Archaeology as a Tool to Illuminate and Support Community Struggles in the Black Metropolis of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries

Abstract

The South Side of Chicago — the 'Black Metropolis' — has been the site of many struggles over the years: for human dignity and civil rights; against restrictive real estate covenants; and to control present-day gentrification, to name a few. This legacy is inscribed on the landscape above and below ground. Black Chicagoans are keen to preserve the material manifestations of prior struggles and use preservation to benefit the current inhabitants of 'Bronzeville'. These activists have welcomed the author into collaborative projects that use archaeology and historic preservation to further their goals. Excavation at the Phyllis Wheatley Home for Girls and the Bronzeville Cultural Garden has contributed to our efforts to identify and present stories of the Great Migration and its consequences. At stake are our understandings of how racial and other identities shaped life in this community in the past as well as the neighbourhood's role in the city's future.     

Books received

On the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the first Industrial Estate in Dundee this article reviews the industrial development of the city in the post‐war period and identifies the problems of two sectors of the city's industry, the traditional Jute industry and the modern estate based industries. The friction between the two in their post‐war development, and the effects of the change of emphasis in the city's industrial structure during that period, on the demographic and social geography of the city are also discussed. The article concludes with an outline of the possible lines of development for industry in Dundee, with reference being made to present Government economic planning policies for Scotland.     

‘On mind‐blindness (optic agnosia)’, a classical clinico‐pathological report,and its author Wilhelm von Stauffenberg (1879–1918)*

Abstract

Two photographs from the beginning of our century still instructively illustrate the phenomenon of visual agnosia: the perplexed face of an old lady confronted with objects clears after touching them. This patient with bilateral posterior cerebral infarction was followed for seven years at the Munich Medicine Department of Friedrich von Müller (1858–1941) who had a strong interest in neurology. His assistant Wilhelm von Stauffenberg (1879–1918) reported the case in great detail, including anatomical analysis performed under Constantin von Monakow (1853–1930). Promoted to “Privatdozent”; in 1913 on the basis of this report, Stauffenberg's work included several additional, similarly extensive clinico‐anatomical case studies but was not limited to problems of cerebral localisation. Under the influence of the Burghölzli group in Zürich he started to practice psychotherapy. Stauffenberg, deeply interested also in the arts and in literature, was the physician of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) from 1914. He succumbed to pneumonia in 1918.     

Staying on Top: Why is Munich so Resilient and Successful?

This article seeks to explain why Munich, Germany's most economically successful city in recent decades, has proved so resilient despite various challenges and shocks. It begins by discussing different theoretical understandings of resilience and our methodological approach which builds on complex adaptive systems and evolutionary economic geography perspectives. Using a blend of historical analysis and in-depth investigation of the dynamics of one of the city's most innovative clusters, we argue that Munich's resilience essentially stems from the complex interplay of Germany's distinctive political history and federal system, which has promoted multi-level governance and a strong urban system, longstanding city regional leadership and entrepreneurialism, Munich's inherent assets and diverse economy and the combined strength of its many knowledge institutions, innovation system and networks. The evidence suggests that historic, structural and locational factors and agglomeration effects largely explain Munich's rise to prominence but that sustained urban and regional leadership and effective governance and policy especially in the technological, scientific and educational spheres coupled with intelligent urban planning have played an increasingly important role in sustaining its competitiveness.     

New Moscow: An Exploratory Assessment

An American geographer specializing in Russia examines the unprecedented plan announced in mid-2011 by the country's President Dmitriy Medvedev to expand the territory of Moscow and move government offices to newly annexed areas. The plan aims to increase the land area of the capital by 155 percent, mainly by annexation of a vast tract southwest of the city. The author demonstrates that while "New Moscow" is envisioned as a multi-polar and low-density urban site, the historic core would likely focus on tourism. He discusses the official reasons given for the immense undertaking, the potential problems raised by urban specialists and local media, as well as the results of public opinion polls detailing the attitudes of Muscovites toward the city's proposed transformation.     

THE EMERGENCE OF CENTRALITY IN A TRANSITION ECONOMY: COMPARING LAND MARKET DYNAMICS MEASURED UNDER MONOCENTRIC AND SEMIPARAMETRIC MODELS*

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the emergence of Krakow's historic core as the city's economic center after Poland's economic reforms of 1989—reforms that introduced market forces into land markets. Using a semiparametric approach to identify pricing centers, an evolving and polycentric price surface is revealed. While the traditional city center emerges as the dominant node, the evolution of the price surface is far more complex than that found using alternative approaches. Accordingly, it yields superior explanatory power compared to simpler monocentric models and should caution against their use in metropolitan areas in transition or those that are polycentric.     

Fringe explosions: risk and vulnerability in Canada's new in‐between urban landscape

This article argues that a new landscape of urbanization takes shape in Canadian cities. In‐between the old downtowns and the new suburbs of urban Canada, a hitherto underexposed and under‐researched mix of residential, commercial, industrial, educational, agricultural and ecologically protected areas and land uses has become the home and workplace, and increasingly also the playspace of most people in Canada. The article examines this new landscape through the lens of the specific risks and vulnerabilities experienced by its inhabitants and users. Using a propane gas explosion in Toronto in the summer of 2008 as an example, we demonstrate that the ‘in‐between city’ is a space of great complexity, which has grown haphazardly and in a contradictory fashion, where, in contrast to the archetype of inner city and suburb, no clear spatial imaginary has been guiding urban development. This leads to always uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous proximities between various and competing uses and social practices. This is nowhere as clear as it is in the splintered urban infrastructures that service this landscape or use the in‐between city's space to service other adjacent or distant purposes.     

Place Making: the Social Construction of Newcastle

The city of Newcastle has experienced significant transformations of identity. The city's contemporary reconstruction is a deliberate shift from industrial to post-industrial identity. An industrial identity is now held to be debilitating for places, while a post-industrial vision proffers an impression of improvement. The notion that places are constructed, symbolically as well as materially, allows us to problematise the identity of place, and to expose the ideologies and the actors behind such (re)constructions. Creative literature, media comment and autobiographical material provide insight into the landscapes and discourses of the city's changing identity, and into persisting patriarchal ideology, Anglo-centrism and elitism.     

Barcelona—fast forward? City entrepreneurialism in the 1980s and 1990s

Since 1979 the city council of Barcelona has sought to guide the city's destiny by a variety of methods, most powerfully by securing the 1992 Olympic Games candidacy, but also by means of two strategic planning exercises, begun in 1988 and 1992. These strategies are examined within their political and economic contexts in order to understand how they relate to changes in Spanish and Catalan politics, in global/local economic shifts and in thinking on city guidance. Significant differences in the three phases of city promotion are identified. It is concluded that strategic planning within the context of the intense spatial economic competition of the late 1990s may be even more difficult for Barcelona than was its drive up to 1992.     

The Formation of Leningrad's Satellite Places

The development of Leningrad's suburban zone began mainly in the Soviet period with the growth of “dormitory” satellites of the central city. Many of the city's satellites perform the same industrial and cultural functions as Leningrad itself. The distribution of commuter areas is analyzed on the basis of winter commutation tickets. In addition to satellites, Leningrad has “associate” cities and towns that supply the central city with electric power and fuels but lack the commuting ties that differentiate true satellites. Further planning of the Leningrad suburban zone should take care not to saturate the suburbs with industry. It is more desirable to locate new plants in small and medium-size cities outside the suburban zone.     

Exploring the land development process and its impact on urban form in Hamilton, Ontario

The form of many Canadian cities has dramatically evolved over the past six decades due to urban sprawl. Several patterns can characterize this evolution including unlimited horizontal expansion of the city, leapfrog, and low‐density residential development at the outskirts, and widespread strip commercial and power centre retail development. Hamilton, Ontario is an example of a Canadian city that has experienced suburbanization and sprawled development for several decades. However, the nature of this sprawled development is unclear and its impact on urban form is not entirely understood. In this article, several hypotheses pertaining to sprawled land development and urban form are postulated and tested. The tests rely on point source data of the developed land parcels in Hamilton during the period 1950–2003. A number of spatial statistics techniques, including kernel estimation and complete spatial randomness (CSR) K‐function tests, are employed to examine the emerging nature of urban form. We hypothesize that while the city has been sprawling, the ongoing land development process is leading urban form into multinucleation. To support this assumption, we further hypothesize the existence of an interdependent spatial relationship between residential and commercial land uses at the emerging nuclei. Accordingly, we examine the strength of co‐clustering among these land use activities over time. The findings indicate that while the city has been sprawling, several consequent urban nuclei with mixed land use activities have been emerging and become more visible in recent years. This is an indication that the city's form is progressively becoming multinuclear. Furthermore, the estimates for the 1990s indicate interdependence between the locational patterns of residential and commercial land development. Co‐clustering between these two types of land uses is bi‐directional and occurs at a time lag of three to seven years. These findings affirm the existence of interdependence between land use activities at the observed nuclei, which support the emergence of a multinucleation.     

Tourism development and cultural conflict: the case of ‘Nazareth 2000’

In areas that are characterized by political, national, cultural and religious conflicts, issues concerning conservation and development become particularly complex. One prominent example of this tension can be seen in events that have taken place over the last decade in the city of Nazareth, which hosts some of Christianity's holiest sites. Until the mid-twentieth century most of the city's residents were Christian. In the past several decades however, Muslims have come to form the majority of the population. Against this backdrop, Nazareth began to prepare for the millennium year, including the formulation of the ‘Nazareth 2000’ plan for tourism development in the city. Unfortunately, the city's numerous complexities rapidly surfaced, with one of the most prominent examples being the bitter struggle around the city's newly planned main square. This paper examines tourism development for the city in conditions of such cultural conflict.     

Policy Responses to Urban Shrinkage: From Growth Thinking to Civic Engagement

More and more European cities are confronted with population decline in a structural sense. This development of “urban shrinkage” has different causes, but similar effects: the city's hardware, software and mindware deteriorate. In this paper, we explore and assess policy strategies to respond to urban shrinkage in a European context. Four strategies are identified: (1) trivializing shrinkage, (2) countering shrinkage, (3) accepting shrinkage and (4) utilizing shrinkage. We suggest that accepting shrinkage by improving the quality of life for the city's existing residents is the most suitable and sustainable strategy. Dealing with shrinkage is a complex urban governance process that asks for a mental transformation from growth to shrinkage as well as regional rather than local thinking. Moreover, due to the fiscal burden of shrinkage, city governments will be increasingly dependent on the willingness of citizens to help. Civic engagement, however, is not something that can be simply dictated. Therefore we conclude that the authorities of Europe's shrinking cities should first enable their citizens to care for their community before asking them to do so.     

A Multi‐disciplinary Approach to the Archaeological Investigation of a Bedrock‐Dominated Shallow‐Marine Landscape: an example from the Bay of Firth,Orkney, UK

Investigation of shallow‐marine environments for submerged prehistoric archaeology can be hampered in many localities by extensive bedrock exposure and thus limited preservation potential. Using the concept of ‘seamless archaeology’ where land‐based archaeology is integrated across the intertidal zone through to the offshore, a multi‐disciplinary approach is essential. This approach taken in the Bay of Firth, Orkney uses geophysics, historical archive and ethno‐archaeology, coastal geomorphology, palaeo‐environmental analyses and sea‐level science, and allows a clearer understanding of the landscape in which prehistoric settlers lived. While acknowledging the limitations of the preserved environment, we are successful in identifying areas of archaeological potential on the sea‐bed for both upstanding structural elements as well as sediment preservation that contains evidence for human occupation. This has wider implications beyond Orkney's World Heritage sites to provide a blueprint for similar studies elsewhere in the coastal zone. © 2012 The Authors     

One city,different views: a comparative study of three pilgrimage maps of Jerusalem

Among the early printed maps of Jerusalem there is a special group of realistic maps, which should be identified as pilgrimage maps. They were based on an actual acquaintance with the city, and drawn by pilgrims or for them. These maps depicted Jerusalem as the Holy City for Christianity; portraying the city through the eyes of the Christian pilgrims, and reflecting their perceptions, excitement and devotion. They often underscored the city's religious sites and traditions, and undermined certain elements of the city's actual cultural and religious landscape.     

Thai migrants in Singapore: state,intimacy and desire

In this article, I analyse Thai migration to Singapore, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork (2004–06) to discuss the experiences of male construction workers and female sex workers in negotiating heterosexuality during their temporary residence. I argue that these Thai migrants engage in transient heterosexual encounters as one of many calculated, strategic ways of negotiating their intimate identity and subjectivity in the survival circuits of this global city. Their transient sexual acts are intimate products of negotiated moves, which form a major part of their semi-anonymous, temporary life in a foreign land. The sexual practices of Thai migrant workers in Singapore, I argue, are best understood by taking the following factors into account: the host government's regulation and control of its migrant population; the foreign workers' economic and social situations of mobility as inscribed in their highly dynamic traveling biographies; and their rationalized willingness and desire to embrace transient sexual intimacies as part of their employment and/or struggling lives in the global city's survival circuits.     

Characterizing and evaluating rival discourses of the ‘sustainable city’: Towards a politics of pragmatic adversarialism

For many, shifting economic and social contexts have created the conditions for a radical reappraisal of the orthodox image of the 'sustainable city'. However, in assessing such potentialities, there is insufficient knowledge about the way in which local actors construct, live out and are gripped by this signifier. This article responds to this deficit by exploring how key actors engaged in urban development actually interpret the challenges of the 'sustainable city'. In part, using a Q methodology study in Bristol and Grenoble, we discern and construct three distinctive discourses of the sustainable city, which we name progressive reformism, public localism, and moral stewardship. Our findings challenge previous critiques of sustainable urbanism. We observe no consistent support for mainstream conceptions of sustainable urban development, but neither do we find significant support for entrepreneurial or radical green localist discourses of the sustainable city. Instead, we identify a common indifference to the tenets of ecological modernization (and, by extension, entrepreneurialism), and a shared skepticism of local self-sufficiency. We thus argue that such discourses offer uncertain foundations upon which to construct new visions of the 'sustainable city'. In our view, this is because of the transformation of the 'sustainable city' from a relatively fixed idea into a floating signifier, coupled with the practices of local practitioners as policy bricoleurs. We conclude that efforts to develop new visions of 'sustainable cities' are best served by fostering an agonistic ethos of 'pragmatic adversarialism' amongst strategic leaders and stakeholders, which foregrounds politics and the right to difference.     

Proceedings of the Twenty-ninth Annual Meeting,Wolverhampton, 1872

Abstract

This paper takes as its starting point the relatively unusual form taken by Lincoln's gatehouse-cum-guildhall, which was rebuilt in 1520. It is argued that the Stonebow's elevation bears a superficial similarity to the contemporary royal palace at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The local political background may suggest that the two buildings are, indeed, connected — through the city council's efforts to renegotiate the terms of their fee-farm with their feudal lords. The new building, and its simple Annunciation iconography, were intended to be understood at several levels of symbolic meaning, all of which referred to the city's relationship with its various lords. Consequently, the Stonebow's simplicity is deceptive; it is, in fact, a multi-faceted political statement, summing up the city's own view of its place in contemporary politics and, as such, it is a good example of the complexity sometimes achieved in early Renaissance architectural iconography.     

Draft town maps for John speed's theatre of the empire of great Britaine

ABSTRACT

A unique Hebrew map of the Exodus and the Holy Land was printed in Mantua, Italy, in the mid-sixteenth century. This map is graphically and artistically different from all other Hebrew maps, both earlier and later. The aim here is to analyze the map and the text that is printed on it, explore the reasons for, and the context of, its printing, and identify its sources within contemporary Jewish scholarship and Christian cartography. The only known exemplar of this map is in the Zentralbibliothek in Zürich, Switzerland.