Urban Studies

Volume 52, Issue 14, October 2015

1. Title: Gentrification on the Planetary Urban Frontier: The evolution of Turner’s Noösphere

Authors:Elvin Wyly

Abstract:As capitalist urbanisation evolves, so too does gentrification. Theories and experiences that have anchored the reference points of gentrification in the Global North for half a century are now rapidly evolving into more cosmopolitan, dynamic world urban systems of variegated gentrifications. These trends seem to promise a long-overdue postcolonial provincialisation of the entrenched Global North bias of urban theory. Yet there is a jarring paradox between the material realities of some of the largest non-military urban displacements in human history in the Global South, alongside a growing reluctance to ‘impose’ Northern languages, theories and politics of gentrification to understand these processes. In this paper, I negotiate this paradox through an engagement of several seemingly unrelated empirical trends and theoretical debates in urban studies and gentrification. My central argument is that interdependent yet partially autonomous developments in urban entrepreneurialism and transnational markets in labour, real estate and education are transcending the dichotomy between gentrification in cities (the traditional focus of so much place-based research) versus gentrification as a dimension of planetary urbanisation. Amidst the planetary technological transformations now celebrated as ‘cognitive capitalism’ and a communications-consciousness ‘noösphere’, these developments are coalescing into a global, cosmopolitan and multicultural tapestry of explicitly evolutionary class transformations of urban space that adapt to multiply scaled contingencies of urban history, socio-cultural difference, state power and terrains of resistance. The argument proceeds in three steps. First, I explain how social Darwinism was deeply embedded within conventional urban theory in the decades before Ruth Glass gave us a language for the discussion of gentrification, thus perpetuating debates over narrow empirical issues at the expense of deeper critical scrutiny of the evolutionary logics of socio-spatial classifications. Second, I examine the recent movement for a ‘cosmopolitan decolonisation’ of gentrification theory that has emerged at the precise moment when powerful alliances are consolidating the networked infrastructures of gentrification on an unprecedented scale. Third, I analyse the contemporary evolution of gentrification as a recombinant blend of old and new, as the means of class transformation of urban space are accelerated through intensified competition in work, education and housing. The built environments of planetary urbanisation provide ample opportunities not only for diverse cosmopolitan descendants of old-fashioned urban renewal in the style of Haussmann’s Paris or Moses’ New York, but also for new generations of ‘capitalists with conscience’–entrepreneurial coalitions closing ‘moral rent gaps’ by integrating the economic profits of gentrification with the discourses and practices of environmental sustainability, socially responsible development and global fields of educational opportunity. All of these escalating competitions are legitimated as inclusive multicultural meritocracies. Yet the relentless optimism of competitive innovation in the cognitive-capitalist noösphere is creating dangerous new frontiers of human ecology that reproduce the social-Darwinist ‘form of society’ that Frederick Jackson Turner envisioned in his theorisation of the ‘recurrence of the process of evolution’ in America’s colonial-settler waves of violent dispossession.

2. Title:Commuting and Labour Supply Revisited

Authors:Eva Gutiérrez-i-Puigarnau and Jos N van Ommeren

Abstract:According to theory, road pricing may reduce welfare when labour supply is negatively distorted by an income tax. This effect particularly occurs when commuting costs reduce labour supply. We examine the hypothesis that commuting costs reduce labour supply in the short-run. In particular, we estimate the effect of commuting time on labour supply in the UK. We account for endogeneity of commuting time by employing exogenous changes in commuting time resulting from firm relocations and changes in infrastructure. Our results cast doubt on the idea that increases in commuting cost reduce labour supply, at least in the short-run. More precisely, we find that females’ labour supply reacts positively to or is unaffected by increases in commuting time, whereas males’ labour supply is unaffected.

3.Title:Theorising Chinese Urbanisation: A Multi-layered Perspective

Authors:Chaolin Gu, Christian Kesteloot, and Ian G Cook

Abstract:Urbanisation in China and its rapid increase in recent decades as a result of industrialisation and globalisation are often conceived as a simplified process. Moreover, the speed of the present day process yields the impression that the traces of previous forms of urbanisation are erased for good. Both of these assumptions are challenged in this paper. The built environment resulting from this urbanisation process is to be conceived as a series of layers that reflect different modes of productions and related logics of production of space. Hence, we try to comprehend the spatial arrangement of the city, which can be thought of as a geological metaphor. The social groups that have to be sheltered in urban residential space also radically change in each of these periods. We proceed to analyse these layers and how they combine and interact over time with the concept of socio-spatial configuration, which denotes a precise type of residential environment related to a specific social group in the city. Chinese cities are made up of five types of urbanisation, reflected in five layers and their related socio-spatial configurations: the traditional, proto-globalisation, socialist, market-led and globalisation layers.

4. Title:A Study on the Generalised Space of Urban–Rural Integration in Beijing Suburbs during the Present Day

Authors:Zhijun Song and Linjun Yu

Abstract:Urban–rural integration is a complex process in the giant urban–rural system of the Beijing suburbs with various evolutions in modern suburban functions. Therefore, the functions and processes of the whole Beijing suburb system cannot be treated in isolation. Based on the theory of generalised space proposed by Chen (2008), the urban–rural integration process in the Beijing suburbs was analysed in real space (R-space), phase space (P-space) and order space (O-space). The results show that the macro urban–rural gap is the dominant factor in the O-space. A multifunctional policy at the meso-level will promote the scientific evolution of the P-space. These factors in turn influence the evolution of the urban–rural integration in Beijing suburbs at various levels in the R-space. Finally, new features of spatial organisation, for example, fractals, are generalised from the interactions of those three spaces. Therefore, the perspective of the R-P-O space fusion can provide theoretical guidance to investigators for the urban–rural integration of Beijing suburbs.

5. Title:The Tension between Choice and Need in the Housing of Newcomers: A Theoretical Framework and an Application on Scandinavian Settlement Policies

Authors:Karin Borevi and Bo Bengtsson

Abstract:The settlement and housing of refugees is high on the agenda in most European countries. This article develops a theoretical perspective on the housing provision of newly arrived migrants and applies it on the national discourses on settlement policies in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The theoretical discussion focuses on the ambivalence between choice and need in housing policy, and between promoting demos and ethnos in integration policy. The empirical analysis takes its departure in these tensions and investigates the national discourses in terms of three potential arguments for restricting autonomy in the housing market precisely for newly arrived migrants: the legal status, resource and neighbourhood arguments. This frame of analysis makes it possible to interpret and understand the surprisingly strong differences in settlement policies between the three countries. We argue that our theoretical approach and analytical framework should be relevant for understanding national political discourses on settlement policy more generally.

6. Title:Universities and the Redevelopment Politics of the Neoliberal City

Authors:Sayoni Bose

Abstract:This paper concentrates on universities as important actants in the neoliberal city, specifically through their engagement of development activities. The paper visualises universities as an entrepreneurial subject: a neoliberal institution which adopts the responsibility to redevelop. Towards that end, the paper situates the redevelopment activities of universities and their politics in the context of the neoliberal city. It subsequently identifies the causal structures that underpin the growth logic of universities, which form the condition for their engagement in redevelopment as entrepreneurial subjects. The paper argues that the pressures coming out of the accumulation process act as an impetus for universities to expand, for instance, to accommodate the increasing student enrolments that generate revenues for them. Given their size, specialised infrastructure and the localised logic of bringing students to campus, expansion often means expansion in situ. This puts the spotlight on universities’ politics of redevelopment and the challenges they face as it typically means destruction of existing living and workplaces. Being entrepreneurial, universities maximise their efficiency in the politics of redevelopment to produce minimal resistance. This they do through alliance-building by creating amenable subjectivities that facilitate redevelopment. This is constituted by drawing upon and exacerbating existing cleavages of class and race. The paper presents a case study of redevelopment activities of The Ohio State University, located in Columbus, Ohio. The case study will illustrate why this university became an entrepreneurial subject and how, that is, through what discursive-material mechanisms the politics of persuasion unfolded, producing subjectivities that created (non)acquiescence around redevelopment.

7. Title:Whose City? What Politics? Contentious and Non-Contentious Spaces on Colorado’s Front Range

Authors: Don Mitchell, Kafui Attoh, and Lynn Staeheli

Abstract:Drawing on research from Colorado’s Front Range (the Denver/Boulder metropolitan area), this paper examines the validity of the ‘post-political’ hypothesis for explaining contentiousness and non-contentiousness in urban space. Examining major urban redevelopment efforts in Denver and a controversy over homeless people sleeping in public space in Boulder, we suggest that the literature on post-politics too narrowly circumscribes the realm of political action and in so doing loses analytical force and risks misunderstanding the nature of political engagement in the city. By contrast, a less circumscribed, more supple definition of politics allows for a better understanding of how the question of ‘Whose City?’– who the city is for – is always up for grabs. The appearance of post-political consensus, when it occurs, is itself a political achievement, the making of a hegemony, not an explanation.

8. Title:From Fan Parks to Live Sites: Mega Events and the Territorialisation of Urban Space

Authors: David McGillivray and Matt Frew

Abstract:This article draws on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari to consider the phenomenon of Live Sites and Fan Parks which are now enshrined within the viewing experience of mega sports events. Empirically, the article draws upon primary research on Live Sites generated during the London 2012 Olympic Games. Live Sites are represented as new spaces within which to critically locate and conceptually explore the shifting dynamics of urban space, subjectivity and its performative politic. The authors argue that the first, or primary, spaces of mega sporting events (the official venues) and their secondary counterparts (Live Sites) simply extend brandscaping tendencies but that corporate striation is always incomplete, opening up possibilities for disruption and dislocation.

9. Title:‘I Don’t Think We’ll Ever be Finished with This’: Fear and Safety in Policy and Practice

Authors: Linda Sandberg and Malin Rönnblom

Abstract:In planning contexts, safety is often discussed from a women’s perspective. An ideal site for exploring some of the key issues is Umeå, a medium-sized town in northern Sweden. Here, attention to women’s fear of violence greatly increased at the turn of the century, when a single repeat offender known as the ‘Haga Man’ assaulted several women in the city. People’s (especially women’s) fear of violence came to be seriously recognised, discussed and taken into consideration in the city’s planning. The present research is based on an analysis of empirical data collected in 2008, through interviews with people who in various ways work to increase safety in Umeå. The paper addresses how the informants define the problem of fear of violence in public space and the strategies they employ to address it, what could be described as the analytical-practice paradox, as the results show the difficulties of integrating gender-aware planning into planning practice.

10. Title:Ethnic Differences in Activity Spaces as a Characteristic of Segregation: A Study Based on Mobile Phone Usage in Tallinn, Estonia

Authors: Olle Järv, Kerli Müürisepp, Rein Ahas, Ben Derudder, and Frank Witlox

Abstract:Given ongoing developments altering social and spatial cohesion in urban societies, a more comprehensive understanding of segregation is needed. Taking the ‘mobilities turn’ at heart, we move beyond place-based segregation approaches and focus on the practised urban experiences of individuals through a more comprehensive assessment of their activity spaces. This study contributes to people-based segregation research by mapping the activity spaces of individuals on the basis of mobile phone data in Tallinn (Estonia) and relating these activity spaces to (mainly) the users’ ethnic background (i.e. Estonian versus Russian). Significant ethnic differences in terms of (1) the number of activity locations, (2) the geographical distribution of these locations, and (3) the overall spatial extent of activity spaces are found. We also find that these differences tend to deepen as the temporal framework is extended. We discuss the main implications for segregation research and highlight some avenues for further research.

11. Title:Do Rail Transit Stations Encourage Neighbourhood Retail Activity?

Authors: Jenny Schuetz

Abstract:Over the past 20 years, California has made substantial investments in intra-metropolitan passenger rail infrastructure, expanding existing systems and building new ones. According to advocates of New Urbanism, such investment should encourage the growth of mixed-use transit-oriented development, defined as a high-density mix of residential and commercial uses within walking distance of rail stations. Little research to date has examined whether rail investment stimulates retail activity, which is a key component of mixed-use development. In this paper, I test whether the opening of new rail stations across California’s four largest metropolitan areas is associated with changes in retail employment near the stations. Results indicate that new rail stations were located in areas with previously high employment density, somewhat outside the city centres. New station openings are not significantly associated with differences in retail employment in three of the four MSAs, and negatively associated with retail in the Sacramento MSA. There is weak evidence that areas around new suburban stations serving commuter rail lines are more likely to gain retail employment, while centrally located, intra-city rail stations see decreases in retail activity.

12. Title:Airports on the Move? The Policy Mobilities of Singapore Changi Airport at Home and Abroad

Authors: Rachel Bok

Abstract:Understanding airports as both objects and agents of policymaking, this paper critically examines the policy mobilities of Singapore Changi Airport by exploring its constructions, travels, and consumptions as a ‘model airport’ within and beyond Singapore. The argument presented is twofold. First, a historical approach to policy mobility usefully highlights how contemporary policy flows cannot be understood in isolation from earlier historical travels or reduced to movements triggered primarily by processes of urban neoliberalism. Second, such sensibilities are especially vital when approaching Asian cities where modes of regulation are not straightforwardly neoliberal, but are also underpinned by diverse nationalist imperatives that filter into policymaking motivations. This paper also emphasises the complex path-dependent relationship shared by travelling models and their cities of origin, illustrating how such territorial linkages function to both enable and constrain policy travels, but are nevertheless difficult to detach from travelling models.

以下是书评

13. Title:The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City

Authors: Reuben Rose-Redwood

Abstract:The article reviews the book “The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City” by Eric Avila.

14. Title:Lifeblood: Oil, Freedom and the Forces of Capital

Authors: Håvard Haarstad

Abstract:The article reviews the book “Lifeblood: Oil, Freedom and the Forces of Capital” by Matthew T Huber.

15. Title:Meaning and Measurement in Comparative Housing Research

Authors: Sean McNelis

Abstract:The article reviews the book “Meaning and Measurement in Comparative Housing Research” byMark Stephens and Michelle Norris.

16. Title:Displacement, Revolution, and the New Urban Condition: Theories and Case Studies

Authors: Kavita Ramakrishnan

Abstract:The article reviews the book “Displacement, Revolution, and the New Urban Condition: Theories and Case Studies” by Ipsita Chatterjee.