Showing papers on "Urbanism published in 2007"

The Neoliberal City: Governance, Ideology, and Development in American Urbanism

Abstract: 1. The Place, Time, and Process of Neoliberal Urbanism Part 1: Governing the Neoliberal City 2. Choosing the Neoliberal Path 3. The Glocalization of Governance 4. The Public-Private Partnership Part 2: The Acceleration of Uneven Development 5. The Neoliberal Spatial Fix 6. The Reinvested Urban Core 7. Neoliberal Gentrification 8. Mega-Projects in the Urban Core: Bread or Circus? Part 3: Contesting the Neoliberal City 9. Social Struggle in a Neoliberal Policy Landscape 10. Alternative Futures at the End of History References Index

Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design With Nature

Abstract: Foreword ( Andres Duany ). Preface. How to use this book. Acknowledgments. Part One The Case for Sustainable Urbanism. Chapter 1: The Built Environment: Where We Are Today. The American Lifestyle on the Wrong Course. Pioneering Reforms: Setting the Stage for Sustainable Urbanism. Chapter 2: Sustainable Urbanism: Where We Need to Go. Sustainable Urbanism: The Grand Unification. The Three Steps of Sustainable Urbanism. Part Two Implementing Sustainable Urbanism. Chapter 3: Leadership and Communications. Leadership Talking Points for Sustainable Urbanism ( Jim Hackler and Irina Woelfle ) The Power of Paired Choices. Implementation Agendas for Leaders. Chapter 4: The Process and Tools for Implementing Sustainable Urbanism. RFQ for Sustainable Urbanist Professionals. Benchmarking Municipal Sustainability: The Santa Monica Sustainable City Plan ( City of Santa Monica ). Documenting Community Preference in Form and Sustainability: Image Preference Survey (IPS) ( Christina Anderson ) Conducting a Charrette ( Bill Lennertz ) Shaping Sustainable Neighborhoods with the Toledo Smart Neighborhood Analysis Protocol (SNAP) ( Carolee Kokola ). A Sustainable Urbanist Neighborhood Plan: Toledo SNAP ( Carolee Kokola ). Regulating Plan and Form-Based Code ( Christina Anderson ). Incorporating Sustainability through Codes, Covenants, and Restrictions (CC&Rs) ( Dan Slone ). RFP for a Sustainable Urbanist Developer ( City of Victoria, British Columbia ). Part Three Emerging Thresholds of Sustainable Urbanism. Chapter 5: Increasing Sustainability Through Density. Explaining Density. Illustrating Density. The Transect of the Everyday. Water and the Density Debate ( Lynn Richards ). Transit Supportive Densities. Chapter 6: Sustainable Corridors. The Sustainable Corridor ( Doug Farr, Leslie Oberholtzer, and Christian Schaller ). The Integration of Transportation, Land Use, and Technology ( Shelley Poticha ). Biodiversity Corridors ( Rebecca L. Kihslinger, Jessica Wilkinson, and James McElfish ). Chapter 7: Sustainable Neighborhoods. Neighborhood Diagrams. Neighborhood Definition ( Victor Dover and Jason King ). Neighborhood Completeness ( Eliot Allen and Doug Farr ). Neighborhood Housing ( Laurie Volk and Todd Zimmerman ). Car-Free Housing. Neighborhood Retail ( Robert J. Gibbs ). Economic Benefits of Locally Owned Stores ( Matt Cunningham ). Third Places. Healthy Neighborhoods ( Melanie Simmons, Kathy Baughman McLeod,and Jason Hight ). Walkable Streets and Networks ( Dan Burden ). Complete Streets ( Fred Dock ). Universal Basic Home Access ( Eleanor Smith ). Managing Travel Demand ( Jeffery Tumlin ). Car Sharing ( Jeffery Tumlin 0. Chapter 8: Biophilia. Open Space ( Carolee Kokola ). Public Darkness ( Nancy Clanton and Todd Givler ). Stormwater Systems ( Jim Patchett and Tom Price ). Food Production ( Lynn Peemoeller and Jim Slama, with Cathy Morgan ). Outdoor Wastewater Treatment ( Thomas E. Ennis ). Indoor Wastewater Treatment ( John Todd Ecological Design ). Chapter 9: High-Performance Buildings and Infrastructure. The Impact of Planning on Building Energy Usage ( Alan Chalifoux ). 2030 Challenge ( Ed Mazria ). High-Performance Infrastructure ( Hillary Brown ). Large District Energy Systems ( Doug Newman and Robert Thornton, John Kelly, and Adam Lund ). The 2030 Community Challenge: Economic Growth with Sustainable Urbanism. Part Four Case Studies in Sustainable Urbanism. Chapter 10: Lessons Learned from Sustainable Urbanism. Built Infill. BedZED: London, England. Glenwood Park: Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Holiday Neighborhood: Boulder, Colorado, United States. Christie Walk: Adelaide, Australia. Newington: Sydney, Australia. High Point: Seattle, Washington, United States. Built Greenfield. Upton: Northampton, England. Kronsberg: Hannover, Germany. Loreto Bay: Baja California Sur, Mexico. Civano: Tucson, Arizona, United States. Poundbury: Dorchester, England. Chapter 11: State of the Art in Unbuilt Sustainable Urbanism. Unbuilt Infill. Dockside Green: Victoria, Canada. Lloyd Crossing: Portland, Oregon, United States. Z-Squared: London, England. New Railroad Square: Santa Rosa, California, United States. Uptown Normal: Normal, Illinois, United States. Unbuilt Greenfield. Dongtan: Shanghai, China. Galisteo Basin Preserve: Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States. Pulelehua: Maui, Hawaii, United States. Coyote Valley: San Jose, California, United States. Scales of Intervention. Epilogue. Glossary. Index.

Form and Meaning in the Earliest Cities: A New Approach to Ancient Urban Planning

Abstract: This article describes a new model for urban planning in ancient and preindustrial cities that moves beyond the traditional simplistic dichotomy of planned versus organic cities. The model has two components: coordination of buildings and spaces, and standardization among cities. A variety of coordinated arrangements of buildings reflect urban planning, including simple coordination, formality and monumentality, orthogonal layouts, other forms of geometric order, and access and visibility (viewshed). Standardization among cities is analyzed in terms of architectural inventories, spatial patterns, orientation, and metrology. The political and social significance of ancient urban planning is then discussed using Amos Rapoport’s model of levels of meaning in the built environment.

Revanchist Urbanism Heads South: The Regulation of Indigenous Beggars and Street Vendors in Ecuador

Abstract: Much of the discussion surrounding neoliberal urbanism has been empirically grounded in the North. This paper shifts the discussion south to focus on the regulation of indigenous street vendors and beggars in the Andean nation of Ecuador. Inspired by zero tolerance policies from the North, the cities of Quito and Guayaquil have recently initiated urban regeneration projects to cleanse the streets of informal workers, beggars, and street children. In this paper, I explore the particular and pernicious ways in which these neoliberal urban policies affect indigenous peoples in the urban informal sector. Grounded in the literature on space, race and ethnicity in the Andes, I argue that Ecuador's particular twist on revanchism is through its more transparent engagement with the project of blanqueamiento or “whitening”. I further argue that Ecuador's “refinement” of revanchist urban policies only works to displace already marginalised individuals and push them into more difficult circumstances.

Urban sprawl in Europe : landscapes, land-use change & policy

Abstract: Contributors. Preface. Acknowledgments. Part I Theory and Method . 1 Introduction: Definitions, Theories and Methods of Comparative Analysis . Chris Couch, Lila Leontidou and Karl-Olov Arnstberg. Background. The origins of suburbia and urban sprawl in Europe and the USA. Some differences between Europe and the USA. The development of theory and policy in Europe. Methodology. The structure of the book. Note. References. 2 Sprawl in European Cities: The Comparative Background . Diana Reckien and Jay Karecha. Urban trends in Europe. Urban trends in the case study cities. Conclusions. Appendix: Patterns of growth and sprawl across European cities. References. Part II Types of Urban Sprawl in Europe . 3 Infrastructure-related Urban Sprawl: Mega-events and Hybrid Peri-urban Landscapes in Southern Europe. Lila Leontidou, Alex Afouxenidis, Elias Kourliouros and Emmanuel Marmaras. Introduction: theory and method. 'Astyphilia' and popular spontaneous suburbanisation untilthe 1970s. Modernism and urban land policy after EU accession. Toward the entrepreneurial city and post-Olympic landscapes. Mega-events and Mediterranean urban futures. Notes. References. 4 Sprawl in the Post-Socialist City: The Changing Economic andInstitutional Context of Central and Eastern European Cities . Natasa Pichler-Milanovi , Ma gorzata Gutry-Korycka and Dieter Rink. Socialist cities in Central and Eastern Europe. Transition reforms in Central and Eastern Europe. The patterns of urban sprawl in post-socialist cities. The causes of urban sprawl in the post-socialist cities. The consequences of urban sprawl in post-socialist cities. Policy responses. Conclusions: what is needed for 'sustainable' sprawl in post-socialist cities?. Notes. References. 5 Decline and Sprawl: Urban Sprawl is not Confined to Expanding City Regions . Henning Nuissl, Dieter Rink, Chris Couch and Jay Karecha. Sprawl in the context of urban decline. Trends in urban sprawl in Britain and Germany. The two cases. Comparisons between Liverpool and Leipzig. Conclusions. Notes. References. 6 No Place Like Second Home: Weekends, Holidays, Retirement and Urban Sprawl . Karl-Olov Arnstberg and Inger Bergstrom. The largest industry in the world. A short history of the summerhouse. The summers of my childhood. Two homes. Making and maintaining roots. Recreation, retirement ...and investment. Retreat to a loved place. Varmdo, a sprawled community in the Stockholm region. References. Part III Models, Urban Policy and Sustainability . 7 Modelling Urban Sprawl: Actors and Mathematics . Matthias Ludeke, Diana Reckien and Gerhard Petschel-Held. Actors, actor classes and sprawl. The actor versus the structural perspective on sprawl. Identifying the feedbacks. Operationalising the qualitative attractivity migration model. Validation and future scenarios. Using a QUAM model for policy analysis. From general targets to specific policy mechanisms: a model analysis. Discussion of case specific strategy - suggestions from a QUAM perspective. Conclusions. Appendix. References. 8 Lines of Defence: Policies for the Control of Urban Sprawl . Henning Nuissl and Chris Couch. The aims of policy. The mechanisms of policy. Regulation. Economic intervention: direct investment, taxation or subsidy. Institutional change, management and advocacy. Conclusions. Notes. References. 9 Urban Sprawl and Hybrid Cityscapes in Europe: Comparisons, Theory Construction and Conclusions . Lila Leontidou and Chris Couch. 'Urban', 'suburban', 'post-suburban', and their in-between spaces. Deconstructing the dualism of causes/consequences of urban sprawl. A systematic comparison of city case studies. Cultures of urbanism and sprawl in Europe. Hybrid landscapes and questions of sustainability. Note. References. Index

Introduction—Comparative Urbanism

Abstract: (2007). Introduction—Comparative Urbanism. Urban Geography: Vol. 28, Comparative Urbanism, pp. 1-6.

The African City: A History

Abstract: Introduction 1. Urban life emerges in Africa 2. African cities and the emergence of a world trading economy 3. Colonialism and urbanisation 4. Cities in revolt: the long term crisis of South African urbanism 5. The post-colonial African city 6. Globalisation and the African city: Touba, Abidjan, Durban.

Re‐thinking the urban social

Abstract: This paper has been prompted by a journal debate at the start of the new millennium on the future of urban sociology in light of the proliferation of urban studies in many disciplines at a time of increasingly blurred boundaries between cities and the world at large. It was a debate that, inter alia, asked urban sociology to engage seriously with globalization (and contemporary modernity in general) as well as to return to its original concerns with urban social inequality in a new division of inter‐disciplinary labour. This paper steers clear of defining a role for urban sociology, principally because it believes urban studies to have become a field of such intense inter‐disciplinarity that it makes little sense to demarcate the urban sociology from urban geography, urban planning and politics, and urban anthropology. Instead the debate is used to raise a more basic question of urban ontology relating, firstly, to how cities should be imagined as places, so that due recognition can be given to the radica...

Urban design: requiem for an era – review and critique of the last 50 years

Abstract: From the time cities first evolved, they have been subject to human intervention at every level of activity – in other words they have been designed. The following paper argues that since this process was formalized at the beginning of the 20th century as urban design, its rationale as a discipline has been fraught with consequence. It has been continuously defined as other – half way between the two professions of architecture and urban planning. This unjustified otherness has been reflected in approaches to urban design theory. Even the middle ground which urban design is supposed to occupy is an amalgam of architectural and planning ideologies and practices. The following paper takes a hard look at the last 50 years, exposing the most serious attempts to synthesize or theorize significant urban design paradigms. While each attempt has much to commend it, variously exhibiting great insight, dedication, knowledge and scholarship, I feel that the collective result has been a generalized anarchy of creative ideas that bear little coherence, either internally or collectively. Whether this is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is beside the point, it is where evolution has brought us. Nor does this situation signify any immunity on my part to the uses of disorder, chance and chaos, in the spirit that ‘there is no idea, however ancient and absurd, that is not capable of improving our knowledge’ (Feyerabend, 1975, p. 33). The hypothesis explored below proposes that the failure has an obvious cause – there has been no concerted attempt within the discipline to link the material creation or ‘designing’ of urban space and form to fundamental societal processes. More importantly, this linkage is desirable, and can be made. The fracture has many causes – historical, professional, ideological, academic, egocentric, as well as misplaced idealism. Rather than pursuing the quest for an integrated theory which has little possibility of success, I argue that a better outcome already exists in spatial political economy, itself a somewhat anarchistic pursuit, but one of better quality. The framework of ideas which it encompasses offers urban design both legitimation and theoretical coherence. In so doing, urban design can exit the nefarious middle ground allocated to it by architecture and planning. Instead, it can connect directly to the economic, political, social and cultural processes which structure social life.

Chinese Urbanism in Question: State, Society, and the Reproduction of Urban Spaces

Abstract: This study examines the growth and spatiality of Chinese urbanism with special reference to changes in state-society relations. Imperial China was well-known for a relatively strong state, weak society, and underdeveloped market. Earlier Chinese urbanism was shaped by an imperial state of tributary nature, a society stratified in the Confucian doctrine, and a relatively relaxed state-society relation. In the socialist era, important features of (anti-)urbanism were linked with a special state-society relation that privileges the interests of the working class, discriminates merchants, values equality, and stresses urban manageability. The reformation of state-society relations in the post-socialist era has facilitated the growth of modern urbanism characterized by the dramatic expansion of urban size, high inner-city density, growing diversity, heterogeneity, and inequality. The urban scale has been expanded and stretched as the state manages to negotiate with forces of globalization, enhance China's inte...

Space time play : computer games, architecture and urbanism : the next level

Abstract: Introduction. The Architecture of Computer Games. A Brief Space Time History of Interactive Entertainment. Ubiquitous Games. Computerizing Dwellings, Cities, and Landscapes for Play Experiences. Serious Fun. Utilizing Computer Games for Architectural and Urban Planning.

Early Mesopotamian Urbanism: A New View from the North

Abstract: For many years, the southern Mesopotamia of Ur and Uruk, ancient Sumer, has been seen as the origin centre of civilisation and cities: "The urban implosion of late-fourth- and early-third-millennium Mesopotamia resulted in a massive population shift into large sites" said Nissen in 1988. "These new city-states set the pattern for Mesopotamia as the heartland of cities" (Adams 1981; Yoffee 1998). And for Stone & Zimansky (2005) "Remains of the world's first cities are the most noteworthy feature of the landscape in southern Iraq". But at Tell Brak Joan Oates and her team are turning this model upside down. A long campaign of study, culminating in the new discoveries from 2006 reported here, show that northern Mesopotamia was far along the road to urbanism, as seen in monumentality, industrialisation and prestige goods, by the late fifth millennium BC. The "world's earliest cities" are as likely to have been in north-eastern Syria as southern Iraq, and the model of a core from the south developing a periphery in the north is now ripe for revision.

The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream

Abstract: Americans are voting with their feet to abandon strip malls and suburban sprawl, embracing instead a new type of community where they can live, work, shop, and play within easy walking distance. In "The Option of Urbanism" visionary developer and strategist Christopher B. Leinberger explains why government policies have tilted the playing field toward one form of development over the last sixty years: the drivable suburb. Rooted in the driving forces of the economycar manufacturing and the oil industrythis type of growth has fostered the decline of community, contributed to urban decay, increased greenhouse gas emissions, and contributed to the rise in obesity and asthma.Highlighting both the challenges and the opportunities for this type of development, "The Option of Urbanism" shows how the American Dream is shifting to include cities as well as suburbs and how the financial and real estate communities need to respond to build communities that are more environmentally, socially, and financially sustainable."

Making Lahore Modern: Constructing and Imagining a Colonial City

Abstract: Fifty years after the British annexed the Punjab and made Lahore its provincial capital, the city-once a prosperous Mughal center that had long since fallen into ruin-was transformed. British and Indian officials had designed a modern, architecturally distinct city center adjacent to the old walled city, administered under new methods of urban governance. In Making Lahore Modern, William J. Glover investigates the traditions that shaped colonial Lahore. In particular, he focuses on the conviction that both British and Indian actors who implemented urbanization came to share: that the material fabric of the city could lead to social and moral improvement. This belief in the power of the physical environment to shape individual and collective sentiments, he argues, links the colonial history of Lahore to nineteenth-century urbanization around the world. Glover highlights three aspects of Lahore's history that show this process unfolding. First, he examines the concepts through which the British understood the Indian city and envisioned its transformation. Second, through a detailed study of new buildings and the adaptation of existing structures, he explores the role of planning, design, and reuse. Finally, he analyzes the changes in urban imagination as evidenced in Indian writings on the city in this period. Throughout, Glover emphasizes that colonial urbanism was not simply imposed; it was a collaborative project between Indian citizens and the British. Offering an in-depth study of a single provincial city, Glover reveals that urban change in colonial India was not a monolithic process and establishes Lahore as a key site for understanding the genealogy of modern global urbanism. William J. Glover is associate professor of architecture at the University of Michigan.

Cities of Whiteness

Abstract: List of Figures. List of Boxes. Acknowledgements. Introduction. 1. Encountering Cities of Whiteness. Journeying to Inner Sydney. Cities as Cultural Constructions ~ Gentrification and Urbanism. The Birth of Whiteness Scholarship. Cities of Neo-colonial Whiteness. 2. (Post)colonial Sydney. From Dangerous to Endangered City. Securing Whiteness in the Paradoxical City. Conclusions. 3. 'The Good Old Days'. Heritage Dreaming. Performing Sydney Heritage. Activating Heritage. Architectures of Escape 1: Into the Past. Conclusions. 4. Cosmopolitan Metropolitanism (Or The Indifferent City). Introduction. Manhattan Dreaming (in Sydney Australia). Architectures of Escape 2: Sydney's SoHo Syndrome. Conclusions. 5. Cities of Whiteness. Geographies of Urban Whiteness. Studying Cities. The End of (Cities of) Whiteness?. Bibliography. Index. .

The Roman City and its Periphery : From Rome to Gaul

Abstract: The first and only monograph available on the subject, The Roman City and its Periphery offers a full and detailed treatment of the little-investigated aspect of Roman urbanism – the phenomenon of suburban development. Presenting archaeological and literary evidence alongside sixty-three plans of cities, building plans, and photographs, Penelope Goodman examines how and why Roman suburbs grew up outside Roman cities, what was distinctive about the nature of suburban development, and what contributions buildings and activities in the suburbs might make to the character and function of the city as a whole. With full bibliography and annotations throughout, this will not only provide a coherent treatment of an essential theme for students of Roman urbanism, but archaeologists, urban planners and geographers also, will have an excellent comparative tool in the study of modern urbanism.

Neighborhood changes and residential differentiation in Shanghai

Abstract: © 2007 Selection and editorial matter, Fulong Wu; individual chapters, the contributors. All rights reserved. With urbanism becoming the key driver of socio-economic change in China, this book provides much needed up-to-date material on Chinese urban development. Demonstrating how it transcends the centrally-planned model of economic growth, and assessing the extent to which it has gone beyond the common wisdom of Chinese 'gradualism', the book covers a wide range of important topics, including: • local land development • the local state • private-public partnership • foreign investment • urbanization • ageing • home ownership. Providing a clear appraisal of recent trends in Chinese urbanism, this book puts forward important new conceptual resources to fill the gap between the outdated model of the 'Third World' city and the globalizing cities of the West.

New East Manchester: Urban Renaissance or Urban Opportunism?

Abstract: In this paper we ask how a shrinking city responds when faced with a perforated urban fabric. Drawing on Manchester's response to its perforated eastern flank —and informed by a parallel study of Leipzig—we use the city's current approach to critique urban regeneration policy in England. Urban renaissance holds out the promise of delivering more sustainable—that is more compact, more inclusive and more equitable—cities. However, the Manchester study demonstrated that the attempt to stem population loss from the city is at best fragile, despite a raft of policies now in place to support urban renaissance in England. It is argued here that Manchester like Leipzig is likely to face an ongoing battle to attract residents back from their suburban hinterlands. This is especially true of the family market that we identify as being an important element for long-term sustainable population growth in both cities. We use the case of New East Manchester to consider how discourses linked to urban renaissance—...

Families in Flats, Revisited:

Abstract: High-rise flats occupy an ambiguous position in contemporary discussions of urbanism. While allowing for densely populated walking environments, they are widely seen as culturally inappropriate and...

Cities in the Pre-Modern Islamic World : The Urban Impact of Religion, State and Society

Abstract: This volume is an inter-disciplinary endeavour which brings together recent research on aspects of urban life and structure by architectural and textual historians and archaeologists, engendering exciting new perspectives on urban life in the pre-modern Islamic world Its objective is to move beyond the long-standing debate on whether an ‘Islamic city’ existed in the pre-modern era and focus instead upon the ways in which religion may (or may not) have influenced the physical structure of cities and the daily lives of their inhabitants It approaches this topic from three different but inter-related perspectives: the genesis of ‘Islamic cities’ in fact and fiction; the impact of Muslim rulers upon urban planning and development; and the degree to which a religious ethos affected the provision of public services Chronologically and geographically wide-ranging, the volume examines thought-provoking case studies from seventh-century Syria to seventeenth-century Mughal India by established and new scholars in the field, in addition to chapters on urban sites in Spain, Morocco, Egypt and Central Asia Cities in the Pre-Modern Islamic World will be of considerable interest to academics and students working on the archaeology, history and urbanism of the Middle East as well as those with more general interests in urban archaeology and urbanism

Proximate Distances: The Phenomenology of Density in Mumbai

Abstract: Urban density is often taken to be self-evident and treated as an indicator or attribute of urban space upon which urban planning and individual planning decisions are made. This article makes the case for thinking about density as a relational and social quality produced by identifiable associations, practices and systems of human interactions, specifically with infrastructural technologies. Based on ethnographic research in Mumbai, the paper will consider several different ‘sites’ at which density operationalizes an incessant sense of temporariness and anticipation within the frame of social relations. These geographies of density yield surprising circumventions of functionality and planning but they also make possible transformation within existing frames of relations. Much of the recent urbanist literature on Mumbai focuses mainly on the slum not only as an empirical but also an analytic geography. Based on the ethnographic work on Mumbai, the article suggests other sites beside the slum for theorizations of the multitude. Doing so might yield new insights into the relationship between built form and urban design as well as accounts of the city that are not trapped either by normative and prescriptive models of the city or by the need to turn to a redemptive reading of chaos and misery.

Creating urban communities at Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania, AD 800-1300

Abstract: Urban communities on the medieval East African coast have been previously discussed in terms of ethnicity and migration. Here assemblages from coastal towns and from surface survey in the interior are used to paint a different picture of urban (Swahili) origins. The author shows that coast and interior shared a common culture, but that coastal sites grew into "stonetowns" thanks to the social impact of imports: the material culture structured the society.

Two sides of a coin? New urbanism and gated communities

Abstract: Contemporary residential building trends reflect concerns about privacy, traffic, and managing difference. Despite the radically different premises behind New Urbanism and gated communities, I find on closer inspection that they both respond to similar perceived crises in our cities. New Urbanism answers urban challenges with bold efforts to recapture the strengths of older communities and to supplant unwanted suburban patterns with those believed to have greater resilience and public purpose. Gated communities reveal popular skepticism about the potential for improving urban conditions and a consequent desire to retreat to protected compounds. In both cases, the new suburbs generally provide housing primarily for the most affluent among us and represent the ascendance of private over public interests. By examining the Canadian urban context, this article explores some ways in which New Urbanism and gated communities differ, while also highlighting the characteristics and dilemmas they share.

Introduction: immigrants and transnational experiences in world cities

Abstract: Today, in the early 21st century, goods, information, services, financial capital and human beings are flowing across national borders at an ever-accelerating rate. In this context, transnationalism has become a key paradigm in the study of international migration and urbanism. This theme issue on “Immigrants and transnational experiences in world cities” explores these new trends in contemporary international migration, with respect to transnational communities and geographies, in articles grouped according to four themes: international migration and world cities; highly-skilled and low-skilled immigrants; economic impacts; and immigrant experiences in world cities.

Cities, Nationalism and Democratization

Abstract: Cities, Nationalism, and Democratization provides a theoretically informed, practice-oriented account of intercultural conflict and co-existence in cities. Bollens uses a wide-ranging set of over 100 interviews with local political and community leaders to investigate how popular urban policies can trigger 'pushes from below' that help nation-states address social and political challenges. The book brings the city and the urban scale into contemporary debates about democratic transformations in ethnically diverse countries. It connects the city, on conceptual and pragmatic levels, to two leading issues of today – the existence of competing and potentially destructive nationalistic allegiances and the limitations of democracy in multinational societies. Bollens finds that cities and urbanists are not necessarily hemmed in by ethnic conflict and political gridlock, but can be proactive agents that stimulate the progress of societal normalization. The fuller potential of cities is in their ability to catalyze multinational democratization. Alternately, if cities are left unprotected and unmanaged, ethnic antagonists can fragment the city’s collective interests in ways that slow down and confine the advancement of sustainable democracy. This book will be helpful to scholars, international organizations, and grassroots organizations in understanding why and how the peace-constitutive city emerges in some cases while it is misplaced and neglected in others.

The Politics of Architecture and Urbanism in Postcolonial Lagos, 1960-1986

Abstract: After independence, the Nigerian government faced a number of choices about how to manage its urban environment, particularly in Lagos, Nigeria's capital. By favouring a programme of tropical modernist architecture for its prestige buildings in Lagos and British New Town style for its housing estates there, the government sought to demonstrate both its independence from European culture and its ability to perform the functions of a modern state. And yet, the hopes of government officials and elites for Lagos were frustrated as Lagosians, in response to new economic and demographic forces, shaped a very different sort of city from below. The Nigerian government's retreat to Abuja and its abandonment of Lagos mark the failures of urban policymaking in Nigeria.

Urban governance at the nationalist divide: coping with group-based claims

Abstract: This article examines how urbanism and local governance address group differences in cities of nationalistic conflict. I investigate four settings—Basque Country and Barcelona (Spain) and Sarajevo ...