Towards a Political Economy of Social Infrastructure: Contesting “Anti-Social Infrastructures” in London

In this paper, we develop a situated and intersectional urban political economy approach to social infrastructure. This approach contrasts with a growing body of liberal urban geography, which offers an optimistic account of how shared spaces afford encounter and social connection. We present four arguments about why such outcomes cannot be assumed, which are informed by a case of contested redevelopment in the London borough of Haringey. First, social infrastructures express power relations, enacting distinct visions of “the social”, that are at times premised on the denigration of other forms of collective life as anti-social. Second, elite social infrastructures are increasingly central to speculative urban development, serving to procure consent for, and valorise, investment. Third, other social infrastructures are essential networks of social reproduction and survival, especially for diverse working-class communities: demolition and displacement mean infrastructural disruption. Finally, unequal political economies of social infrastructure are a realm of structural antagonism over urban citizenship (un)making.     

社会阶层化与城市社会空间的发展及其与城市娱乐业的(空间)关系

基于学术界共识的后工业化大城市社会空间中产阶层化的理念,本文首次提出社会阶层化的概念并指出社会阶层化主要研究在社会阶层的生活行为扩散和变化规律下,所构建的城市日常居住社区体系和日常生活行为场所体系的时空模式,以此探讨城市社会空间结构的变化。研究认为不同城市发展阶段其对应有不同主导阶层的社会阶层化空间结构。进一步从解构城市社会空间结构的演化动态角度,研究不同社会发展阶段下,社会阶层化与城市娱乐产业的对偶空间结构关系。     

从困境到理性：村落遗产旅游中的自组织研究——以龙脊平安寨为例

在村落遗产旅游发展中,村民易陷入集体行动的困境。本文以龙脊平安寨为典型案例,分析其遗产旅游从集体行动的“困境”到“理性”从而实现自组织的治理过程。结合公共池塘资源治理与自组织理论,本文提出,自组织整合社区资源,形成了集体的理性,其内发性、参与式发展可以有效地治理村落遗产旅游的公共事务,从而实现村落遗产旅游的可持续发展。     

GENTRIFICATION IN CENTRAL MOSCOW ‐ A MARKET PROCESS OR A DELIBERATE POLICY? MONEY,POWER AND PEOPLE IN HOUSING REGENERATION IN OSTOZHENKA

ABSTRACT. The recent process of housing redevelopment in central Moscow is examined in the light of the theory of gentrification. The study is based on the case of Ostozhenka as an emblematic example of a large–scale transformation of a central residential neighbourhood into the most expensive quarter of central Moscow. Using data collected through interviews, archive enquiries and field surveys, the paper addresses the preconditions, dynamics and mechanisms of this socio–political process. It is argued that gentrification in Ostozhenka shares many features observed in the other large cities of the world but, as predicted by theory, is locally embedded. It has been a product of a complex interplay of the market pressure aiming to meet demands from Moscow's successful post–Soviet economy and Moscow government's entrepreneurial and pro–development strategy for the city centre regeneration. The government privileges market forces: it empowers them vis-à-vis the original population and allows them to circumvent conservation institutions, while the achieved profit is shared between the private and public sides. Whereas the physical improvement of the city centre signifies departing from the Soviet legacies of under–investments in the housing built environment, the growing socio–spatial polarization undermines the social achievements of the Soviet system and denotes the triumph of the neoliberal urban regime in Moscow.     

Bourdieu, rational action and the time-space strategy of gentrification

This paper proposes gentrification as an example of class habitus adjusting to a new field via a time-space strategy that involves conscious rational coordination of class agents on a new aesthetic 'focal point'. This approach suggests: (1) a much greater role for conscious rational processes in both the intentional and intuitive processes of class reproduction; (2) an understanding via gentrification of the symbolic significance of time-space in class processes; (3) the significance of individual class agents in the process of gentrification; (4) a view of gentrification that gives greater prominence to working-class taste and habitus.     

Social sustainability of urban regeneration led by industrial land redevelopment in Taiwan

Abandoned industrial sites, usually contaminated by hazardous substances, create social injustice in the surrounding communities. Redevelopment of industrial land has brought prospects of sustainable development to the communities that live in and around them. This research is to identify the critical factors facilitating urban regeneration and particularly social sustainability in Kaohsiung, an industrial city of Taiwan which experienced deindustrialization in recent decades, resulting in several abandoned industrial sites and decay of the adjacent urban communities. Two different industrial land redevelopment projects were examined; (1) Jhongdou Wetland Park, which focuses on environmental sustainability, and (2) Pier-2 Art Centre, which focuses on economic sustainability. Measured by the social sustainability indicators developed by the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development and through findings from a questionnaire survey of community members, this study found that the redevelopment project of the Pier-2 Art Centre has a higher level of social sustainability than the Jhongdou Wetland Park, performing better in six out of nine themes. Critical dimensions resulting in the better performance in social sustainability of the Pier-2 Art Centre included rental affordability, heritage conservation, community image, cultural activity, community association, public space, local organization and higher accessibility to facility.     

‘Draw me your neighbourhood’: a gentrified Paris neighbourhood through its children's eyes

This article aims to contribute to the international research on the relationship between the child and the city, based on drawings and interviews collected from 4th grade children in a socially mixed gentrified neighbourhood of Paris. Its ambition is to reflect on the methodological contribution of drawings to analyse the children's representation of the neighbourhood. In doing so, the article also presents the principal facets of a gentrified Parisian district as perceived by the children themselves, by studying to what extent children's gender and diverse social backgrounds impact their neighbourhood representations and experiences.     

Generating a voice among ‘media monsters’: hybrid media practices of Taiwan’s Anti-Media Monopoly Movement

This article assesses how social movement actors strategically use a hybrid mix of social and traditional media to organise political actions in an attempt to influence media and public agendas. Using the case study of the Anti-Media Monopoly Movement in Taiwan, it investigates how the activists’ use of social and mainstream media contributed towards their collective action and mediated visibility. We argue that the effectiveness of social media activism is augmented by the activists’ engagement in protest actions and tactics catering to news media logics. Through their hybrid media practices, the activists were able to mobilise local and overseas groups into forms of collective and connective action and amplify the impact of protests.