Showing papers in "Urban Studies in 2013"

Informality and the Development and Demolition of Urban Villages in the Chinese Peri-urban Area

Abstract: The fate of Chinese urban villages (chengzhongcun) has recently attracted both research and policy attention. Two important unaddressed questions are: what are the sources of informality in otherwi...

Pathways into Multiple Exclusion Homelessness in Seven UK Cities

Abstract: This paper interrogates pathways into multiple exclusion homelessness (MEH) in the UK and, informed by a critical realist theoretical framework, explores the potential causal processes underlying these pathways. Drawing on an innovative multistage quantitative survey, it identifies five experiential clusters within the MEH population, based on the extent and complexity of experiences of homelessness, substance misuse, institutional care, street culture activities and adverse life events. It demonstrates that the most complex forms of MEH are associated with childhood trauma. It also reveals that the temporal sequencing of MEH-relevant experiences is remarkably consistent, with substance misuse and mental health problems tending to occur early in individual pathways, and homelessness and a range of adverse life events typically occurring later. The strong inference is that these later-occurring events are largely consequences rather than originating causes of MEH, which has important implications for the c...

Branding the City: The Democratic Legitimacy of a New Mode of Governance

Abstract: Place branding has been used to influence ideas concerning communities and districts, especially in regeneration programmes. This article approaches branding as a new governance strategy for managing perceptions. Considering the popular criticism that branding is a form of spin that prevents the public from gaining a proper understanding of their government’s policies, this article focuses on the democratic legitimacy of branding in urban governance. The branding of two urban communities in the Netherlands is examined empirically in terms of input legitimacy, throughput legitimacy and output legitimacy. The research shows how the democratic legitimacy of branding varies in the two cases. In one case, branding largely excluded citizens, whereas in the other case there was limited citizen participation. The article indicates that, although branding can potentially be a participatory process in which the feelings and emotions of citizens are included, this potential is not always fully realised in practice.

The Role of Social Networks in the Integration of Chinese Rural–Urban Migrants: A Migrant–Resident Tie Perspective

Abstract: Using data from a survey of rural–urban migrants in a city in China, this paper investigates the relationships between migrant–resident ties and migrant integration. Migrant integration is assessed...

The Intermediary Organisation of Low Carbon Cities: A Comparative Analysis of Transitions in Greater London and Greater Manchester

Abstract: Making a low carbon economic future for the UK has been declared a key priority by both the previous Labour government and also the current coalition government. Yet there is a large gap between th...

School Choice and Increasing Performance Difference: A Counterfactual Approach

Abstract: In recent years, structural changes to the school system, including the introduction of independent schools, have increased school choice alternatives in Sweden. Consequently, a large share of toda ...

Fostering Multiscalar Collaboration and Co-operation for Effective Governance of Climate Change Adaptation:

Abstract: In order to address climate/environmental change successfully and sustainably, it is vital to foster collaborative relationships between national, regional and local government institutions. Insufficient attention has been paid to relational dynamics between multiple levels of governance, and related learning networks outside formal government structures, particularly in the context of development imperatives in poor countries. This paper illustrates these issues via an exploration of relations between two contiguous, yet contrasting local authorities in South Africa and between these local authorities and higher government levels and other networks. To date, most progressive local climate change initiatives have been undertaken autonomously and often there are mismatched priorities between different government spheres regarding climate change efforts. The likely implications for the execution of environmental change adaptation actions and the benefits of effective networking are considered in this light ...

Differential Spaces, Power Hierarchy and Collaborative Planning: A Critique of the Role of Temporary Uses in Shaping and Making Places

Abstract: Drawing upon collaborative planning theory and on the work of Lefebvre and de Certeau, this paper explores the multistage governance arrangements leading to the employment of temporary uses as an instrument for regeneration in a context of economic crisis. It contributes to a thorough understanding of the relations between the power hierarchy and the strategy/tactics developed through a more or less inclusive collaborative process from place-shaping (weak planning) to place-making (masterplanning). By decrypting the different paths that can be taken by the collaborative process, the paper demonstrates how temporary uses on differential spaces shape space from a use value point of view, influence and challenge the distribution of power and enable (temporary) occupants to acquire and sometimes sustain a position in the place-making process.

‘Sticky Subjects’ or ‘Cosmopolitan Creatives’? Social Class, Place and Urban Young People’s Aspirations for Work in the Knowledge Economy

Abstract: Aspirations have been a key target of education policy, situated as central to meeting the needs of the ‘knowledge economy’. In the UK, there have been calls to raise young people’s aspirations for careers in the creative industries—identified as emblematic of the new economic order and a key growth sector. Yet, the sector is socially and spatially restricted, characterised by unclear entry routes, exclusionary working practices and uneven geographical concentration. This paper draws on research with young people (aged 14–16 years) living in three urban areas of deindustrialisation in England to examine the geography of young people’s aspirations for careers in the creative industries. The concept of place-specific habitus is used to problematise asocial and aspatial discourses of aspiration and to illuminate how social class and place powerfully and complexly interrelate to shape young people’s opportunities for social and geographical mobility through and for work in the knowledge economy.

Airfreight Transport and Economic Development: An Examination of Causality

Abstract: The paper examines the potential role that airfreight transport in the US can play in stimulating local and regional economic development. The analysis examines trends in employment and income for metropolitan statistical areas that make use of airfreight services. The focus is on causality, and not on simple correlation, and uses econometric analysis rather than simpler economic multiplier approaches. Granger causality testing based on panel data covering 35 airport and 32 metropolitan statistical areas in the US from 1990 to 2009 indicates that airfreight transport was a positive driver for local economic development. The conclusions focus on the strengths but also the weaknesses of the methodology for assessing causality.

Grappling with Smart City Politics in an Era of Market Triumphalism

Abstract: New ‘sustainable’ urban imaginaries are increasingly taking root in cities and regions around the world. Some notable representative examples of these include: new urbanism (Calthorpe, 1993), compact urban development (Urban Task Force, 2005) and smart growth (Flint, 2006). Proponents of these approaches argue that they are ostensibly built around a new consensus between the planning organisations at various scales, private developers, environmentalists and other relevant non-governmental interests, such as affordable housing advocates. In some sense, then, it might plausibly be argued that these new urban imaginaries transcend the parochial interests that ordinarily punctuate traditional urban and regional politics. Why might this be the case? Proponents of these imaginaries would contend that it is partly due to the fact that smart growth and new urbanist developments are designed to incorporate the tripartite vision of urban sustainability—economic prosperity, ecological integrity and social equity. Moreover, these approaches not only rely on grand visions of future urban utopias; they also incorporate the rhetoric of ‘practical’ visions and plain ‘common sense’ language, in the process broadening their appeal to contemporary policy agendas across the global landscape. And yet at the same time as governments, planners, environmentalists and private interests are actively calling for these new urban development imaginaries— which can be viewed to encourage a revitalised role for more comprehensive and ‘collaborative’ planning—a discourse of market triumphalism has been continuing to sweep its way through different spatial scales of government. States—local, regional and national—seem to be rolling back their own authority and rolling out market-based approaches to urban development—what (Peck, 2004) has referred to as ‘stateauthored market fundamentalism’. Some of the most notable impacts of this neoliberal

Seeing Red Over Green: Contesting Urban Sustainabilities in China:

Abstract: The urban sustainability agenda is engaged at some levels with the two concepts of ecological modernisation and urban entrepreneurialism. While they share certain important commonalities (for example, the emphasis on what is normatively understood as ‘right’ policy-making), each has largely progressed on its own intellectual trajectory. It is suggested that the concepts of ecological modernisation and urban entrepreneurialism are crystallised and concretised in the idea(l) form of the ‘eco-city’ through the search for an ‘urban sustainability fix’ in urban China. Although the idea of constructing an ‘eco-city’ has been mooted since the 1980s, the concept remains somewhat elusive and controversial for a number of reasons. First, while its physical form and design appeal have often been promoted by urban planners, architects and government officials, the deeper normative tenets of building an eco-city are surprisingly ignored. Secondly, the lack of an ‘actually existing’ or successfully implemented eco-city...

The Dark Side of NY–LON: Financial Centres and the Global Financial Crisis

Abstract: This paper brings financial centres into the debate on the causes and consequences of the global financial crisis, by focusing on New York and London. It argues that the degree of commonality, comp...

Urban Renewal in the Inner City of Budapest: Gentrification from a Post-socialist Perspective

Abstract: After the political and economic changes of 1989–90, the concept of gentrification inspired many urban researchers in central and eastern Europe (CEE). Despite the growing number of papers, there is still a substantial empirical gap concerning the transformation of inner-city neighbourhoods in the CEE. This paper is based on empirical data regarding the physical and social upgrading of neighbourhoods in inner Budapest. The paper argues that gentrification in its traditional sense affects only smaller areas of the inner city, mostly those where demolition and new housing construction took place as an outcome of regeneration programmes. At the same time, the old housing stock has been less affected by gentrification. This is mainly due to the high share of owner-occupation and the social responsibility of local governments. Thanks to renovation and new housing construction, a healthy social mix will probably persist in the inner city of Budapest in the future.

Diversity Versus Tolerance: The Social Drivers of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in US Cities:

Abstract: Popularised by the work of Richard Florida, the role of tolerance, openness and social or cultural diversity in urban development has gained much attention. Recent literature on urban and regional economics has found associations between these social factors and technology, entrepreneurship, innovation, housing and economic performance. In most of these studies, the terms tolerance, openness and diversity are generally conflated or interchangeably used. This article argues that diversity’s impacts on innovation and entrepreneurship are notably different from tolerance and openness and that diversity should be defined and measured differently from tolerance and openness. This article uses data of US metropolitan areas to examine the statistical difference between diversity and tolerance, and compares the effect of each on innovation and entrepreneurship in multivariate analysis. Diversity is measured using the Herfindahl–Hirschman index based on countries of birth, while tolerance is measured using the com...

Forms of Government and Climate Change Policies in US Cities

Abstract: It has long been believed that council-manager governments with professionally trained public managers are more efficiency oriented and insulated from political pressure than mayor-council governments. Despite the general acceptance of this conventional wisdom, empirical evidence to support the predicted differences in policy has been extremely hard to come by. Most studies have found no direct effect of form of government on expenditures or policy; the effect of local institutions has been indirect, working to amplify or reduce supplier or demander preferences. In contrast, this paper examines a unique dataset of sustainability efforts in governmental operations and the community, and reports evidence that forms of government are an important direct influence on the approach that communities take to sustainability. Council-manager government systems have a significant positive effect on efforts directed to governmental operations, but a negative effect on community efforts.

Urban Neoliberalism with Islamic Characteristics

Abstract: This paper discusses the changing urban policy framework in Turkey through a detailed analysis of a unique coupling of neoliberalism and Islamism. In this, rather than political projects with clear ultimate ends, both neoliberalism and Islamism are approached as distinct political rationalities aiming to reconfigure all aspects of social life. Turkey’s Justice and Development Party has successfully established networks of economic and political interdependence (or has tapped into existing networks) by appeasing both the emergent Islamic capitalist class through lucrative contracts and business-friendly reforms, and the urban poor through gracious gestures ingrained in traditional Islamic community values and morality. The working of this co-articulation is examined in the case of an urban renewal project in a peripheral neighbourhood in Istanbul.

Dealing with diversity: middle-class family households and the issue of 'black' and 'white' schools in Amsterdam

Abstract: The urban middle classes often celebrate the diversity of their neighbourhood As soon as they have children, however, the desire to display symbolic capital may conflict with the need to reproduce cultural capital through the educational system In the ethnically diverse Amsterdam schooling context, in which parents have free school choice and school access is not determined by fees, the socio-spatial strategies of school choice could be expected to differ from particularly the UK context Based on in-depth interviews conducted with white middle-class parents in Amsterdam, this study argues that ethnic diversity is a major concern when they are seeing primary schools for their children, but that middle-class fractions have different socio-spatial strategies for managing it It is argued that, despite differences in terms of housing market and school policies, the strategies of the Amsterdam middle classes are very similar to other contexts, suggesting homologies of class between national contexts

Introduction: Young People’s Im/Mobile Urban Geographies:

Abstract: This Special Issue integrates two often distinct contemporary strands of urban engagement: the mobility turn within the social sciences; and interdisciplinary theorisations and conceptualisations born of the rejuvenation of urban research. At this important juncture, it is also timely that a hitherto neglected set of actors, young people, is brought to the fore. The articles in this Special Issue demonstrate how young people, as well as being one of the largest demographic groups in terms of the global urban population, are also important actors in the city. They make and remake, create and destroy, negotiate and appropriate, transform and transgress, navigate and circumvent the urban spatialities of which they are both a part, yet from which they are often excluded. As the papers show, young people are present and significant in urban spaces; they live, work, make and change the city. As a generally ignored presence in the city, including within academic work on the urban, the inclusion of young people as valid social agents and competent urban actors means taking them seriously within disciplinary demands for retheorisation, reconceptualisation and alternative methodologies. It means urban studies considering all urban participants of ever increasingly complex and diverse cities.

The Socio-institutional Dynamics of Urban Climate Governance: A Comparative Analysis of Innovation and Change in Durban (KZN, South Africa) and Portland (OR, USA)

Abstract: The past two decades have seen an impressive expansion of municipal engagement with climate change. Yet while interest has broadened, actions remain shallow. This is in part because climate policies fit uneasily into existing bureaucratic structures and practices. Effective climate programmes require adaptive and innovative responses that span departmental divisions. This challenges siloised municipal offices that are embedded in their own organisational cultures and technical practices. Understanding those challenges is crucial to understanding urban responses to climate change, but they remain critically understudied. This paper helps to fill that gap by looking at the experiences of two cities, Durban (KZN, South Africa) and Portland (OR, USA) as they attempt to put in place integrated responses to climate change. To do so, it brings together complementary critical perspectives drawn from the study of bureaucracies and complex institutions in sociology and geography. This hybrid critical framework is u...

Competitiveness AND Sustainability: Can ‘Smart City Regionalism’ Square the Circle?

Abstract: Increasingly, the widely established, globalisation-driven agenda of economic competitiveness meets a growing concern with sustainability. Yet, the practical and conceptual co-existence—or fusion—of these two agendas is not always easy. This includes finding and operationalising the ‘right’ scale of governance, an important question for the pursuit of the distinctly transscalar nature of these two policy fields. ‘New regionalism’ has increasingly been discussed as a pragmatic way of tackling the variable spatialities associated with these policy fields and their changing articulation. This paper introduces ‘smart (new) city-regionalism’, derived from the principles of smart growth and new regionalism, as a policy-shaping mechanism and analytical framework. It brings together the rationales, agreed principles and legitimacies of publicly negotiated polity with collaborative, network-based and policy-driven spatiality. The notion of ‘smartness’, as suggested here as central feature, goes beyond the implicit meaning of ‘smart’ as in ‘smart growth’. When introduced in the later 1990s the term embraced a focus on planning and transport. Since then, the adjective ‘smart’ has become used ever more widely, advocating innovativeness, participation, collaboration and co-ordination. The resulting ‘smart city regionalism’ is circumscribed by the interface between the sectorality and territoriality of policy-making processes. Using the examples of Vancouver and Seattle, the paper looks at the effects of the resulting specific local conditions on adopting ‘smartness’ in the scalar positioning of policy-making.

Suburbanism as a Way of Life, Slight Return:

Abstract: Much attention has been given to increasing dominance of the post-war suburbs, and the concomitant rise of ‘suburbanism’ in ways of life in the ‘post-metropolis’. However, the meaning of suburbanis...

Grassroots Localisation? The Scalar Potential of and Limits of the ‘Transition’ Approach to Climate Change and Resource Constraint:

Abstract: This paper engages with the progressive politics of climate change and resource constraint developed by the Transition ‘movement’ which looks to develop a positive local politics of the transition to a low carbon economy and society. At the heart of this politics is a vision of economic localisation rooted in a geographical imaginary of market towns with agricultural hinterlands. Consequently, the question of how the Transition model can be applied in urban settings has not been clear, leading to the implicit assumption that urban Transition initiatives are more complex and difficult. In contrast, this paper argues that the plasticity of Transition politics means that, in some cases, an urban context might be more productive for the development of Transition initiatives because it allows for a greater diversity of political action as well as providing a density of networks and resources that can be critical for the survival of grassroots interventions.

Telecommuting, Household Commute and Location Choice:

Abstract: Previous empirical studies have made contributions to the understanding of the impact of telecommuting on individual travel patterns. There has been much less research that has examined the impact ...

Cities and Conflict in Fragile States in the Developing World

Abstract: The articles presented in this Special Issue draw on five years of research by the Cities and Fragile States programme of the Crisis States Research Centre, based at the London School of Economics and Political Science. This programme, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), was an exploratory ‘blue skies’ endeavour that set out to examine the relationship between cities, states and conflict in conflict-affected parts of the developing world. Our starting-point was the neglect of cities in contemporary discourses of state-building and state fragility, despite the fact that it is widely accepted that cities have historically played a critical role in processes of state consolidation, transformation and erosion (see, for example, the work of Charles Tilly, 1989, 1992, 2010). Our research has found that cities are still central to such processes, but in much more complex ways. The articles that make up this Special Issue represent a sample of the larger research output of the programme, which we also refer to throughout this introductory article. We begin by exploring the relevance of Tilly’s ideas for cities in fragile and conflict-affected areas of the contemporary developing world, highlighting how these constitute a useful starting-point for analysis, but also how cities, states and conflicts in these contexts differ significantly from those characteristic of the period examined by Tilly. Focusing particularly on the changing nature of conflict, we then outline an original tripartite typology of contemporary conflicts, distinguishing between sovereign, civil and civic conflict. We draw on the research presented in this Special Issue and beyond to explore the ways in which cities are incorporated into these different forms of conflict as either targets, spaces of relative security, or incubators of further strife and antagonism

The Airport City Phenomenon: Evidence from Large US Airports:

Abstract: As air transport for leisure trips, business travel and goods shipment increased rapidly over the past several decades, the emergence of airport cities has been hypothesised. Busy commercial airports may be emerging as central transport nodes in large metropolitan areas, much as ports and rail terminals were in the past, anchoring employment servicing passengers, facilitating frequent travellers and providing a spatial focus for unrelated firms. An analysis of small-area employment data for the areas surrounding 25 major US airports and the related central cities reveals the concentration of employment within 2.5 miles of these airports to be substantial—approximately half that within 2.5 miles of the central point of the corresponding CBDs—and growing. The analysis refocuses a question about the nature of spatial differentiation within metropolitan regions supporting multiple employment nodes.

Neoliberal Urban Environmentalism and the Adaptive City: Towards a Critical Urban Theory and Climate Change:

Abstract: This paper explores the potential contribution of critical urban theory to the intellectual and political debates surrounding climate change. While it is possible to identify an emerging strand of ...

Residential Segregation, Spatial Mismatch and Economic Growth across US Metropolitan Areas

Abstract: Numerous studies have demonstrated the detrimental influence of residential segregation on poor inner-city residents. This study examines the impact of residential segregation on the welfare of populations in US metropolitan areas using economic growth as the indicator. Panel data of US metropolitan areas spanning 25 years, 1980–2005, are used to analyse the effect of segregation on economic growth. The results show that both racial and skill segregation have a negative impact on short- and long-term economic growth, which have increased over time. Further, the negative impact of the variables associated with spatial mismatch is also revealed. The results clearly point to the need for mobility policies that favour non-White households and comprehensive strategies that promote economic opportunities in low-resource communities in the US.

Mitigating Uncertainty and Risk in Planning for Regional Preparedness: The Role of Bonding and Bridging Relationships:

Abstract: The nature of emergency preparedness is that problems are seldom immediate and continuous, and effective emergency planning requires the involvement and sustained commitment of multiple organisatio...