Cities within the city : do-it-yourself urbanism and the right to the city
Activism ; Appropriation of land ; Australia ; Citizenship ; Creativity ; Local policy ; Right to the city ; Sydney ; Urban area ; Urban policy ; Urbanism
The article asks to what extent such practices constitute a new form of urban politics that might give birth to a more just and democratic city. In answering this question, it considers these so-called ‘do-it-yourself urbanisms’ from the perspective
of the ‘right to the city’. After critically assessing that concept, it argues that in order for do-it-yourself urbanist practices to generate a wider politics of the city through the appropriation of urban space, they also need to assert new forms of authority
in the city based on the equality of urban inhabitants. This claim is illustrated through an analysis of the do-it-yourself practices of Sydney-based activist collective BUGA UP and the New York and Madrid Street Advertising Takeovers.
Relational cities. Doha, Panama City, and Dubai as 21st century entrepôts
Activité économique ; Doha ; Dubayy ; Emirats arabes unis ; Etude comparée ; Exportation ; Néolibéralisme ; Panama ; Panama City ; Réseau ; Service ; Urbanisme ; Ville mondiale ; Ville relationnelle
Comparative study ; Dubai ; Economic activity ; Export ; Neo liberalism ; Network ; Panama ; Service ; United Arab Emirates ; Urbanism ; World city
This article analyses the concept of the “relational city” as a transnational urbanist approach to understanding a particular subset of cities that are emblematic of the spatial transformations manifest through advanced capitalism. It demonstrates
that they are constituted through globally critical flows of capital, goods, and ideas, and whose economies are dedicated to intermediary services such as offshore banking, container- and bulk-shipping, and regional re-exportation. Drawing upon Doha, Dubai, and Panama City
, this article suggests a new way of understanding urban change in a global context while simultaneously moving beyond the recurrent focus on the top-tier financial world cities of the Global North.
The image of the city out of the underlying scaling of city artifacts or locations
This article deals with the external representation of a city; that is, what traits it has that make it imageable. It develops an argument that the image of the city arises from the underlying scaling of city artifacts or locations. The results show
that the sizes of city artifacts in a rank-size plot exhibit a heavy-tailed distribution consisting of the head, which is composed of a minority of unique artifacts and the tail, which is composed of redundant other artifacts. It concludes that the ever
-increasing amount of geographic information on cities, in particular obtained from social media such as Flickr and Twitter, can turn research on the image of the city, or cognitive mapping in general, into a quantitative manner.
Comparative study ; Concept ; Core-periphery ; Critical geography ; Neo liberalism ; Urban hierarchy ; Urbanism ; World city
This paper analyses the ordinary city trap though the lens of post-colonial urban studies. First, it explains that a few major cities have the necessary economic specialization and therefore extraordinary function of commanding and controlling
neoliberal globalization. Second, it discusses how and why that these two neo-Marxist concepts have been misrepresented as forms of developmentalism, as a resurgence of modernisation theory and a policy recommendation, by ordinary cities advocates. Finally
, it demonstrates that the charges against the world city and global city concepts as paradigmatic, peripheralizing, and normative are rebutted and argues for the necessity of a provincial and comparative approach to urban studies.
The vortex of rights : ‘right to the city’ at a crossroads
International organization ; Marxism ; Right to the city ; Urban policy ; Urban social movement ; Urbanism
The right to the city concept has recently attracted a great deal of attention from radical theorists and grassroots activists of urban justice, who have embraced the notion as a means to analyze and challenge neoliberal urbanism. The article
analyzes such projects by reframing the right to the city concept to foreground its roots in Marxian labor theory of value. It argues that Lefebvre's formulation of the right to the city is invaluable for analyzing and delineating contradictory urban
politics that are pulled into the vortex of the right to the city. The article concludes with a theoretical proposition that aims to open up space for further critical debate on the right to the city.
The city as experiential space : the production of shared meaning
In this paper the A. continues to ask how cities socialize in a way that allows shared experience to emerge in communities. Grounded in the sociology of knowledge shaped by German thinkers, her aim is to illustrate that specific stocks of knowledge
based on habitualized experience arise in every city. Intrinsic logic captures the hidden structures of cities as locally well-established, operative processes of sense-making along with their physical, material manifestations.
Reluctant cities, colonias and municipal underbounding in the US : Can cities be convinced to annex poor enclaves?
This paper focuses on the municipal underbounding—the unwillingness of cities to annex poor neighbouring areas through the examples of three cities or colonias in Imperial County, California: Calexico, El Centro, and the City of Imperial
Citizenship ; Decision making process ; Local policy ; Poverty ; Public space ; Right to the city ; Social exclusion ; Urban policy ; Urban social movement ; Urban society
Drawing on the work of Henri Lefebvre the vision of the right to the city has inspired a global social movement, legislative reform in Latin America and international debates at World Urban Forum 5 in Rio de Janeiro. The article critically examines
the right to the city through the lens of contributions to the UN-HABITAT e-debate in November-December 2009, which gave voice to those who might otherwise not be heard. Drawing on these contributions, it argues for a new conceptualization of citizenship
, and for a redefinition of the role of the local state and social actors in implementing the rights-based agenda that the right to the city entails.
Shifting corporate geographies in global cities of the South : Mexico City and Johannesburg as case studies
Gauteng ; Johannesburg ; Mexico ; Mexico City ; Non residential real estate ; Real estate market ; South Africa ; Urban economy ; Urbanization ; World city
This article examines the city’s role in the global political economy and the driving forces behind the changes in corporate geographies through the examples of Mexico City and Johannesburg. The outcome shows that local transformation processes
the changes in the corporate geographies therefore, it is necessary to direct more attention to local and national dynamics. The restructuring of the built environment in both cities can only be grasped fully by considering the particular role of local
Street-naming, tourism development and cultural conflict : the case of the Old City of Acre/Akko/Akka
This article explores place-naming in the Old City of Acre (Israel) in light of tourism development processes, focusing not only on the motivations for the naming but also on the responses of local residents to the naming and to the struggle
on the symbolic identity of the city that develop as a result. The first section examines the historical process of bestowing official street names in the Old City of Acre as well as the existing system of place names used by the local Arab inhabitants of the Old
City. The second section studies the reactions and attitudes of the local population in the Old City to the relatively recent initiative of the Acre Development Company to assign official street names, chosen in the past, to the streets and alleys
Towards an agenda for post-carbon cities : lessons from Lilac, the UK's first ecological, affordable cohousing community
Carbon economy ; Climatic change ; Community ; England ; Housing ; Leeds ; Post-carbon city ; Self-management ; Sustainable city ; Town ; United Kingdom ; Urban administration
The article draws upon a case study of an embryonic post-carbon initiative completed in early 2013 called Lilac. Based in Leeds, it is the first attempt to build an affordable, ecological cohousing project in the UK. Its three aspects each respond
to significant challenges. Six lessons are explored from Lilac that outline a roadmap towards post-carbon cities.
This paper responds to Richard G Smith’s review of ordinary city writing which he describes as ‘a trap for progressive international urbanism’. It focusses on questioning how and why Smith develops his ‘critique of a critique’. More specifically
, it considers the ways that Smith defines the boundaries of both the ordinary cities literature and the world/global cities writing that he pits against each other. Discussing genealogy and influence offers a more optimistic but not uncritical view of role
of ordinary city thinking in advancing critical urbanism.
Concept ; Creative city ; Creative class ; Creative economy ; Definition ; Urban area ; Urban planning
The article initially presents the theoretical framework of creative city concept and an approach to its historical development, and then analyzes it through the texts of the main promoters and researchers, Richard Florida and Charles Landry
, and its most notable critics. Then comes a breviary of the authors who reflect on the creative city in a recent book titled Creative city perspectives. We conclude that the creative city concept is a new paradigm for planning and urban design, which
Activism ; California ; Canada ; Municipality ; Neighbourhood ; Ohio ; Ontario ; Ottawa ; Right to the city ; Social geography ; United States of America ; Urban area ; Urban policy ; Urban social movement ; Woman
Geographies of postsecular rapprochement in the city
in terms of adjustments to the secularization thesis pointing to the possibilities of a series of emerging geographies relating to postsecular rapprochement and different forms of reterritorialization in the city. The example of Christian religion is taken
The right to the city and critical reflections on China's property rights activism
Activism ; China ; Guangdong ; Guangzhou ; Labour migration ; Property right ; Right to the city ; Social geography ; Urban development ; Urban policy
This paper refers to the perspective of the “right to the city” to examine whose rights count in China's urban development contexts and proposes a cross-class alliance that engages both migrants and local citizens. The alliance itself will have
Urban infrastructure dynamics : market regulation and the shaping of district energy in UK cities
Using the example of district energy in a number of UK cities, the article outlines the ways in which the structure of national electricity markets and the activities of the energy regulator influence and shape the development of low-carbon
infrastructure in cities. This study points to significant tensions and misalignments between a regulatory regime designed to promote economic efficiencies in incumbent national infrastructure sectors and the development of district energy systems at the urban
Planning for sustainability in non-democratic polities : the case of Masdar city
This paper addresses the pursuit of environmental sustainability by an autocratic, neo-patrimonial regime and examines the implications of such a political environment for sustainable initiatives in Masdar City , near Abu Dhabi. The findings reveal
, however, that on-the-ground implementation has so far failed to live up to the city’s initial ambitions. The analysis suggests that the social contract between Abu Dhabi’s rulers and the local population constitutes a challenging context for the pursuit
The spatial dimension of negotiated power relations and social justice in the redevelopment of villages-in-the-city in China
China ; Participation ; Power ; Project ; Right to the city ; Social geography ; Social justice ; Urban development ; Urban policy ; Urban renewal ; Village
connections which different actors draw from space, be it place or shifting positions. In the context of China’s villages-in-the-city redevelopment, this idea suggests that the dispossessed are not entirely powerless, although their formal rights