Les habitants des favelas face au droit à la ville au Brésil : réalité de la fragmentation urbaine, défi de l’intégration
favelas, fragmentation, droit à la ville, intégration, Brésil
Les villes brésiliennes sont composées d'une mosaïque de logements populaires, généralement en situation irrégulière par rapport à la législation en vigueur. Ainsi en est-il des favelas qui, à travers le clivage qui les oppose à la ville formelle, légale, constituent l’un des symboles de la fragmentation des villes brésiliennes. Cette vision dualiste de la ville, ancrée depuis toujours dans l’imaginaire des citadins brésiliens, masque une réalité urbaine complexe qui reste encore mal appréhendée. Dans ce contexte, ce travail de recherche s’intéresse au rapport des favelas avec la ville. À partir de l’étude de quatre favelas, dans deux villes différentes, Rio de Janeiro et Recife, il tentera de caractériser la situation des favelas dans l’espace urbain et l’insertion de leurs habitants dans la vie urbaine. Au-delà des apparences, l’exploration de ces espaces et de la vie quotidienne de leurs habitants montrent des signes évidents d’une intégration à la ville, qui reste toutefois empreinte, à l’image de la société brésilienne, d’une profonde inégalité.
Gouverner la circulation urbaine : des villes françaises face à l’automobile (des années 1910 aux années 1960)
pouvoirs urbains, gouvernement, commissions, mondes automobiles, circulation urbaine, savoirs
Notre thèse porte sur l’analyse du gouvernement de la circulation urbaine pour la période allant des années 1910 aux années 1960. Elle s’appuie sur un travail de terrain constitué principalement d’une monographie du cas lyonnais que nous avons enrichie à partir d’autres exemples urbains (Marseille, Lille, Bordeaux, Nice, Saint-Étienne, Villeurbanne). Nos sources sont principalement constituées de fonds d’archives municipaux, mais également nationaux (des ministères concernés), internationaux (SdN, ONU) et d’autres documents de première main (archives privées et consulaires, périodiques). Notre travail se structure autour de deux grandes questions concernant l’analyse de l’action publique urbaine : la construction et l’identification d’un problème public ; la régulation d’un secteur d’intervention publique. Ces deux niveaux d’analyse sont appréhendés au niveau des scènes locales, nationales ou transnationales, de discussion des problèmes automobiles. En questionnant la structuration des pouvoirs urbains, on peut mettre en évidence l’existence d’un gouvernement par commissions, rassemblant des institutions et des acteurs divers et éclatés, et concourant à une co-production de l’expertise et de l’action publique en matière de circulation urbaine. Cette étude sur un temps long permet de montrer que, dans ce secteur, des formes de « gouvernance » articulant intérêts privés et enjeux publics ont émergé progressivement et se sont structurés au moment même où l’automobile devenait un enjeu urbain et un problème public central pour les villes du XX° siècle. Le gouvernement de la circulation urbaine constitue un excellent observatoire de la dynamique de constitution des pouvoirs urbains autour de dispositifs d’action publique pluralistes et largement participatifs qui renvoient au final à des débats situés au cœur même de la science politique contemporaine (pluralisme, gouvernance, réseaux, interfaces public/privé, démocratie participative...).
Tunnel vision : Urban renewal in Rio de Janeiro, 1960-1975
history of urban planning, urban renewal, urban growth, infrastructure, transport
Following the inauguration of the newly constructed capital of Brasília in April 1960, the former federal district and Brazilian capital of Rio de Janeiro was transformed into the city-state of Guanabara. Although Rio lost its status as the political capital of Brazil after nearly 200 years, extensive urban renewal campaigns to modernize the city were employed by numerous politicians, planners, architects, artists, and ordinary residents to help restore Rio's position as Brazil's "true" capital city. This dissertation examines these urban renewal efforts in Guanabara from 1960 to 1975 - a period when Rio de Janeiro experienced its largest period of population and spatial growth. Whereas many of the urban renewal campaigns and projects for development prior to 1945 were intended to beautify, embellish, and "civilize" the city, the projects of the 1960s and 1970s were highly technical and revolved around integrating the automobile into the urban landscape. The measures of investment and resources devoted to modernizing and reforming the city during the Guanabara period were unprecedented for Rio de Janeiro, consequently resulting in significant spatial, social, cultural, and economic reorganization of the city. "Tunnel Vision: Urban Renewal in Rio de Janeiro, 1960-1975" examines specific projects of urban renewal such as tunnels (Rebouças and Santa Bárbara), expressways, parks (Aterro do Flamengo), subways, overpasses, and beaches while also exploring the technocratic approach to urban planning which was demonstrated through attitudes and principles that often marginalized "non-expert" participation in reforming the city. Using diverse primary sources such as government and urban planning documents, as well as neighborhood association materials, this dissertation also considers broader historical issues such as the politics and culture of military regimes, as well as questions related to the built environment, comparative planning cultures, space, class, race, ethnicity, and popular culture. Furthermore, this study also argues that the politics and culture of urban planning in Rio de Janeiro during the Guanabara period mirrored many of the same political, cultural, and social tensions that existed throughout Brazil and Latin America before and after the Brazilian military coup of 1964.
Building urban livelihoods : Two generations in an unauthorized settlement in Damascus
slums, housing, urban life, illegal settlement, urban migration, urban society
Over the last four decades, cities - especially those in the developing world - have been expanding exponentially. With this growth in 'urbanization' and as a consequence of a rise in urban poverty, the issue of urban problems is now a topic of international importance. It is estimated that the world's urban population will grow from 2.86 billion in 2000 to 4.98 billion by 2030 (UN-Habitat, 2003). Of this, nearly two billion people are currently living in urban areas of developingcountries and over half live below the poverty line. Thus together with this surge in the urban population growth and the pressures associated with it we are likely to see what I like to term the 'urbanization of poverty'. The physical and spatial manifestation of increasing urban poverty and intra-city inequality can be characterised by the slum. However, according to UN Habitat, there is no clear and internationally recognized operational definition of the slum. 'Other notions were used instead to document the existence of slums: percentage of population living in unauthorized settlements, the durability, equality and size of housing units, the level of basic services (...). While slum dwellers in the developed world constitute 6 % of the urban population, in developing countries they account for a staggering 42% of the urban populace' (UN-Habitat, 2003:6). Five components reflect conditions that characterise slums: insecure status; inadequate access to safe water; inadequate access to sanitation and other infrastructure; poor structural quality of housing; overcrowded (Ibid). The case study in this book reveals some of these components and instead of using the term 'slum', I will be using the term 'unauthorized settlement'. This will be defined in this work as a residential area, which has developed without permission from the concerned authorities to build. Settlers in Duelha are in fact experimenting with a semi-legal status: they either own a parcel of agricultural land which they put to use as a housing unit; or they rent it from private owners. In both case, the use of the land as residential area is occurring without permission from the Syrian authorities. This study focuses in general on urban conditions in Syria and in particular on the livelihoods of people living in one of the unauthorized settlement slums called Duelha in the capital city Damascus. Over the years, Damascus has attracted a large number of migrants from other cities and rural areas. According to the Syrian historian Jarjur Tawfik (1980), the most prominent causes of Syrian migration towards Damascus consisted of Palestinian refugees flows, the pull of educational opportunities, industrial and commercial activities, and the push of a high birth rate in rural areas and socio-economic causes such as widespread poverty. In order to achieve the study objectives, I lived and worked in this unauthorized settlement and observed the daily life of the local community. I focused specifically on households and courtyards, the main units of the social system. Within these social units, I traced the livelihood strategies that people adopt and how they succeed in managing their daily life in a new habitat. In contrast with most of the previous studies on Damascus, which are based mainly on statistical and census data, this study is to my knowledge the first to be carried out which gives a picture of a 'living' slum, or the daily struggle of a community living in an unauthorized settlement. It shows how individuals and families create and build their livelihood.
The people of Qayrawan : The demographic and social composition of a maghribi city during the first 250 years of its existence, on the basis of medieval arabic chronicles and inscriptions
demography, urban society, urban history
The bases of the present dissertation from the point of view of the sources are historical and biographical. The study of the people of al-Qayrawän, which is largely dependant on the study of the Tabagat, has been carried out with a view to discovering as much as possible about how people lived and earned their livelihood. Against this background the question of the numerical size of the population has, been considered. Work on this dissertation has involved spending inter alia four months in North Africa in 1974. This took me to Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. Most of that time was - spent in Tunisia, where on the one hand I was looking for the manuscripts relevant to al-Qayrawän, and on the other collecting material towards helping to establish the early mediaeval plan of al-Qayrawän. At the same time I made the facsimiles and, took the photographs for the collection of the monumental inscriptions which constitute part of the material for this work. During my stay in al-Qayrawän and Tunis I tried to meet every scholar connected with the study of al-Qayrawän, although the subject of this work is not one which has so far attracted attention. I visited most of the relevant public and some of the private libraries containing manuscripts. The Head of Jam'iyyat Siyänat Äthdr al-Qayrawän, Mr Ibrahim Shabbuh, was kind enough to show me the stages reached in the several excavations in al-Qayrawän, and the finds that have been unearthed. In Rabat, Morocco I visited both the public library (al-Khizänah al-'Ammah) and the Royal Library (al-Maktabah al-Malakiyyah), which both contain thousands of mediaeval manuscripts. In England I have paid frequent visits to the Oriental Room of the British Library and the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Towards the end of 1976, when my work was nearing a conclusion, I heard of some Ibadite manuscripts preserved in the Isle of Jerbah in Tunisia. I tried to obtain copies of these by different means but all failed. I tried to use the good offices of the Saudi Arabian Cultural Bureau in London to obtain these copies, but in vain, and finally I decided to go to Jerbah myself. After a brief stay in Tunis (February 1977) I continued to Jerbah. The Mashä'ikh of the Ibadites in the Island were very kind and very helpful, but one of the important manuscripts I was seeking had been taken to Libya. I therefore made a further journey to Tripoli in order to photocopy this manuscript, travelling thereafter to al-Qayrawän for a week where I checked several points which I had not covered on my former visit. I have therefore been fortunate in being able to examine most of the primary material relevant to the subject of the present dissertation, although there is naturally always the possibility that some unused manuscript sources still exist in private libraries.
Big is modern : The making of Wuhan as a mega-city in early twentieth century China, 1889-1957
urban history, urban planning, history of urban planning, megacity
My dissertation examines the city making process of Wuhan out of three different towns. The three towns, Wuchang, Hankou and Hanyang, located at the confluence of the Yangzi River and its largest tributary, the Han River, were divided by water and the imperial administration. In less than fifty years, the three towns disappeared, and in their place emerged Wuhan, the largest Chinese city in terms of its urban area. The urban integration was so successful that their separate pasts have been left out of current public memory. The goal of my study is to understand why and how Wuhan was made, and what the obsession with the city's big size can tell us about Chinese imagination and experience of modernity in the twentieth century. In answering these questions, the project is designed to cover three periods from late Qing, the republic, to the early PRC, and to trace modernizing efforts made by successive regimes to create "Great Wuhan." It focuses on five key historical periods--the late Qing reform, the urban self recovery after the 1911 revolution, the modernist planning from 1927-1936, Wuhan as a wartime capital in the Anti-Japanese War (1937-1945), and the socialist urban reconstruction from 1949 to 1957. The study shows the 1911 revolution as a turning moment when a modern city was designed to depart from its imperial antecedent. It was Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of Republican China, who first proposed the idea of "Great Wuhan." Such a gigantic urban project shows that Sun was thinking "big." I argued that his way of thinking prevailed with the emergence of a strong scientific faith, which primarily placed upon young technologically trained officials and engineers later. Like Sun Yat-sen, they envisioned a total transformation of modern China through re-engineering urban society and infrastructure construction. This "big" vision of modernity--gigantic and centralized--was promoted by both Chinese Nationalists and Communists and ran across time and ideology in shaping contemporary urban landscape. I also argue that the creation of Wuhan had been closely tied to the nation-state building in the early twentieth century. Sun's idea of "Great Wuhan" didn't gain currency until the late 1920s when the Nationalist party that inherited Sun's mantle came to power. From then on, efforts to make "Great Wuhan" always intensified at moments of national crisis and political change, through which the state consolidated its power and gained control over local society. The rise of nationalism along the time also contributed the obsession with bigness that fueled the ambitious project of "Great Wuhan." It is under the CCP regime that the city of Wuhan was finally made. The socialist system and its strong nationalist movements established in the early years of PRC proved to be more effective in carrying out the mega city project.
Changes in the urban spatial structure of a Chinese city in the midst of economic reforms : A case study of Guangzhou
spatial analysis, urban form, urban space, city politics, economics, urban development, land use
Cities in the world are changing rapidly. In the Western societies, changes are driven by the transformation from Fordism to post-Fordism and postmodernism. In the East, changes are triggered by profound social and economic reforms. Changes in the urban spatial structure of Chinese cities are by no means less significant, yet are left largely unexplored. It is this central theme that this dissertation attempts to examine. Through reviewing theories and studies on urban spatial structures, this study upholds a theoretical perspective that urban spatial structure is a spatial manifestation of the underlying urban process. More specifically, there are tight interlinks among political economy of the city, organization methods of land development and urban landscape. It is found that the changing urban process in China in the midst of economic reforms is characterized by decentralization and localization. The dominance of sectoral departments is replacing by rising localism. The initiation of land reform is a major turning point for the changes in the urban process which have significant impacts on the urban spatial structure. A dual land use system has been set up. Project-specific type of land development has been substituted by comprehensive development and real estate development. It is deduced that urban sprawl, land use restructuring, and formation of suburban centres would be the main features of new urban development in Chinese cities. This study has verified the hypotheses with a detailed study of land use changes and the determinants of land use changes in Guangzhou. This study uses GIS to analyse land use information interpreted from aerial photographs of 1979, 1987, and 1992. Land use conversion matrices are generated. Detailed distributions of land use changes of major types of land uses are analysed. Probability trend surfaces are produced to reveal the changing probability of land developments at the intra-metropolitan scale. Logistic models have been calibrated to reflect the changing determinants of land use changes. It is found that there are obvious changes in the locational tendency of land developments. The distance to the city centre is an important determinant of land use changes. Urban redevelopment can be carried out in the high density areas in the city centre because high land value can afford to relocate the residents. Natural conditions of land are now less restrictive than before, while market considerations are becoming more critical to land development. The function of traditional physical planning is diminishing. It is concluded that the new urban spatial structure bears both sectoral and concentric features. Developments are shifting from the old sector of industrial areas to new sectors of residential areas. City centre redevelopment, growth of urban fringe, and formation of new subcentres are in concentric form. The study concludes that measures should be taken in order to ensure effective and fair development control in the new urban process resulted from economic reforms in China.
Kwere Kwere journeys into strangeness : Reimagining inner-city regeneration in Hillbrow, Johannesburg
faith-based organisation, religion, poverty, developing country, urban renewal, urban development, community, urban planning, neighbourhood, city centre, disadvantaged district
There are a number of debates currently taking place in the 'North' that suggest that faith-based organisations (FBOs) are better placed to address urban poverty and to facilitate grassroots regeneration than the state. Accordingly, religious organisations in stressed inner-city neighbourhoods have achieved a certain level of stability and presence that make them important sites for organising residents, particularly in non-Anglo, immigrant-rich communities. Northern scholars a l so suggest that faith-based community development benefits from readymade leadership, opportunities for new leadership, and the possibility of building strong collaborations with both secular and other faith affiliations. Collaboration then becomes key in promoting successful community/ faith-led regeneration projects. In Hillbrow, Johannesburg's most demonized and stressed inner-city neighbourhood, FBOs have also become "spaces of hope" for approximately 70 percent of its inhabitants. They enable at least one mechanism through which the everyday uncertainties and insecurities of the Sub-Saharan urban may be navigated. And they create, however tenuously, a sense of belonging in this transitional, port-of-entry, neighbourhood. This may be said despite Hillbrow's diverse, and sometimes competing, faith identities which are far from being homogeneous. Still, many facilitate social and welfare services abandoned by the city council, in addition to community wide development projects. In order to reimagine the City of Johannesburg's exclusionary and 'revanchist' regeneration policies, this study will argue for a civil society involved and/ or led regeneration by embracing planning for social transformation theories and practices: A s such, in contrast to the mainstream and official understanding of Hillbrow, sites of faith-based efforts reveal an/ Other Hillbrow: an organised civil society in which their current initiatives suggest new possibilities for urban regeneration and human flourishing.
University of British Columbia - Vancouver
panorama, urban landscape, photography, image, modernity
While a panorama view of a city is a fairly commonplace and distinguishable image it remains without critical inquiry. The word panorama was coined in 1792 to market a large-scale circular painting that gained international popularity during the nineteenth century. The panorama image is investigated through large circular paintings, engravings and etchings, and panorama photographs that extend from the daguerreotype (1839) to the vintage silver print of the Cirkut camera (1904). The panorama is examined as a historical and discursive representation of modernity and modernization to consider its conditions of production and social relations as inseparable from technological change and economic growth and development. The panorama world-view implies prosperity and progress. The modernizing cities of London, Paris, San Francisco and Vancouver provide topographical views to examine the ambitiously complex composition and scale, and structure and space of the panorama. The panorama's central permutations are recognized as a view from a high vantage point, a full force of pictorial record displaying objective fact, and an optical realm of illusionary structure. The spatial and social implications of the panorama are interpreted as successfully unifying discordant and disruptive experiences of modernity through spatially resolving the ambiguities and uncertainties of an increasingly global world. Panorama vision and space are interpreted through theoretical influences of Roland Barthes, Jonathan Crary, Michel Foucault, Henri Lefebvre and Georg Simmel.
The city as theme park and the theme park as city : Amusement space, urban form, and cultural change
urban planning, amusement park, theme park, funfair, participation, Disney, urban culture, urban form, urban change
Amusement space embodies hegemonic and Utopian dialogue concerning urban conditions. Throughout the twentieth century, two rival urban visions have reigned: the Coney Island model, a chancy, participatory theatre where patrons can confront head-on current conditions; and the Disney model, a carefully planned setting where guests are made to feel comfortable and secure. The current ascendancy of the Disney model, evident in urban and suburban landscapes increasingly shaped in the Disney image, has attracted the attention -- and alarm --of critics who interpret this trend as urban planning with a 'sinister twist.' A case study of Disney's involvement with Seattle Center, originally the site of the 1962 World's Fair and now Seattle's premier urban park, demonstrates, however, that people actively challenge, negotiate, and reform the Disney model to meet their needs by infusing the space with traces of the rival Coney model. The suggestions Disney made for renovation of Seattle Center sparked a city-wide debate that centred on the roles of local participation, cultural sensitivity, and aesthetic design in urban space; Disney was found lacking on all accounts and eventually rejected entirely. Seattle's experience with Disney demonstrates that amusement space offers a rich terrain upon which people can dream about, and implement, urban change.
A social perspective on the reformed urban housing provision system in China : Three cases in Beijing, Xi'an and Shenzhen
In the 1990s, the Chinese housing reform reached a pivotal moment. The dismantling of the old public housing system and the high price of the commercial housing left the housing needs of a large number of the population unresolved. In 1998, a new multilevel housing provision system was schemed to solve this dilemma. The focus of this thesis is to bring the social housing perspective to this new development in the Chinese housing reform. In terms of theorization and methodology, the housing study is characterized by being atheoretical and positivist work. As a response, social constructionist methodology has been gradually introduced which alerts housing researchers to the unrecognized metanarratives embedded in their studies. The debate on the divergent and convergent views on the social housing development is introduced for two purposes: on the one hand, their generalization can serve as the background knowledge to the different roles and forms of social housing; on the other, the debate serves as a reminder of the author the complicated relationship between social housing and its historical and social context. The present definition of social housing serves as the start point of discussion. The main method of this study is historical-informed and discourse-aware case studies. At the beginning of the thesis, a historical study of the policy changes of the Chinese housing reform since the early 1980s suggests the affordable housing issue has gradually become the driving force of the reform especially in the 1990s. This social housing perspective on the reform is tested in explaining the persistent work-unit housing phenomenon in the 1990s. The argument is that, with the affordability question of the commercial housing, the work-unit has been fastened to the role of the affordable housing provider before alternative housing provisions emerge and take over. In the light of this, the housing reform policy of 1998 is understood as an effort to construct such housing provisions. Three types of new housing provisions are brought under investigation in the following chapters: the Economical and Comfortable Housing (ECH), the Low-Rent Housing, and the New Local Authority Housing. The first two are prescribed on the 1998 policy, while the latter is a unique practice of the local authority of Shenzhen. Each of these provisions is studied by relating a case-study project to its local contexts. The process, product and performance are analyzed in terms of their beneficiaries, affordability, and land, planning and design features. Serving as the housing for the mid- and low-income population, ECH in Beijing has encountered difficulties, both in targeting the desired population and regulating the affordability. The reasons are the multi-intentions attached to it and the conflicting expectations of it by the parties involved. It reveals that releasing the state from housing responsibility is still the priority of the housing reform, while the strategy of making profit-driven developers affordable housing providers is problematic and makes their role ambiguous. The first Low-Rent Housing project in Xi’an is still in standstill two years after its completion in 2001. Though defined clearly as housing for the disadvantaged population, in practice, the actual needs are underestimated. Besides, there are no concrete financing measures and significant advantages facilitate the implementation of the project These questions have resulted in the local authority hesitating to continue such development. The New Local Authority Housing in Shenzhen is a very special phenomenon. On the one hand, it has successfully transformed the old public housing into a new system based on the privatization principle; one the other, its benefits are mainly restricted to the municipal employees, and their needs are measured by the bureaucratic hierarchy instead of actual housing needs. The societal needs of affordable housing are neglected in this new system. This complicated and fragmented scenario of new housing provisions is brought to a theoretical examination in the Conclusion. By relating the historical study and the three new housing provisions to the theoretical framework of social housing, the nature of the new housing provisions are discerned; furthermore, the implication and limitation of present knowledge to the understanding of the Chinese housing reform are identified. Although providing valuable knowledge on the roles and forms of social housing, the present knowledge fails to support fruitful analysis of the complicated expectations and contexts attached to the new housing provisions in China. At the end of the thesis, the paradoxes in these new housing provisions are identified, and alternative solutions are suggested. Further theoretical and empirical investigation are anticipated for the social housing issue in the Chinese housing reform.
Norwegian University of Science and Technology - NTNU
Unravelling the global city debate : Economic inequality and ethnocentrism in contemporary Dutch cities
globalisation, economics, global city, urban change, ethnocentrism
It is hard to overestimate the scholarly impact of Saskia Sassen’s global city theoretical framework, which revolves around the impact of economic globalization on the social, economic, and political reality of cities in advanced economies. Yet, more than two decades of research dedicated to a ‘global city debate’ have left its main issues unresolved. In Unravelling the Global City Debate Jeroen van der Waal argues that this is because scholars have hitherto merely interpreted urban change according to the central theoretical notions in this debate, and neglected to assess their empirical validity. Therefore he unravels the global city debate into the distinct theoretical notions it consists of and puts these to rigorous empirical tests by using data on one of the most urbanized and globalized developed economies in the world: the Netherlands. By doing so, he shows that the standard research practice in the global city debate leaves much to be desired, for it yields both an under- and overestimation of the impact of economic globalization on urban labour markets in contemporary cities in the advanced economies.
Status city : Consumption, identity, and middle class culture in contemporary Bangkok
status, middle class, consumption, identity, urban space, class, social stratification, urban anthropology
Following decades of sweeping social change, a 'new' Thai middle class emerged to become the main agents of the mass demonstrations which have rocked Bangkok for the better part of the past four years. Yet, the academic literature reveals a marked paucity of data on the urban middle class, and on Bangkok's systems of stratification. This dissertation addresses this lacuna with research based on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Bangkok. My investigations suggest that an indigenous spatial-symbolic matrix, encapsulated in centralising and hierarchising mandalic principles, continues to inform both cultural understandings of stratification and the socio-spatial structure of Bangkok. However, traditional status distinctions are now pervaded by the idiom of material wealth introduced by the forces of global markets. Today, life in Bangkok is framed by a hierarchy of affluence which echoes the numerical precision of the premodern sakdina system of status differentiation. Accordingly, I argue that the notion of the 'urban-rural divide' popularly used to describe the conflict obscures a more complex reality in which city and countryside are linked by reciprocal relations within both urban and national systems of status and class. This is clearly discernable in the nature of everyday interclass relations in Bangkok which have been exacerbated by contemporary diminishment and marginalisation of upcountry Thais by the urban middle classes. It is an incendiary dynamic that has been exploited to tremendous effect in the current political power struggle. I demonstrate that the middle class is significantly stratified internally, and explore how middle class culture and identity are drawn in large part from their understandings of status practices of elites. Much of this takes place in the public spaces of the city's scores of shopping malls, which articulate a local vernacular of prestige where hierarchical power relations are inscribed in urban space. Structural constraints and the societal privileging of wealth and connections are constant challenges to middle class aspirations for upward mobility, and the Bangkokian middle class harbours no illusions of Thai society as a meritocracy. This disenchantment has been channelled into a churning politics of resentment with demonstrably explosive potential. Ultimately, however, I argue that middle class discontent will contribute little to reform while the majority of individuals feel their only avenue for social mobility is to negotiate a pre-existing system of stratification which many perceive as unjust.
Clustering, segregation and the 'ghetto' : The spatialisation of Jewish settlement in Manchester and Leeds in the 19th century
ghetto, Jewish, spatial analysis, residential segregation, social segregation, urban segregation
This thesis deals with the urban phenomenon of minority clusters, which are invariably referred to as 'ghettos'. A review of the literature on 'ghettos' suggests that the clustering of identifiable minorities is commonly associated with segregation - be it physical, economic, social or linguistic - although it is the physical segregation which tends to be most frequently noticed. Moreover, one type of segregation, such as physical - is believed to lead to another type, such as economic. Through studying Jewish settlement in Leeds and Manchester in the 19th century, two key questions are addressed in this thesis: The first is whether there is a link between spatial clustering and spatial segregation and the second is whether spatial clustering is linked to other forms of segregation, such as economic, occupational and social. Another two questions arise from the analysis: whether Jewish settlement patterns are distinctive in their own right, and whether it is possible to identify a pattern in the process of formation of Jewish settlement that may have broader implications for immigrant/minority settlement in general. The techniques and theories of 'Space Syntax' are used here to analyse the settlements in question by using detailed street-level mapping of census data on the entire Jewish population of Manchester and Leeds and of all non-Jewish individuals in the key Jewish districts of each of the cities (the key Jewish districts are generally referred to as 'ghettos'). This enables a multi-level socio-spatial comparison to be made: between Jewish families and their immediate neighbours; between Jewish families and the population of the city as a whole; and between the initial and secondary stages of Jewish settlement. In order to investigate questions relating specifically to immigrant settlement, non-Jewish people born outside of Britain are also considered as a separate group, although they are not the main subject. The analysis suggests that spatial clustering does not necessarily lead to spatial segregation and that spatial clustering may also be associated with some types of segregation, such as occupational but not with others, such as economic. It also suggests that Jewish settlement patterns are distinctive and that they are identifiable for a longer period than expected after immigration, when compared with other immigrants. This thesis also sheds light on the process of the formation of Jewish settlement, proposing a pattern whereby after establishing a core of settlement, streets already established become more densely populated, whilst new streets are settled more slowly. Analysis of the key districts of Jewish settlement also suggests that certain areas of cities are especially prone to settlement by the disadvantaged, due to characteristics that make such areas firstly, tend to be economically unsuccessful due to their spatial segregation and secondly, less attractive to those who have the means to move elsewhere and that such areas are not so much defined by their immigrant constituents, but by their long-standing inhabitants that cannot move elsewhere.
After resurgent regions, resurgent cities? : Contesting state geographies in Hungary and England
region, geography, State, urban policy, neoliberalism, governance, spatial analysis
This thesis was motivated by an interest in the phenomenon commonly labelled as ‘new regionalism’ and in how ‘new regionalism’ underwent a change as attention turned to cities and city-regions from around the year 2000. The main objective of this study was to develop a framework for understanding how regions and city-regions have – if at all – ‘resurged’ in Europe as new objects and subjects of policy-making. I examine new (city-)regionalism in view of the general ‘neoliberalization’ of the state and of the related changes in the role of the state as the primary unit of socio-economic regulation, political organization and identity-building. To use a much-recurring term of the body of literature that inspired this study, I approach the actual outcomes of state spatial reorganization processes as the spatial manifestations of “actually existing neoliberalisms” (Brenner and Theodore, 2002). On this basis, my aim was to elaborate a theoretical and conceptual perspective from which the ongoing struggles to (re)define the spatial organization of the state can become better understood and the concrete outcomes of the struggles be better explained.
The invention of the historic city - building the past in East Berlin 1970 - 1990
architecture, urban planning, heritage, heritage status, tenement, neighbourhood, urban renewal, history of urban planning
The idea of a “historic city” is a rather recent phenomenon. As a conceptual framework, it evolved over the course of the 1970s and 1980s from the intellectual foundations of modernist urban design. This is especially well illustrated in East Berlin, where a heterogeneous group of politicians, architects, and scholars called for an urban environment that provides the individual experience of historicity. Their ideas were most prominently infused in a series of showcase projects built during the 1980s. For the celebration of Berlin’s 750th anniversary in 1987, some of the long-despised late-19th-century tenement neighborhoods were remodeled and fitted out with the insignia of historic every-day life. In addition, a number of representative architectural ensembles were built that made use of different historic styles. The invention of the historic city collapsed the memories of different historic periods into a generic notion of “the past.” This process relied on a specific elasticity of the language employed by designers and theorists. Over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, terms such as preservation or reconstruction retained a positive connotation while simultaneously time undergoing a radical change in meaning. In the same way, the quasi-biological conception of the city as a body with a life cycle, where “obsolete” neighborhoods had to be regularly demolished, was gradually suspended. Through both remodeling and new construction, the East German leaders and their collaborators initiated a renaissance of once neglected neighborhoods, which after the German reunification became prime locations for upscale housing and retail. Construction policy before and after the German reunification therefore has to be seen as a continuous development rather than a break. Despite the different political and economic system in the German Democratic Republic, East Berlin design politics during the 1970s and 1980s paralleled the approaches in Western countries, where real and imagined urban history was increasingly commodified and marketed to local elites and tourists. The historic city also became the conceptual background for a widely practiced exegesis of historic residues, through which Berlin’s middle classes claimed social and political legitimacy.
TU Berlin - Technische Universität Berlin
The spatial economy in the urban informal settlement
informal settlement, kampong, poverty, spatial analysis, urban space, economics, spatial economy, slum, colonial city, urban society
In the rapidly urbanizing world, the informal settlement has been forming a significant part of the common urban scene in many cities in the developing countries. It holds a particular role in the city as it houses millions of urban poor who has no access to the public housing. However it does not only offer accommodation but also economic opportunities that enables the inhabitants to survive. The informal settlement displays a very specific and particular mechanism of survival that is significantly characterized by the notion of flexibility in term of production and spatial occupation. This research aims to investigate the local spatial economy or the spatial dynamic of survivability in the informal settlement. It focuses on the notion of space and locations of the process of survival in such settlement by analyzing the way the spaces are organized and negotiated as one of the most important tool of production and the place of production. It analyzes the dynamics by relating it to the notions of the social capital and the life chances in the informal settlement. Moreover in order to offer a deeper understanding of the problem, apart from the looking at the actual and the localized problem, it will also look at the root of the problems by relating it to its past as an element of a colonial city; and analyse the major economic forces that contribute to its creation by relating it with the Dual City theory in order to accentuate the nature of the problem and its position in the metropolitan context. The research employs the case of kampong to illustrate the case of the informal settlement in the city of Jakarta, Indonesia. The result of the research shows that the dynamic of the survivability in the informal settlement is characterized by a multi-tier relationship between the formal and the informal economy. The continuity of its production is related to the wider economic sector; namely the formal sector, that creates demands and economic opportunities for them. It is also strongly bounded with its actual location; dislocation would therefore destroy the local livelihood. The local economic activities are also determined by the flexibility of the local spatial organization and production. These particular characters enable the inhabitants to manoeuvre in order to survive amidst the limited capital and resource. The process of production is highly depended on the intensity social relation that makes the spatial negotiation and the flexible production possible to take place. The local survivability therefore is in the same time very flexible and fragile.
Regionalism in the new globalized economy : Politics of scale and the discourse of regionalism - comparative politics of two Japanese global city-regions
region, regionalism, globalisation, urban policy, political sciences, world city, global city, economics
This study examines the effects of globalization on state restructuring and the status of cities and local governments. I conduct a comparative case study of two Japanese world cities, Tokyo and Osaka, Japan. Existing globalization theories offer only partial explanations that fail to grasp the dynamic aspects of such rescaling. To explore the dynamics of government restructuring, this study investigates the relationship between decentralization, regionalization and globalization, highlighting the role of local leaders who employed political rhetoric in their efforts to rescale the city. This research finds that uneven economic effects of globalization are not the direct cause for the political actions of local leaders for government rescaling. Instead, local leaders pursued regionalism as political strategy, including to improve their ability to gain central government aid and to improve independent local economic viability, depending on the conditions of locally specific intergovernmental relations. Regionalism was a function of competition between city-regions over central government aid rather than globalization. The Japanese central government favored directly Tokyo as its strongest city-region for investment under globalization. In response, the leaders of the disadvantaged region Osaka sought decentralization for autonomy and regionalization for economic viability. The consequence is the combination of decentralization and regionalization under globalization. This process observed in Japan can provide insight as to the effects of globalization on government structure and the importance of local politics in the government rescaling. This theoretical approach to globalization and its effects on government does not contradict existing theories in the literature. Rather, this local strategic interactive approach supplements them by weaving them together. By introducing the strategic actions of local actors to the existing theories, it can reconcile competing theories, such as world cities thesis versus the nested scale theory and state globalization versus new localism.
The magic of the city : Representing places of the dead in the contemporary Western metropolis
urban culture, magic, cemetery, graveyard, memorial, dead
This thesis posits that throughout history, the Western city has been made and understood according to a shared image of the cosmos. It argues that though the contours of this cosmos have changed over time and place, collectively held understandings of the city endure to the present day. Drawing on literary and cultural theory, this way of understanding the city may be conceptualised as "magical", that is incorporating knowledge which is hermeneutic and mythical, as well as empirical. The specific example of places of the dead, understood as cemeteries, memorials and other locations at which the dead are actually or symbolically interred, is used in this thesis to test the notion that that the city may continue to be understood as a reflection of world view. Places of the dead provide an appropriate test case for this task, as their forms and locations have clear associations with temporally and culturally specific understandings of the city. This thesis applies textual analysis and discourse analysis to seven case studies of contemporary places of the dead in order to examine the way in which the magic of the city may operate in one typology of place. It considers the representation of these case studies in a large array of texts, with particular emphasis on fictional, and thus potentially "magical", texts such as novels, television series and architectural drawings, as well as postcards, movies, cartoons, photographs, songs and paintings. The results of the case studies are used to argue not only that the city continues to be understood using a wide variety of ways of knowing, but also that these alternative epistemologies offer insights into contemporary cities which are not gained through the use of conventional methodologies.
In whose interest? A critical approach to Southeast Asia’s urban transport dynamics
transport policy, public transport, transport, infrastructure
During recent decades, urban transport systems in Southeast Asia’s industrialising high growth economies were transformed. The ownership and use of privatelyowned cars and motorcycles grew in all cities, simultaneous to the introduction of new forms of public transportation including rail rapid transit in the larger metropolises. While these cities all experienced dynamic change, the relative rate and direction of the changes to urban transport systems varied greatly as did levels of success. Singapore emerged as a highly efficient transit metropolis whilst Bangkok and other cities gained notoriety as some of the world’s great traffic disasters. Why these differences emerged, particularly given a regional and global context of increasing interaction and exchange of ideas and of capital flows, presents a compelling question largely unanswered by previous research. A review of the general state of knowledge about urban transport worldwide reveals fundamental disagreements over basic questions such as the social value of motorisation, the relative merits of specific modes and technologies, and prescriptions for change. However, there is a general consensus that interest groups or rent-seekers influence urban transport, which can not be understand in solely technical or value-free terms. A literature review focused on Southeast Asian cities finds that in contrast to theoretical perspectives on cities of the industrialised world, there is less acknowledgement of interests and values and more emphasis on instrumental knowledge which can be used to address immediate problems such as rapid growth in motorisation, traffic congestion, and pollution. Questions such as who wins and who loses from changes to urban transport systems are not systematically examined in the existing literature on Southeast Asian cities. In order to address this gap, a case study analysis of three key cities, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore is undertaken. This analysis utilises policy and planning documents, monographs and academic works, newspapers and archival materials, discussions with key informants, and participant observation, to reveal the significant actors and processes which shape urban transport. The study finds that the presence or absence of actors and complexions of interests in the development of urban land, urban transport equipment, infrastructure construction and operation, and local environmental improvements are linked to specific urban transport outcomes. The findings provide a basis for future research, particularly in cities of the developing world characterised by economic growth, rapid motorisation of urban transport systems, and substantial inequalities of wealth and power.