In a city like Delhi : Sustainability and spirituality
spirituality, religion, sustainable development, sustainable city, urban planning, urban environment
The broad purpose of ‘In A City Like Delhi’ is to make an argument in favour of the positive link between spirituality and sustainability. Sustainability, at its core, requires an ethical commitment, and the thesis proposes that spirituality may be that vital means through which sustainability may be truly animated, in theory and in practice. The thesis is particularly preoccupied with considering the yet fully unrealised competence of spirituality to enrich the understanding and practise of sustainability in the urban space. To this end, it uses a very particular case study to make a modest exploration of such a conceptual association – the city of Delhi. The concept of sustainability, as articulated in the West, is primarily a secular notion. While international religious and spiritual organisations have taken up the sustainability challenge, the reverse is less true – sustainability planning is rarely conducted in a dialogue with religious or spiritual institutions and resources. In this context the case study of an Indian megacity to examine the relationship between religion, spirituality, secularism and development, is particularly interesting. The thesis explores, as one example of the potential interface, how Hindu spirituality as interpreted by Mahatma Gandhi, may usefully inform a spiritual philosophy to enliven a sustainability consciousness in Delhi. The theoretical speculations of the thesis are grounded in the local context by seeking the perspectives of twenty primary informants from Delhi who are all associated with various levels of planning and implementing development in the city. I specifically chose my interviewees from secular development backgrounds (rather than religious and spiritual representatives) because this would enrich critical understanding of how spirituality may be viewed within a secular sustainability discourse. I use their views on spirituality, sustainable development, and any affinities between the two notions to balance my own perspective, derived from both my research and my personal experience of the city of my birth. The interviews gave added depth to the environmental, economic and social challenges confronting the city of Delhi, which were already evident in the literature review. Additionally however, the interviews confirmed the hypothesis that sustainable development and spirituality together could have a productive, coherent and an even inseparable grounding union in Delhi and that spirituality may be vital in facilitating that essential shift in consciousness that a sustainable mindset requires. These findings are crucial to any study or strategy considering comprehensive sustainable development for Delhi.
Imagining Brisbane : Narratives of the city 1975-1995
imaginary, literature, identity, representation, gender, urban culture, urban space
Imagining Brisbane focuses on a number of narratives set in Brisbane and published between 1975 and 1995. The major narratives are Jessica Anderson's The Commandant and Tirra Lirra by the River, David Malouf's 12 Edmondstone Street and Johnno, Susan Johnson's Messages from Chaos, Janette Turner Hospital's The Last Magician, Jay Vemey's A Mortality Tale, Rosie Scott's Lives on Fire, Nick Earls' Zigzag Street, Venero Armanno's Romeo of the Underworld, and Andrew McGahan's Praise and 1988. The study examines, principally through textual analysis, the ways in which Brisbane as a city is actively constituted by the narratives (Donald, 1997: 187) as they explore the links between identity and place. The focus here is not to compare the real to the fictional city, rather to analyse how the fictional representations invite us to see the city (183). This being said, the narratives themselves often deal with events, developments and geographies of place that have been part of the "real" that has shaped Brisbane's history. In broad terms the narratives are involved in a deliberate and self-conscious naming of specific sites, spaces and topographical markers of Brisbane; they emphasise the importance of the spatial in the formation of subjectivity and they examine the gendered nature of the relationships between space and subjectivity with a strong emphasis on the body. The dissertation also addresses issues fundamental to the ways in which the narratives might be seen to constitute a regional discourse; to this end the thesis raises questions in relation to patterns and motifs that emerge in common in the texts, and considers the ways in which they participate in particular cultural mythologisings of the city. To frame and investigate the issues, the study draws on a range of theoretical concepts offered by cultural geography, gender analysis and theories of the city, particularly those concerned with the spatial.
Squatters as developers? : Mumbai's slum dwellers as equity partners in redevelopment
slum, inhabitants, participation, urban renewal, slum clearance, slum redevelopment, slum upgrading, housing
This dissertation analyzes the slum redevelopment strategy introduced by the state government of Maharashtra (India) in its capital city, Mumbai (Bombay). The strategy involves demolishing the existing slums and building on the same sites at a higher density, new, medium-rise apartment-blocks including entirely cross-subsidized housing for the original slum dwellers. Slum redevelopment is distinctly different from the two prevalent conventional strategies with respect to slums in developing countries - slum clearance and slum upgrading. Interestingly, the strategy appears to enjoy considerable support of slum dwellers, NGOs, private developers and politicians. The study focuses on a single slum redevelopment case - the Markandeya Cooperative Housing Society (MCHS) - to show how the state government amended the land development regulations to enhance the potential land values and allowed the slum dwellers to share in the high development values. This analysis of the role of the State in promoting a new housing strategy and providing crucial support in implementation contributes to our understanding of housing policy in three ways. First, it provides insights into slum redevelopment as an alternative housing strategy. It analyzes the problems faced and the solutions innovated in the implementation of this strategy. It argues that despite slum redevelopment's shortcomings, the strategy may be superior to other alternatives, especially if the State can provide implementation support. Second, it identifies non-traditional issues, often overlooked in housing improvement that may help make slum upgrading programs more successful. Contrary to the conventional focus only on private property rights, the dissertation argues for policy to be based on a differentiated view of property rights (including common property rights) that also considers the property values, the physical structure of the property-holdings and the interplay among these issues. Third, the study reveals the complexities involved in housing production for low-income groups and demonstrates that enabling housing provision, even with the participation of private sector agents, requires an active government role. Paradoxically, enabling may require four levels of seeming contradictions - both decentralization and centralization; both demand-driven and supply driven development; both private as well as public investment; and both deregulation and new regulations.
The image of the urban landscape : The re-discovery of the city through different spaces of perception
image, perception, urban space, architecture, urban landscape, urban sociology, film
The present doctoral thesis, "The Image of the Urban Landscape", aims to acquire knowledge of the city as a complex dynamic entity, submitted to the parameters of change and time, and the imperatives of culture. It does not pretend to analyse the city as an object, through a factual and quantified observation. It is unquestionable that the city is a material construct built on political, economical, and social parameters. However, the city is also a "mental event", acknowledged by sensory experiences within the parameters of space and time.
Sydney : Brought to you by world city and cultural industry actor-networks
world city, global city, actor-network theory, cultural industry, economics
There have been recent contributions to the world city literature and the new economic geography literature that have focused on city connectivity and practicebased research, through concepts such as city actor-networks, relational geographies and project-led enquiries. As this literature is developing, this thesis aims to analyse and contribute to it by providing an empirical focus in two main themes that have so far been marginalised in these literatures – the city of Sydney, and the cultural industries. An alternative conceptualisation of world cities, namely ‘new urbanism’, which employs Actor-Network Theory, will be utilised in this thesis to ask the question, what are the actants of Sydney’s cultural industries (specifically the film and TV production industry), and how are they enrolled to create the spacing and timing of Sydney’s actor-networks? By answering this question, this thesis will contribute to the knowledge in three ways: theoretically, by adding weight to the alternative concepts of new urbanism and relational economic geographies; empirically, by studying two themes that have been hitherto underdeveloped in the existing literature; and methodologically, through new developing empirical agendas that cover the quantification of Sydney’s world city network and ANT-inspired ethnographic, ‘project-based’ enquiry.
Journeys in extraordinary everyday culture : Walking in the contemporary city
urban culture, urban life, urban sociology, festival, urban society, urban space, walking
The broad argument underpinning this thesis is that a feature of contemporary city life deserving further critical attention is that of the ‘extraordinary everyday.’ I coin this term as a way of identifying and describing an increasingly common place articulation or ‘interface’ between the extraordinary (that is, the production and experience of spectacle and intense affective states within the context of technologically mediated, contemporary urban space), and the everyday (the seemingly banal routines and structures that organise our day to day existence in a consumer society).
Processes of consolidation and differentiation of informal settlements : Case study Ciudad Nezahualc√≥yotl, Mexico City
informal settlement, urban form, spatial analysis, urbanisation
The objective of this work is to document the spatial and functional differentiation of informal settlements, thereby using Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl in Mexico City as a case study. As an interpretation reference of such differentiation, the growth stages of settlements were used. Still, the major finding of this research is, that the evolution and resulting characteristics of such settlements can be better understood, if the phenomenon of informal urbanization was considered from the perspective of the concept of a City framework. Nevertheless, the qualities of this new type of urban agglomeration can be considered unique so that it differs strongly from the conventional idea of city.
Bottoms, Hollows and Flats : Making and remaking the lower section of the American city
urban environment, slum, disadvantaged district, residential segregation, poverty, zoning, urban renewal, slum clearance, urban project
This dissertation is an urban environmental history of the low-lying American slum. Using qualitative research methods, I investigate the historical phenomenon of topographically based, socio-economic segregation in cities, and how urban actors first created these places then remade them. I examine six low-lying urban neighborhoods in the United States: "The Bottoms" in Columbus, Ohio; "Frog Hollow" in Hartford, Connecticut; "The Flats" in Los Angeles, California; "Black Bottom" in Nashville, Tennessee; "Swede Hollow" in St. Paul, Minnesota; and, "Foggy Bottom" in Washington, D.C. The first part of the thesis examines how land and factory owners, real estate developers, and speculators made urban lowlands into residential districts nicknamed bottoms, hollows, and flats beginning in the late nineteenth century. I argue that the deliberately incomplete implementation of urban interventions such as sewerage, water supply, and flood protection created interstitial spaces for stigmatized residence. Considered potentially threatening strangers, foreign immigrants, black migrants, and poor country whites were forced down into the lowlands, which functioned as containment zones within the internal structure of the city. The second part of the thesis details three modes of remaking the lowlands: slum clearance, zoning, and big projects. Late nineteenth century attempts to remove residents and eliminate slums encountered resistance from voters and city officials due to concerns that displaced undesirables would move into their city spaces. By the 1920s, zoning helped to ease middle and upper class fears of invasion by promulgating rules to protect neighborhoods of single-family homes. After 1937, the federal government funded resident removal and physical redevelopment through public housing, highways, and the urban renewal program, erasing the old lowland slums. The history of urban lowlands highlights the low-lying landscape as an urban nexus point, revealing an inherent conflict between urban actors over containment of the poor versus the redevelopment of stigmatized districts. Planners intervene in this conflict, and assist in the repeated remaking of desirable and undesirable city spaces. The thesis draws connections among physical planning, social inequality, natural processes, and urban space in lowlands of unique interest to scholars and practicing planners in an era of renewed interest in the environment of cities.
Rehabilitating camp cities : Community-driven planning for urbanised refugee camps
refugee, urban planning, participation, refugee camp
Focussing on Palestine refugee camps in the Near East, this dissertation aims to shed light on the potential relevance of urban planning to refugee camp environments worldwide. In particular, there is a focus on the role architects and urban planners can play in facilitating participatory planning processes as well as providing guidance and expertise in the development of a spatial vision for Camp Cities. Part I – The Urbanisation of Refugee Camps as a Global Challenge The first part of the dissertation provides an overview of global phenomenon of refugee camp urbanisation. Notions of “Camp-City”, “Virtual City” and other conceptual models developed by international scholars in relation to camp urbanisation will be introduced and critically discussed in relation to existing tools and policy guidelines developed by the main agents of international refugee protection. The chapter focuses on debates and discussions that have led to the recent revival of “developmental” and “rights-based” approaches to UNHCR policies and programmes. However, the brief analysis of actual situations in three exemplary African camps reveals the many political hurdles and obstacles, which prevent a full implementation of a developmental and rights based approach in practice. Part II – Palestine Camp Cities: Case Studies of Urbanised Refugee Camps in the Near East The second part of the dissertation introduces Palestine refugee camps, the main focus of this dissertation and explains in detail the factors that have led to a spectacular and perhaps unparalleled urbanisation process. The discussion centres on the results of three holistic case studies of exemplary Palestine refugee camps in the West Bank. Analytical tools and methodologies from urban research in informal settlement contexts are applied to analyse land use, zoning, degrees of density and congestion, building safety, infrastructure and the camp’s physical integration into its urban, suburban or rural context. The spatial-physical situation analysis is complemented by an analysis of urbanisation in social and cultural terms including the camp’s institutions, leadership as well as gender roles, internal and external conflicts and resolution models. Part III – Camp Improvement Planning: Piloting Community-driven Urban Rehabilitation for Palestine Camp Cities The third part provides a critical reflection on the pilot project in participatory camp improvement conducted by the UNRWA-Stuttgart planning team between 2007 and 2008. Successes and conflicts of planning process are being analysed, followed by critical comments on key outstanding issues that need to be resolved before camp improvement can be fully launched in all camps. Three speculative scenarios are introduced: A worst case scenario which predicts a catastrophic future for Camp Cities in case the camp improvement initiative or its successors will fail. A second scenario speculates on how successful camp improvement might prevent the gloomy predictions of scenario one as a “best possible compromise” in the context of an enduring refugee crisis. While camp rehabilitation cannot and should not substitute a long-overdue political settlement, in the intermediate term, the traditional notion of “Refugee camps” could be radically redefined in the interest of those suffering under the extreme congestion, poverty and dehumanised environment of the present. The final scenario describes a situation in which “peace breaks out”. How might the reality of a negotiated peaceful settlement ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict impact on the Camp Cities? Part IV – Conclusion In the final part of the dissertation the author draws more general conclusions on the applicability of the CIP methodology to refugee camps beyond the Middle East, arguing that Palestine camps – which are both, the most urbanised, and also the best-funded – should lead the search for innovative approaches to camp urbanisation worldwide. Facing increasing protracted and urbanised camp situations, the UNHCR and other actors of the international refuge regime could benefit from the Palestinian experience. The application of the Palestine model of integrated, community driven urban planning to other camps that have not yet reached the critical levels of congestion could prevent a “disaster in the making”. Furthermore, the CIP model provides lessons which can be useful to non-refugee contexts such as informally developed, congested and impoverished urban settings in the Middle Eastern region and beyond, and help to champion notions such as grass-root participation, community empowerment, and strategic planning.
The psychasthenia of deep space : Evaluating the 'reassertion of space in critical social theory'
urban space, Soja Edward, Koolhaas Rem, Space Syntax, urban geography, urban society, urban form, spatial analysis, Harvey David, Giddens Anthony, Foucault Michel, Lefebvre Henri, Hillier Bill
The aim of this work is to question the notion of space that underlies the claimed ‘spatial turn’ in geographical and social theory. Section 1 examines this theoretical literature, drawing heavily on Soja as the self declared taxonomist of the genre, and also seeks parallels with more populist texts on cities and space, to suggest, following Williams, that there is a new ‘structure of feeling’ towards space. Section 1 introduces two foundational concepts. The first, derived from Soja’s misunderstanding of Borges’ story The Aleph, argues for an ‘alephic vision’, an imposition of a de-materialized and revelatory understanding of space. This is related to the second, an ‘ecstatic vision’, which describes the tendency, illustrated through the work of Koolhaas and recent exhibitions on the experience of cities, to treat spatial and material experience in hyperbolic and hallucinatory terms. Section 2 offers a series of theoretical reconstructions which seek to draw out parallels between the work of key theorists of what I term the ‘respatialization’ literature (Harvey, Giddens, Foucault and Lefebvre) and the work of Hillier et al in the Space Syntax school. A series of empirical studies demonstrate that the approach to the material realm offered by Space Syntax is not only theoretically compatible but can also help to explain ‘real world’ phenomena. However, the elision with wider theoretical positions points to the need for a reworking of elements of Space Syntax, and steps towards this goal are offered in section 3. In the final ‘speculative epilogue’ I reopen the philosophical debates about the nature of space, deliberately suppressed from the beginning, and suggest that perhaps the apparent theoretical and empirical versatility of Space Syntax, based upon a configurational approach to space as a complex relational system, may offer an alternative approach to these enduring metaphysical debates.
Public transport policy and land use in Melbourne and Toronto, 1950 to 1990
urban transport policy, public transport, land use, infrastructure, transport
This study examines the reasons behind the decline in public transport patronage in Melbourne between 1950 and 1990, through a comparison with Toronto. The share of urban travel undertaken by public transport has declined since the Second World War in all developed countries, but public transport patronage in Melbourne appears to have declined more rapidly than in most other industrialised cities. Public transport has, however, gained or held ground in Toronto, where the form of development is similar in many ways to Melbourne. Most accounts of Toronto's success (particularly in Australia) regard transport/land-use integration as the critical factor. The contrasting analysis maintains that Melbourne's urban form has changed over this period to a dispersed, car-oriented pattern. This study evaluates a different interpretation of the 'Toronto model'. This is that Toronto has undergone similar urban changes to Melbourne since the war, but has found a way of operating public transport successfully in a relatively dispersed environment. The contrast with Melbourne, then, is not primarily in land-use patterns, but in policies towards the operation of public transport. The principal research objective for this study is to determine the cause of the difference in public transport performance in Melbourne and Toronto since the war, with particular attention to the role played by urban form and transport policy. The research objective is addresed by examining current patterns of, and historical trends in, urban form in the two cities, and comparing these with public transport patronage trends. The comparison reveals that land use does not show correlations with public transport patronage. Patronage does, however, correlate closely with the differing quality of public transport services in the two cities. The explanation for the contrasting patronage performances is found to lie not in urban form, but in the different policies toward public trnasport in the two cities. In Metropolitan Toronto, services have been planned and integrated by a public monopoly; policy in Melbourne has been market-driven, and based around competition and extensive private sector involvement. Toronto's centrally planned system has proven the more flexible in practice, successfully responding to the challenges of changing travel patterns and rising car ownership. While public transport operators in Melbourne have competed with one another, Metro Toronto's single operator has competed with the car.
Eccentric cities : Nikolai Gogol's Saint Petersburg and Jan Neruda's Prague
literature, urban culture, Gogol Nikolai, Neruda Jan, urban space, urban life, identity
In Universe of the Mind, Yuri Lotman proposes that some cities are "eccentric". These eccentric cities do not clearly correspond to the nation in which they are located because of discrepancies in architecture, geography, or politics, thus pushing them to the edge or beyond a country's identity. The cities of Saint Petersburg and Prague represent two examples of cities existing beyond the boundaries of their respective cultures in the nineteenth century. Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire and "Window to the West", represented a focus on foreign rather than native culture. Similar tensions between internal and external cultures plagued Prague, the capital of an imagined Czech nation, governed by the Austrian Empire and dominated by German language and art forms. This dissertation explores the ways in which these two eccentrically located urban spaces express the tensions between Western and Eastern Europe that arise from their geographical positioning and historical development as depicted in Nikolai Gogol's Petersburg Tales (1833-1842) and Jan Neruda's Prague Tales (1867-1878). These short story collections reflect the complex cultural geography of Petersburg and Prague and the complications of daily living caused by each city's particular eccentricity.
For the enjoyment of all" : Cosmopolitan aspirations urban encounters and class boundaries in Mexico City
diversity, social mix, class, ethnicity, social interaction, social segregation, urban space, urban planning, cultural anthropology, cosmopolitism
This dissertation examines the production and experience of class and racial distinctions in contemporary Mexico City by focusing on encounter and proximity between different social groups in the country's most emblematic urban center. It draws on eighteenth months of ethnographic fieldwork with artists and young professionals living in the city's historic center as part of a public-private redevelopment plan locally known as the "rescue." Led by multimillionaire Carlos Slim, this endeavor has been framed as an initiative of civil society to recover the symbolic heart of the nation from crime and illegality while transforming it into a secure and livable space for all Mexicans. The rescue mobilizes a neoliberal idiom of the modern (associated in Mexico and across the world with democracy and responsible citizenship, a retreating state and a free market economy) and epitomizes the illegibility of public and private distinctions. I focus on moments of encounter between the historic center's new affluent residents, on the one hand, and the inhabitants of its dilapidated tenements and the vendors of its informal street markets, on the other. Such encounters slide into suspicion, uncertainty, instability and misrecognition. In focusing on encounter I trace new residents' desire for commonality, for an "all of us" in the historic center (a recognition as urban dwellers or as fellow citizens), and their anxieties about the very possibility of this commonality. Such situated fears, I argue, articulate with longstanding elite apprehensions in Mexico about the popular masses, historically construed as the embodiment of the national subject and at the same time as the manifestation of atavistic residues. In the discourses and practices of different agents of rescue (new residents, the police, private investors and state officials) these masses figure at once as subjects to be redeemed and as plainly irredeemable others, unfit for the requirements of modern democratic citizenship. The dissertation thus traces relations between new residents' quotidian fears of crime and violence in the socially mixed spaces of the historic center on the one hand, and contemporary debates and anxieties over liberal democracy, citizenship and social belonging, on the other.
Leisure Coast City : A comparative history of the urban leisure waterfront. Barcelona. Chicago. Buenos Aires. 1870-1930
urban history, leisure, park, public space, waterfront, port city
The urban waterfront is in the spotlight. During the last decades harbour facilities have been moved away from urban centres. Projects for the recovery and restructuring of obsolete industrial areas by the water are sprawling all over the globe. The process of recovery of the urban waterfront that takes place currently began more than a century ago with the discovery of the urban waterfront as a space of leisure. Waterfronts, as urban spaces, have followed a development signed by different conflicts than those of the rest of the city. On the one hand, they have been spaces especially open to intervention, for their location created little conflict with the social order of cities. On the other hand they have been conflicted spaces regarding the struggle between the installation of harbour facilities and leisure spaces, linked to jurisdictional problems between national and metropolitan authorities. The use of the urban waterfront as leisure space was different in Europe and in North and South America. In most of European capitals the waterfront was occupied by harbour facilities, and due to commercial expansion, these spaces were growing and became segregated from urban space. This process did not allow the development of leisure areas on the waterfront. On the other hand, in North and South America the waterfronts became spaces of opportunity and the development of harbour and leisure space was contemporary and flexible, giving an important role to landscape on the waterfront. The cases of Barcelona, Chicago and Buenos Aires appeared to be the most suitable for the analysis of this phenomenon. They appear as models for other waterfront cities throughout the western world. Incidentally they were also hosts of international exhibitions in the period between 1870 and 1930. This project studies the issues of these spaces with an analytical and critical view, searching for primary and secondary sources to evaluate the use of leisure in the projects for the urban waterfront and the way this has been practised in three particular case studies. The reciprocal influence between leisure activities, urban design and mass events are analysed as a main backbone of this research.
Central London under reconstruction policy and planning, 1940 - 1959
reconstruction, urban planning, history of urban planning, post-war, city centre
The thesis deals with the formation of the post-Second World War reconstruction and planning machinery in Great Britain on the one hand, and on the other, with the replanning efforts undertaken in London and especially the redevelopment programme regarding its central area in the form of the comprehensive development projects. The central hypothesis is that, although the planning thought, legislation and technique realised significant evolutionary steps by introducing important innovatory instruments and bold planning concepts, the rebuilding of Central London was not a success to a comparable extent. This divergence between concept, plan and outcome was mainly due to the difficulties faced during the implementation stage as a result of financial problems and, in addition, to the way that the application of aspects of Modern Architecture in some of the new buildings were carried out. The work is structured in three parts. The first one, under the title "Reconstruction and Planning Machinery", explores the administrative and statutory developments in town planning matters during the period 1940-1959. The conclusion of this analysis is that, because of the sweeping character of the new planning system which was introduced, a contradiction had emerged due to the pluralistic character of the British socio-economic system. The second part has the title “Replanning London” and deals with the plans proposed for London as a whole during the 1940s. The main finding was that the six plans which were proposed could be considered as sections of one planning endeavour. These plans have a unified and continuous character, although each one had been prepared by a different team of planners. Finally, the third part, under the title “Redeveloping Central London”, examines the proposals for the rebuilding of the City of London and for specific areas of Central London located on both sides of the Thames. The main conclusion of this analysis is that, although these projects introduced innovations concerning the control of urban densities, and the hygiene of residence and office accommodation in the city centre, they failed to achieve one of their main targets. This was the unification of both parts of Central London located at the north and south banks of the Thames.
Urban sprawl and spatial planning : Facing the challenges of growing social inequity. Case study : Córdoba - Argentina
urban sprawl, spatial planning, social equity, urban segregation
This research proposes to study spatial planning in a context of high social inequity. The analysis is focused on the possibilities that spatial planning has to attenuate conditions of inequity in urban development derived from urban growth process; in the framework of neoliberal policy orientation and new consensus on strategic planning developed in the last decades.
Accommodating places : A migrant ethnography of two cities (Hong Kong and Sydney)
immigration, urban space, migrant, ethnography
This ethnography is based on fieldwork in two very different cities, Hong Kong and Sydney. It traces the movements of subjects from Hong Kong through the analysis of differing modes of inhabiting urban space. The texture of lived spaces provides an analytic focus for examining a highly mobile migrant group. This ethnography explores the mesh of objective structures and migrant subjectivities in a mobile field of migrant ‘place’. A basic assumption of this study is that people from Hong Kong have acquired a common array of dispositions attuned to living in a specific environment. Hong Kong’s dense and challenging urban space embodies aspects of the singular historical ‘production of space’ underpinning a colonial entrepôt that has expanded into a major global economic node. The conditions of lived space are examined through an historical analysis of urban space in Hong Kong and an ethnographic analysis of spatial practices and dispositions. The sprawling spaces of suburban Sydney clearly differ sharply from that of Hong Kong. Interview accounts of settling in Sydney are used to investigate the ‘gap’ in spatial dispositions. Settling entails both practical accommodations to new and unfamiliar localities and an interweaving of cultural and ideological elements into the expanded everyday of migrant subjectivity. Language and speech are integral to spatial practices and provide means of referencing and evaluating ongoing social relations and trajectories. The ‘discourse space’ of interview accounts of settlement in Sydney and movements back to Hong Kong are closely examined, yielding an array of perceptions and representations of different, and contested styles of urban life. All the senses are brought into play in accounts of densities and absences in people’s everyday worlds. At the same time this thesis provides a perspective from which to interrogate contemporary interpretations of ‘transnational’ migration, suggesting the need for an analysis grounded in a specific economy of capacities and dispositions to appropriate social and symbolic goods.
Emerging process of residential segregation in metropolitan cities : Case study of Bombay and Madras
metropolis, residential segregation, housing, poverty, social housing
The aim of the proposed study is to investigate the emerging process of residential segregation within metropolitan cities with specific reference to two case studies.
Urban renaissance : The meaning, management and manipulation of place, 1945 - 2002
post-industrial city, de-industrialisation, urban renewal, heritage, urban heritage, urban change
The transition from deindustrial to post industrial city from the 1970s exposed how cities developed regeneration strategies as their traditional industrial base experienced terminal contraction. These strategies to re-make urban places positioned at their core an improvement of the built environment either by retaining and adapting or demolishing and replacing historic buildings. Decisions to re-use or demolish revealed the contemporary valorisations of the past as they mediated the extent to which the reinvention of the city embraced or denied the cumulative memories of the city. Unravelling these decisions revealed the process of urban change by exposing the management of urban regeneration, the actors and agencies involved, their motives, constraints and failings and their ability to access funding. How these actors valued, perceived, and subsequently received the cityscape was revealed by their decisions whether or not to incorporate the historic environment in their vision for the city. Moreover, how public and private agencies such as local authorities, government quangos, and entrepreneurs manipulated the existing capital stock to attract people and investment into the inner cities was a vital component of urban regeneration. Four stages of re-making places: recognising place, managing urban change, seducing urban users, and manipulating the historic environment that each exposed the contemporary valuations of the past were identified and were explored through an examination of two British and one French urban centre. By these means, and using these examples, the research located the practice of restoration and re-use in the context of place-making and value judgements to question the extent to which there was a contemporary place for urban history.
Imagination and the modern city : Reform and the urban geography of Toronto, 1890-1929
imagination, urban planning, urban geography
The moral injunctions about beauty and order that attach to turn-of-the-twentieth-century urban reform and city planning derived from the era's concern with Domesticity and evangelicalism. Evangelical Protestant women believed they could protect their homes and children by creating, safe, orderly, aesthetic--"homelike"--environments in the home and in the city. This environmentalist city milieu hummed with ideas appropriated from the Decorative Arts--the social necessity of art, the practicality of beauty, the beauty of practicality--and millennialism, namely the social, moral, and Christian efficacy of environmental perfectionism. Little wonder that city planners created perfectionist plans for the comprehensive implementation of beauty in the city. City planning emphasised parks, parkways, artfully designed roadways, and "street furnishing" to create cities that abated congestion and exuded probity in what planners saw as over-populated and immoral modern cities. In Toronto, parks and even asphalt pavement were conveyors of municipal beauty, dignity, and art, and could lend moral influence to a city under the weight of size, density, and heterogeneity. The creation of parks and diagonal roadways in both the 'Plan of 1909' and the 'Plan of 1929' were intended to add not only beauty through decorative design, but also practicality, by relieving the city of population and traffic pressures. The bicycle, too, was seen by Torontonians as means of beautifying the city; the creation of noiseless, clean, and smooth pavements would entice handsome bourgeois riders into the streets and effect the beautification of the human space of the city. Ultimately, this manifestation of "social environmentalism" signifies the organisational proclivity of reformers' geographic imaginations.