Public space and memories of migration: erasing diversity through urban redevelopment in France

This article examines the meaning of public space and impact of heritage-led urban redevelopment in a diverse neighbourhood in Montpellier, France. It traces the relocation of a North African market from a central city plaza in favour of French antiques, and the resulting contestation over what constitutes local heritage, who has the capacity to determine how public space is used, and the seeming erasure of migrant identities and memories from an important community site. The paper considers how urban areas are re-imagined through a change in the materiality of public space, and outlines the role of outdoor markets in defining the social function of such spaces. The paper examines the intertwining of physical erasure (urban redevelopment and the removal of a diverse food market) and cultural erasure (the loss of certain community memories), and how these processes speak to broader debates about French national identity, cultural heritage, and the meanings attached to public spaces.     

Community gardens as third places

As the world population becomes increasingly urbanised and mobile, “third places” take on greater importance for incorporating new residents into their neighbourhood and reducing social isolation. The third place concept has been applied to a range of public space research and embraces informal public meeting places outside of home (first place) and work (second place). This article critically investigates the connection between community gardens and third place, applying a framework based on the characteristics of third places to qualitative case studies of three Australian community gardens. The article highlights the role community gardens can play as third places in alleviating some of the challenges associated with population mobility. The findings show that two of the case study community gardens exhibit all characteristics of third places facilitating informal interactions between people of the neighbourhood while one does not for reasons considered. Findings also suggest that third place community gardens act as dynamic sites of placemaking, helping to connect people to the place. Community gardens can function as third places with a communal purpose inclusive across socially diverse neighbourhoods, within and beyond the garden boundaries. The article suggests appropriate design and location features for community gardens that best facilitate third place interactions.     

HOW CHILDREN PLACE THEMSELVES AND OTHERS IN LOCAL SPACE

This study examines the ways in which children aged 11 to 15 in six adjacent neighbourhoods in a medium-sized Swedish town place themselves and others in local space. Special attention is given to how they discuss a neighbourhood stigmatized in the public discourse and how children who live in this neighbourhood react to the negative representations of the place in which they live. The study is based on group interviews and maps. The study shows that children construct representations of their own neighbourhoods as "quiet" neighbourhoods and place objects of "trouble" and "danger" somewhere else. It is argued that this is done both in relation to their personal knowledge of the neighbourhood and in relation to local and/or media representations of their own and other neighbourhoods. It is shown that the children are influenced by media representations of a stigmatized neighbourhood, but also that they are not passive reproducers of these discourses and that some of them are able to offer counter-discourses. The children living in this neighbourhood experience difficulties in defending it as the quiet place which they perceive it to be to outsiders because of the negative discourses.     

Housing Regeneration and the Private Finance Initiative in England: Unstitching the Neoliberal Urban Straitjacket

Abstract: This paper responds to recent debates in human geography about ideal‐type versus contingent neoliberalism, or what Gibson‐Graham conceptualises as “strong” vs “weak” theory, by offering some reflections from an in‐depth study of the private finance initiative (PFI) in England. It first introduces the history and purpose of the PFI as the Labour government's flagship public–private partnership (PPP) approach to public infrastructure modernisation. It then critically analyses its use in inner‐city regeneration through a case study of a PFI housing scheme in the northern English city of Leeds. The paper argues that, when seen through the lens of “strong theory”, a PFI appears to be a consciously designed “neoliberal straitjacket” intended to lock‐in gentrification‐based regeneration at the neighbourhood level, guarantee long‐term profits to (finance) capital, and create powerful privatising and marketising pressures across the local public sphere. However, it is equally possible to construct a preliminary “weak theory” of the PFI that unhides its inherent contradictions and shows how everyday activism by local community actors can successfully influence and contest how neoliberalism is rolled out on the ground.     

社区居民对景区开发企业社会责任的感知——基于地方依恋的视角

旅游景区开发企业的社会责任意识与行为是影响遗产地可持续发展的重要因素之一,而社区居民对景区开发企业社会责任的感知直接影响旅游地企业与社区的关系。本文通过对世界自然遗产地武陵源社区居民的调查研究,分析社区居民地方依恋、遗产价值认知与他们对景区开发企业社会责任感知的关系,研究发现:①社区居民认为景区开发企业应对股东、游客、员工、遗产和政府承担责任,特别是要对周边环境与社区居民负责;②地方依恋感和遗产价值认知较强的居民对景区开发企业履行社会责任有着更高的预期;③地方依恋通过加强居民的遗产价值认知深化其对景区开发企业应承担社会责任的感知。     

On the Stickiness of Territorial Stigma: Diverging Experiences in Amsterdam’s Most Notorious Neighbourhood

In Western Europe, a select number of “ghettos” are at the forefront of public anxieties about urban inequality and failed integration. These notorious neighbourhoods at the bottom of the moral spatial order are imagined as different and disconnected from the rest of the city. This paper examines how residents in Amsterdam Bijlmer, a peripheral social housing estate long portrayed as the Dutch ghetto, experience the symbolic denigration of their neighbourhood. Interviews show that all residents are highly aware of the negative racial, cultural and material stereotypes associated with their neighbourhood. However, these negative stereotypes are not equally felt: territorial stigma “sticks” more to some residents than others and substantial inequalities are observed in who carries the burden of renegotiating blemish of place. Differential engagement with stigma depends on how residents’ identity and the materiality of their surroundings intersect with stigmatising narratives of place.     

‘We want to be there for everyone’: imagined spaces of encounter and the politics of place in a super-diverse neighbourhood

In the context of increasingly diverse urban populations in European cities, neighbourhood organizations are often seen as offering spaces of encounter that can foster a sense of belonging. As a result, they have formed an important element in urban policies on community identity and social cohesion. Yet everyday encounters in such micro-publics may not necessarily be experienced as positive, and these spaces themselves might become sites of contestation and exclusion. Through an ethnographic study in a super-diverse neighbourhood in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, this paper investigates how residents’ sense of belonging to the neighbourhood is informed by competing claims on a neighbourhood centre. Although envisioned as a collective space, contestations between different groups of residents over the centre as a functional and meaningful place illustrate how governing institutions shape informal politics of place through their own vision for the neighbourhood and their selective support of some initiatives over others.     

Investigating perceptions of antisocial behaviour and neighbourhood ethnic heterogeneity in the British Crime Survey

There is much concern in the UK about the effects on community cohesion of antisocial behaviour, but to date relatively little is known about the geography of such behaviour: for what sort of people, and in what sort of places, are high levels of antisocial behaviour a problem? What are the links, if any, between such behaviour and local socio-economic conditions, and how do such perceptions relate to local crime rates? Using data from the British Crime Survey and other secondary datasets, we develop and extend previous work that has investigated links between individual socio-economic characteristics, neighbourhood characteristics and individual perceptions of antisocial behaviour. A multilevel modelling approach is used to ensure that individual- and area-level effects are not conflated. Secondly we extend the substantive knowledge surrounding the relationship between neighbourhood ethnic heterogeneity and individual perceptions of antisocial behaviour. In so doing, we challenge recent contentions that heterogeneity is associated with declining social cohesion and trust. We conclude that at a small-area scale for England, the primary area-level determinants of high levels of antisocial behaviour lie in material circumstances, and that ethnic heterogeneity has no discernible effect on perceptions of antisocial behaviour.     

高校单位社区空间的儿童友好性研究

儿童友好型城市建设为单位社区转型提供新思路.本研究获取行为注记及问卷数据,探讨广州市H高校单位社区儿童活动空间特征及社区对儿童活动的影响,结合空间满意度及友好度评价,分析了高校单位社区与儿童活动的互动关系.研究发现:①高校公共活动区为儿童活动集聚地,社区建成环境及社会环境对活动有积极或消极影响;②社区绿化好、安全性高及...     

Between Boundaries: From Commoning and Guerrilla Gardening to Community Land Trust Development in Liverpool

Emerging in the cracks of the ownership model are alternatives to state/market provision of affordable housing and public/private‐led regeneration of declining urban neighbourhoods, centred on commoning and collective dweller control. This paper explores how the community land trust model can become an effective institutional solution to urban decline in the context of private property relations. It explores a case study of a CLT campaign in Granby, a particularly deprived inner‐city neighbourhood in Liverpool, England. The campaign seeks to collectively acquire empty homes under conditions of austerity, which have opened up the space for grassroots experimentation with guerrilla gardening, proving important for the campaign in gaining political trust and financial support. This paper discusses the potential of the CLT model as a vehicle for democratic stewardship of place and unpacks the contradictions threatening to undermine its political legitimacy.     

Experiences of ‘Community’ in a Gated Residential Estate

Gated residential estates have become common features of the landscapes of cities around the world. The proliferation of these estates has attracted significant critical attention from urban scholars who have focused in particular on their contribution to urban segregation. Many commentators also question the possibility and existence of the neighbourhood‐based community that is promised to potential residents by estates developers. They argue that it cannot be delivered primarily because meaningful community does not form in circumstances of privatism. In this paper, we examine what community means to the residents of Macquarie Links, a gated residential estate in the Australian city of Sydney. To this end, the paper traces the interplay of contradictions that define the expectation and experience of community and argues that rather than being in conflict, the experience of community for many in this gated estate is actually underpinned by the structures of private governance that define the estate. In other words, not only is community said to exist in this neighbourhood, but also it is not homogeneity and everyday neighbouring that are pivotal but the governance structure of the estate.     

‘Any place to raise children is a good place’: children,housing and neighbourhoods in inner Newcastle,Australia

Neighbourhoods are important spaces of interaction for children. This paper explores the perceptions of residents from seven suburbs in the inner area of Newcastle, Australia concerning what makes a good neighbourhood for children. Key factors identified by residents include the types of dwellings found in the neighbourhood (with detached houses being seen as preferable for children) and the quality of neighbourhood resources. Another important feature was social interactions within the neighbourhood, including interactions between children and adults and interactions between groups of children. The paper examines how different features of neighbourhoods interact to create adult perceptions about whether a neighbourhood is appropriate for children. The paper also points to the ways that children are seen to actively produce the neighbourhood in which they live.     

Young People's Politics and the Micro-Territories of the Local

In spite of the late modern interpellation of youth as mobile and globally oriented, and a perception of social and political issues as increasingly playing out in a transnational arena, young Australians exhibit strong local and individualised tendencies in expressing politics. They are bounded by the ‘micro-territories of the local’; that is, their political thinking and acting takes place within the spaces of home, friendship groups, school and neighbourhood. This paper draws on an ARC project with nearly 1000 mainly 15–17-year-old Victorians to examine the relationship between young people's embeddedness in their local worlds and their views of themselves as efficacious political actors. It considers how their competency within such micro-territories opens up neglected sites and strategies for political expression and engagement while limiting their sense of sense of political efficacy, and it asserts the significance of considering this age group, not for what these young people will become in the future, but for their particular location, socially, physically and politically in the present.     

Cultural production in peripheral urban spaces: lessons from Barriera,Turin (Italy)

Practices of cultural production within a peripheral urban neighbourhood can contribute to foster the sense of place, community belonging and local collective action. Starting from a critical perspective on the interconnections between cultural practices and urban regeneration, and developing on the concept of place-making, the paper has two main purposes: to investigate the nature of embeddedness of these practices and explore the ways of self-organization of cultural actors and their relationships with public policies. The case study concerns ‘Barriera di Milano’, a large peripheral area in Turin (Italy), formerly one of the most industrialized zones of the city. Over the past few years, and particularly after the real-estate bubble burst of 2007–2008, in Barriera a lively concentration of initiatives of culture has been taking place, redefining the urban and social space. These initiatives seem to be innovative for many reasons: firstly, while demonstrating a peculiar but significant embeddedness in the neighbourhood, they are mostly self-generated; secondly, the institutional assets, the economic self-sufficiency and the low degree of connection among initiatives support new forms of citizenship and place-making based on a ‘not-for-profit entrepreneurship’.     

Spatial and environmental impacts on adverse birth outcomes in Ontario

This study assesses the overall spatial variations and neighbourhood‐level “hot spots” of low birth weight and preterm birth incidence within three public health units in Ontario, Canada. The analysis uses a stepwise approach of intra‐class correlation analysis, a spatial scan statistic, and multilevel spatial modeling. Results show that neighbourhood level variation accounts for only 2–3 percent of the total variation of adverse birth outcomes in the study area. However, strong spatial autocorrelation is observed at the neighbourhood level, and spatial clusters of relatively high adverse birth outcome rates exist in areas that are associated with environmental risks, including pollution sources and proximity to highways. Thus, although estimated neighbourhood impacts on adverse birth outcomes are small compared with those of individual‐level risks, local high potential environmental risk areas are identifiable. Environmental surveillance and spatial statistical analysis should be conducted regularly by local health authorities to identify and monitor the impact of environmental changes on health in general and on birth outcomes in particular. Specific community‐oriented health interventions may be required to reduce observed local health impacts.     

基于地方依恋反思旧城更新语境下的失所现象——以天津西沽南拆除计划为例

旧城更新语境下的失所现象不仅是地理维度的人口移动,还有环境剧变对个人、家庭和社区带来的深层社会心理冲击。以天津西沽南拆除为例,基于问卷调查和访谈考察了历史街区原住民的地方依恋现状及其形成机制。结果显示原住民与该地方在功能、象征、情感、社会等方面均存在依恋关系,其形成机制中的关键性因素包括家庭历史延续、日常亲切经验、邻里支持网络,以及时间和记忆的媒介作用。据此认为,旧城更新需警惕社会—空间重构对原住民造成的物质与非物质性地方剥夺,并利用人地纽带提升城市遗产的社会价值。     

On the edge: A tale of skaters and urban governance

The 'problem' of skating has been conflated with a 'problem' with young people in public spaces, reflecting a rise in fear of crime from the mid-twentieth century and referencing more general questions about public space and citizenship. My task in this paper is to highlight some of the tensions between skating and urban governance in Franklin Square, Hobart, the capital city of Tasmania in Australia. This task is indebted to ideas about governance and citizenship advanced by Nikolas Rose; about the proper city as conceived by Michel de Certeau; and about fortress strategies and species of spaces promulgated by Stephen Flusty. Franklin Square functions in two ways in this work. First, its examination encourages consideration of local cases. Second, it can be deployed as a heuristic device through which to explore the edges of public space and citizenship. The essay is intended to make two contributions to social and cultural geography, one enlarging on some well-rehearsed debates about situated and contested socio-spatial relations in what I hope are innovative ways, the other unsettling particular strategies that place skaters 'on the edge' and yet draw them into particular domains of citizenship via specific practices of urban governance.     

广州旧城区传统绅士化现象及其机制研究——以荔湾区逢源街道耀华社区为例

本文在对国外传统绅士化概念的内涵与机制进行梳理的基础上,以广州荔湾区逢源街道耀华社区为例探讨了市场转型期中国大城市传统绅士化运动的特征与机制。通过对绅士化特征的分析,本文指出广州作为转型期的中国大城市存在着渐进的自下而上的传统绅士化过程,并具有以下特征:以外来工商人员为主流"绅士",社区人口置换过程缓慢,政府主导社区的景观环境改造。其中,广州市政府的"退二进三"政策及旧城区的商业发展而非文化因素成为传统绅士化的主要动力,破碎的产权结构则是绅士化进程的主要障碍。     

Country report: The ambiguities of social and cultural geography in Greece

This paper contributes to debates on the empirical and conceptual potentials of anti-essentializing notions such as ‘thirdspace’ with the aim to open new epistemological and political grounds. Based on the findings of ethnographic research, I critically examine two spatial strategies (the deliberate creation of an ethnic neighbourhood, and the securing of a community centre) that Latin American immigrants in Toronto, Canada, developed to appropriate urban space and lay claims to equal rights. The case of Latin Americans' struggle for belonging in Toronto serves to reflect on how and why new immigrant groups today (re)construct collective identity spatially. I argue that immigrants strategically essentialize their identities in and through place in order to make themselves visible and their voices heard. Ethnic places represent sites of resistance and creation where immigrants construct their own subjectivities while also redefining dominant notions of inclusion and citizenship. Although locally grounded, these new immigrant identities remain fluid and engage with multiple forms of exclusion

[The] situation is simply sad; the [Latin American] community … is one of the most orphan communities … in [Toronto] … [We] don't even have a place where to dig our own grave basically. If there is need to get together … a meeting … there is no place. We have to be looking for a basement … for a recreational centre to give us a room … If there is a social or cultural event, we do not have a place where … we can present what we have … [It] is sad and it is a reality. (Cesar Palacio, city councillor candidate to Toronto's 2003 municipal elections, interview, 2 May 2003, translated from Spanish)     

Visual artists: counter‐urbanites in the Canadian countryside?

Professional visual artists have always enjoyed considerable latitude in the selection of a place of work and residence. Recent decades have witnessed their growing presence within the Canadian countryside. This paper seeks to provide an interpretation of this phenomenon by exploring two sub-objectives. First is to determine whether artists who establish themselves in rural communities can be considered to be part of the counter‐urbanisation movement, involving the relocation of urban residents down the settlement hierarchy. Second is to identify what types of migration are occurring and why. Our surveys of visual artists residing in the southern Ontario communities of Elora and Parry Sound reveal that most participants are part of a movement involving the decision to take up both residence and employment in a rural locale. We further find that the relocation of visual artists is driven to some extent by a strong attachment to natural landscapes. By way of conclusions, we briefly speculate about the broader population of urban residents. We remind ourselves that artists often have been harbingers of new movements and that today there are growing numbers of workers outside the artistic community who also have increasing latitude in regards to choosing where to live and work. Overall, our findings suggest that there is ongoing blurring of geographic boundaries—between space and place, between place of work and place of residence and, of course, between rural and urban.