montreal based on a typology of such processes wherein gentrification is precisely delimited. In this...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that planning practices and discourses should be analysed in relation to the dynamics of the regulatory framework in which they are embedded, suggesting that it represents an attempt to facilitate the social management of disadvantaged neighbourhoods.
Abstract: Summary. The Dutch government currently pursues a comprehensive and ambitious policy of ‘social mixing’ in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The second section of this paper suggests that it has as yet not been adequately explained why the Dutch government pursues this so-called restructuring policy. The third section develops an approach derived from regulation theory that potentially helps to decipher the forces behind the Dutch restructuring policy. It is argued that planning practices and discourses should be analysed in relation to the dynamics of the regulatory framework in which they are embedded. The remainder of the paper uses this approach to give an alternative account of the Dutch restructuring policy, suggesting that it represents an attempt to facilitate the social management of disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Thus, it serves to mitigate the social effects of the problematic integration of ethnic minorities and facilitates a national city-oriented growth strategy.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw upon a diverse range of literature, including the rich experience of almost 20 years of "participation" in the "developing world", as well as the findings of a research project looking at a major regeneration programme on Merseyside, in order to highlight the multifaceted problems of "partnership" and possibilities for-participation.
Abstract: The meteoric rise of 'participation' in urban policy is premised upon the supposed benefits it brings in terms of added project 'efficiency', 'sustainability' and even 'empowerment' of participants. Yet, even as participation appears to reach its very zenith, it comes under heightened criticism from a growing chorus of observers. Some critics have suggested, for example, that 'participation', and contemporary urban regeneration's preferred institutional vehicle for it, 'partnership', can have a capacity for tyrannical decision-making. The article draws upon a diverse range of literature, including the rich experience of almost 20 years of 'participation' in the 'developing world', as well as the findings of a research project looking at a major regeneration programme on Merseyside, in order to highlight the multifaceted problems of—and possibilities for-participation. Ultimately, whether participation can alter social stratification within communities is unclear, it may even (re)produce inequalities. The ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the role of urban scale, density and land-use mix on the incidence of road pedestrian casualties and found that the characteristics of the local environment have a powerful influence on pedestrian casualties.
Abstract: This paper examines the role of urban scale, density and land-use mix on the incidence of road pedestrian casualties. It develops a spatial model at a disaggregate level that attempts to understand how the nature of the urban environment, with its associated traffic generation characteristics, affects the incidence of road pedestrian casualties. The results show that the characteristics of the local environment have a powerful influence on pedestrian casualties. The incidence of pedestrian casualties and KSIs is higher in residential than in economic zones and a quadratic relationship is found between urban density and pedestrian casualties with incidents diminishing for the most extremely dense wards. Distinguishing broad land-use effects, the paper explores the ways in which population and employment density influence pedestrian casualties.
TL;DR: In this article, an alternative approach is proposed to analyse regional house price ratios, and application of this new procedure results in the detection of widespread convergence of house prices in a number of regions of the UK.
Abstract: The ripple effect hypothesis implies a long-run convergence of regional UK house prices. However, despite many authors believing in the existence of such an underlying constancy, statistical evidence has yet to be presented supporting this implication. In this paper, an alternative approach is proposed to analyse regional house price ratios. In contrast to the findings of previous studies, application of this new procedure results in the detection of widespread convergence of house prices in a number of regions of the UK. The results suggest that the failure of previous analyses to uncover convergence is due to an underlying asymmetry in the adjustment process being ignored. Interestingly, the form of asymmetry detected varies between regions. While regions in the South East experience faster convergence following downswings in prices, other regions exhibit more rapid convergence following increases in prices.
TL;DR: In this paper, a conceptual framework and empirical approach to identifying knowledge-based occupation clusters, or groups of occupations that share the same broad knowledge characteristics, is presented. And the clusters' general value for regional economic analysis, especially their utility as an intermediate step in applied industry cluster analyses where necessary regional occupation data are limited.
Abstract: With the expansion of knowledge-intensive industries in the US, along with intensifying focus on workforce development policy as an economic development strategy, occupations are increasingly being used as basic units of analysis in applied studies of urban and regional economies. An heretofore underappreciated component of occupation-based regional analysis is the need to understand relationships, similarities and dissimilarities among occupations themselves, so that they may be aggregated or grouped in theoretically and empirically meaningful ways. This paper lays out a conceptual framework and empirical approach to identifying knowledge-based occupation clusters, or groups of occupations that share the same broad knowledge characteristics. Following an application of the clusters to a comparison of labour pools in a selected 38 metropolitan economies, the paper discusses the clusters' general value for regional economic analysis, especially their utility as an intermediate step in applied industry cluster analyses where necessary regional occupation data are limited.
TL;DR: Smith et al. as mentioned in this paper assesses policing strategies and tactics in one of the UK's fastest-growing urban areas, Reading in Berkshire, assessing policing strategies in the wake of a major regeneration programme.
Abstract: Urban regeneration programmes in the UK over the past 20 years have increasingly focused on attracting investors, middle-class shoppers and visitors by transforming places and creating new consumption spaces. Ensuring that places are safe and are seen to be safe has taken on greater salience as these flows of income are easily disrupted by changing perceptions of fear and the threat of crime. At the same time, new technologies and policing strategies and tactics have been adopted in a number of regeneration areas which seek to establish control over these new urban spaces. Policing space is increasingly about controlling human actions through design, surveillance technologies and codes of conduct and enforcement. Regeneration agencies and the police now work in partnerships to develop their strategies. At its most extreme, this can lead to the creation of zero-tolerance, or what Smith terms 'revanchist', measures aimed at particular social groups in an effort to sanitise space in the interests of capital accumulation. This paper, drawing on an examination of regeneration practices and processes in one of the UK's fastest-growing urban areas, Reading in Berkshire, assesses policing strategies and tactics in the wake of a major regeneration programme. It documents and discusses the discourses of regeneration that have developed in the town and the ways in which new urban spaces have been secured. It argues that, whilst security concerns have become embedded in institutional discourses and practices, the implementation of security measures has been mediated, in part, by the local socio-political relations in and through which they have been developed.
TL;DR: In this paper, an area-based index of locational access to community services, facilities and amenities is proposed. But the index is based on six domains: recreational amenities, public transport and communication, shopping and banking facilities, educational services, health services, and social and cultural services.
Abstract: This paper describes the development of an area-based index of locational access to community services, facilities and amenities. The index enables comparisons to be made across urban neighbourhoods and provides a starting-point from which to identify relationships between opportunity structures in the local environment and residents' health and well-being. The index is based on six domains: recreational amenities, public transport and communication, shopping and banking facilities, educational services, health services, and social and cultural services. The inclusion of specific resources was determined by their relevance to the daily lives of parents/caregivers of young children. However, the methodology has applicability to diverse population groups. Construction of the index, using geographical information systems, and its potential use for locality-based policy and planning are discussed.
TL;DR: In order to maintain a distinctive identity, numerous gentrifiers are projecting their identity from the scale of the local onto the scales of the global community as discussed by the authors, in doing so, these individuals actively position themselves as a global elite community.
Abstract: Globalisation has significantly altered the scale at which social structures are organised and experienced. The erosion of spatial boundaries has liberated social experience from the constraints of the local. While globalisation is often portrayed as heralding a single global culture and community, in reality globalisation is heralding the emergence of multiple global communities. The gentrifying class constitutes one such emergent global community. Premised upon notions of affluence and prestige, gentrification constitutes a local socio-spatial strategy of identity construction that is increasingly commodified. This commodification erodes the symbolic significance of local gentrification processes. In order to maintain a distinctive identity, numerous gentrifiers are projecting their identity from the scale of the local onto the scale of the global. In doing so, these individuals actively position themselves as a global elite community.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the housing career during a household's life-course, defined as the sequence of housing states defined in terms of tenure and the quality/price of t...
Abstract: The research in this paper focuses on the housing career during a household's life-course. The housing career is the sequence of housing states defined in terms of tenure and the quality/price of t...
TL;DR: Whitehead, M. as discussed by the authors analyzed the sustainable city: Nature, Urbanisation and the Regulation of Socio-environmental Relations in the UK, 40(7), 1183-1206.
Abstract: Whitehead, M. (2003). (Re)Analysing the Sustainable City: Nature, Urbanisation and the Regulation of Socio-environmental Relations in the UK. Urban Studies, 40(7), 1183-1206. RAE2008
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the relation between urban regeneration policies designed to restructure urban cores and the gentrification of deprived inner-city neighbourhoods via the example of Bilbao.
Abstract: This paper examines the relation between urban regeneration policies designed to restructure urban cores and the gentrification of deprived inner-city neighbourhoods via the example of Bilbao. The ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors performed multiple regression analysis to identify a large number of determinants of commuting time and distance for Seoul residents using the 2 per cent public-use sample data tape of the 1995 Korean Population Census.
Abstract: This paper performs multiple regression analysis to identify a large number of determinants of commuting time and distance for Seoul residents using the 2 per cent public-use sample data tape of the 1995 Korean Population Census. Among the numerous findings, it is noted that commuting times and distances are longer for male workers, full-time salaried workers, workers with more education, home-owners and male workers in the prime earning years (over age 35). It is found that the household responsibility of childcare is an important factor for the shorter commuting of Korean married women.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine how citizenship operates in urban community-building programs, particularly in the comprehensive community building initiative (CCI) model, and argue that the current context shaping cities today gives rise to flexibility in citizenship and that this flexibility emerges as a key component by which resident and non-resident stakeholders position themselves to make claims to participate in CCIs.
Abstract: Summary. This paper examines how citizenship operates in urban community-building programmes, particularly in the comprehensive community-building initiative (CCI) model. We argue that the current context shaping cities today gives rise to flexibility in citizenship and that this flexibility emerges as a key component by which resident and non-resident stakeholders position themselves to make claims to participate in CCIs. We posit that, while the CCI model is committed to being ‘resident-driven’, the operative function of citizenship creates a hindrance rather than an opportunity for local resident involvement. We fortify this thesis with a case study from our experience in CCIs.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors extended the Schelling model of neighbourhood racial segregation to include agents who can authentically'see' their neighbours up to a distance R, called "vision", by exploring the consequences of systematically varying R, an understanding has been developed of how vision interacts with racial preferences and minority concentrations and leads to novel, complex segregation behaviour.
Abstract: The Schelling model of neighbourhood racial segregation is extended to include agents who can authentically 'see' their neighbours up to a distance R, called 'vision'. By exploring the consequences of systematically varying R, an understanding has been developed of how vision interacts with racial preferences and minority concentrations and leads to novel, complex segregation behaviour. Three regimes have been discovered: an unstable regime, where societies invariably segregate; a stable regime, where integrated societies remain stable; and an intermediate regime where a complex behaviour is observed. Detailed results are presented for the symmetrical case (which maximises conflict), where equal numbers of agents of two races occupy the same cityscape. The policy implications of these simulations are briefly indicated.
TL;DR: The authors argue that the academic critique of the contemporary urban condition comes at too high a price, arguing that the pervasiveness of many of the more destructive trends highlighted by the urban political economists is also a need to engage more positively with the broader contemporary enthusiasm for the city.
Abstract: Contemporary urban theory is marked by a division. Urban policy practitioners, planners, architects and town hall administrators have over the past two decades rediscovered an enthusiasm and belief in urban life--as indeed have significant numbers of ordinary citizens. It might have been expected that urban critics from the left would be enthusiastic about this rediscovered urbanity. In fact, the much-vaunted urban renaissance has been robustly criticised by academic urbanists, particularly by those working from within a political economy framework, as little more than elite propaganda. Rather than being defined by a renaissance, the contemporary urban landscape is almost uniquely riven by social divisions. In many ways, the critique offered by academic urbanists is powerful and convincing. But this paper argues that the academic--or urban political economy--critique of the contemporary urban condition comes at too high a price. Recognising the pervasiveness of many of the more destructive trends highlighted by the urban political economists, there is also a need to engage more positively with the broader contemporary enthusiasm for the city. Through a case study of a site in Auckland, New Zealand, the paper seeks to demonstrate how thinking carefully about both the context and the emergence of particular kinds of spaces and types of social practices associated with specific instances of urban change, can help us engage more productively with the current resurgence of interest in urban culture and cities.