Western utopianism/dystopianism and the political mediocrity of critical urban research

This paper seeks to summarise the interplay between utopian and dystopian thinking throughout the twentieth century with a particular focus on the city. The gradually shrinking appeal of the socialist utopia and its replacement with the globalised free–market as a 'revanchist utopia' left socialist utopian thinking in a state of disarray towards the end of the previous century. Utopian thinking, both as a literary and political genre has been rendered marginal in contemporary political practices. Urban dystopia, or 'Stadtschmerz', is now prevalent in critical Western thinking about city and society. It is concluded that the declining political impact of critical urban research is caused partly by its lack of engagement with crafting imaginative alternative futures for the city. The works by Sennett, Sandercock and the Situationists, among others, may contain elements to reverse the current utopian malaise in urban research.     

In defence of utopian urbanism: imagining cities after the 'end of utopia'

What is the role of utopian visions of the city today? What is their use at a time when, for many people, the very concept of utopia has come to an end? Taking a wide perspective on contemporary debates, this paper addresses the general retreat from utopian urbanism in recent years. It connects it with the so–called crisis of modernist urbanism in the capitalist West as well as forms of 'utopic degeneration', and assesses some of its implications. Arguing against the abandonment of utopian perspectives, it advocates a rethinking of utopianism through considering its potential function in developing critical approaches to urban questions. The authoritarianism of much utopian urbanism certainly needs acknowledging and criticising, but this need not entail a retreat from imagining alternatives and dreaming of better worlds. Instead, it is necessary to reconceptualise utopia, and to open up the field of utopian urbanism that for too long has been understood in an overly narrow way. The paper suggests the potential value of developing, in particular, modes of critical and transformative utopianism that are open, dynamic and that, far from being compensatory, aim to estrange the taken–for–granted, to interrupt space and time, and to open up perspectives on what might be.     

In defence of utopian urbanism: imagining cities after the 'end of utopia'

What is the role of utopian visions of the city today? What is their use at a time when, for many people, the very concept of utopia has come to an end? Taking a wide perspective on contemporary debates, this paper addresses the general retreat from utopian urbanism in recent years. It connects it with the so–called crisis of modernist urbanism in the capitalist West as well as forms of 'utopic degeneration', and assesses some of its implications. Arguing against the abandonment of utopian perspectives, it advocates a rethinking of utopianism through considering its potential function in developing critical approaches to urban questions. The authoritarianism of much utopian urbanism certainly needs acknowledging and criticising, but this need not entail a retreat from imagining alternatives and dreaming of better worlds. Instead, it is necessary to reconceptualise utopia, and to open up the field of utopian urbanism that for too long has been understood in an overly narrow way. The paper suggests the potential value of developing, in particular, modes of critical and transformative utopianism that are open, dynamic and that, far from being compensatory, aim to estrange the taken–for–granted, to interrupt space and time, and to open up perspectives on what might be.     

CHILDHOOD IN A NEOLIBERAL UTOPIA: PLANNING RHETORIC AND PARENTAL CONCEPTIONS IN CONTEMPORARY STOCKHOLM

This article addresses how neoliberalism as a utopian ideal of the urban affects the practices of planners and parents, drawing on Stockholm, Sweden, as an example and foregrounding how these adult conceptions of the city are manifested, both socially and physically, and shape children's geographies. Through an analysis of planning documents and interviews with planners and parents, this study shows how Stockholm's planning is clearly conditioned by neoliberal beliefs, but rather than being linked with political sympathies, neoliberalism is expressed as a contemporary urbanism. This specific urbanism is not compatible with children's independent mobility and easy access to nature and play spaces, but demands, as expressed by planners and parents, certain “sacrifices” in order to be achieved. The study shows that age is an organizing norm in terms of spatial justice in the city and that ideological beliefs about the urban development affect how this (in)justice is organized. The planning documents reflect utopian neoliberal ideas about a specific urban identity, and when private actors are given more influence over what is being built and which spaces are developed, there is a deliberate transition from welfare‐planning values and the belief that children and adults have equal rights to urban neighbourhoods. This is expressed as a necessary transformation to a more urban and globally competitive city but given the extent to which welfare values are taken for granted in Sweden it is unlikely that the effect this transition will have on social and spatial justice in the city is recognized.     

After Utopia: Leftist imaginaries and activist politics in the postsocialist world

ABSTRACT

In this introduction to special issue ‘After Utopia: Leftist Imaginaries and Activist Politics in the Postsocialist World’, we explore the theoretical implications for thinking about activism as a form of historically situated practice in the former socialist world. Building on insights from the papers included in this issue, which draw on ethnographic research in Ukraine, Armenia, Bosnia and along the Balkan refugee route, our introduction considers both the fragility and resilience of leftist imaginaries in the aftermath of lost utopian dreams of socialism and the betrayed promises of post 1989 democratic transformation. We do so in four moves, (i) by offering a reframing of postsocialism as a problem-space of historical and political consciousness; (ii) by interrogating the figure of the activist in its self-conscious and ethnographically embedded guises; (iii) by heeding Sherry Ortner’s call to think beyond ‘dark anthropology’ and finally, (iv) by considering what it might mean to imagine, and model, political alternatives in both activist and scholarly work.     

Global / globalizing cities

Along with the rise in research on globalization, the concept of globalization has become a subject to a more critical scrutiny. While majority agree that it represents a serious challenge to the state-centrist assumptions of most previous social science, doubts about its newness, inevitability and epoch-making qualities are also being raised. Others argue that the globalization literature neglects issues of social regulation by the nation-state, while some critics view it as a discourse drawn upon to legitimize particular political and economic agendas. Debates focus on metropolitan manifestations and impacts. Moving from this background, the paper presents three sociospatial urban configurations that have emerged in the literature. Alongside attempts at identifying globalizing cities and transnational urban networks as new theoretical subjects, another significant vein in the literature focuses on the complex forces of globalization and the production of new urban spaces in these cities. In addition, economic conceptions of globalization is now being pushed beyond adding sociocultural or sociopolitical dimensions and argue instead for the need to theorize globalization as a discursive formation. The global city as a discursive category conjures up imaginary concepts of high modernity, megadevelopment, 21st century urbanity. However, it is noted that the way forward is to focus on the distinctive ways in which urban actors engage in specific processes of economic and social reflexivity. There exists an urgent task for theorizations of the global city, which weave together historical, economic, cultural, sociopolitical and discursive dimensions.     

1800—1945年长春市街道命名的文化政治阐释——基于葛兰西霸权理论的视角

20世纪80年代，西方文化地理学界对传统地名学进行了批判转向，地方命名中的文化政治过程成为研究核心。本文以2017年被国务院列为国家历史文化名城的长春市为例，在批判地名学的背景下，借鉴葛兰西的霸权理论，对1800—1945年间长春街道命名过程进行文化政治分析。研究发现：1931年九一八事变前，长春街道命名成为不同政权控制下各种力量争夺的战场，形成清政府控制的长春地方力量、俄国殖民者力量和日本殖民者力量分区控制下的街道名称，争夺加深了城市内部分异。1931年九一八事变后，长春沦为日本的殖民地，日本殖民者为隐藏其妄图永久占领东北并实现霸权统治的野心，在其划定规划的“实在国都事业区域”进行中式命名，却隐喻了明显的归顺色彩。     

从政治地理结构变化看边疆城市空间发展方向选——以哈尔滨为例

城市空间发展方向选择是城市规划中的重要问题。本文引入政治地理学中的政治地理结构概念,以哈尔滨城市为例,对边疆城市空间发展方向选择的影响因素进行分析,发现:在特定时期,政治因素可能成为决定边疆城市空间发展方向选择的主导因素;但是,一旦政治地理结构趋于稳定,多因素的综合作用将显著上升,边疆城市空间发展选择应因时、因地制宜。     

No Place for Women? Anti–utopianism and the Utopian Politics of the 1890s

The word 'utopia' can mean both good place and no place, and the common–sense meaning of 'utopian' is unrealistic. This article argues that common–sense assumptions of the impossibility of utopia are ideological, and constructed in part by the way experiments in utopian living have been represented. Historical accounts suggest utopias are doomed to inevitable failure. In fiction and autobiography, committed participants in such experiments as well as outside observers use narrative structures which distance utopian spaces from 'real life'.
Using historical research and textual analysis, this argument is illustrated by discussing several women involved in utopian politics in 1890s England. Four of them, Helen and Olivia Rossetti, Edith Lees, and Gertrude Dix later wrote novels which re–created but also distanced their experiences. This distancing is partly a function of gender: for them utopia was no place for real women. This paper analyses the construction of utopian spaces in their novels, particularly the gendered relationship between domestic and political space. Narrative structure, imagery and humour are all used to undermine a sense of the possibilities of utopian living. These fictionalised accounts are compared with Nellie Shaw's more positive non–fiction account of life in the utopian community Whiteway. Although writing as a committed utopian, she, too, creates an account that distances readers. The critical analysis of such representations can begin to challenge anti–utopianism.     

City networks: breaking gridlocks or forging (new) lock‐ins?

There is today a global recognition that we live in an ‘urban age’ of near‐planetary urbanization where cities are at the forefront of all sorts of agendas. Yet little attention is offered to the active role of cities as political drivers of the urban age. There might today be more than two hundred ‘city networks’ globally, with thousands of para‐diplomatic connections actively defining relations between cities, international organization and corporate actors. This actively networked texture of the urban age shapes all areas of policy and, not least, international relations, and holds much promise as to possible urban solutions to global challenges. Based on an overview of a representative subset of this mass of city‐to‐city cooperation (n=170), this article illustrates the landscape of city networking, its issue areas and institutional shapes, and its critical features. As we argue, city networks today are faced by a crucial challenge: while trying to overcome state‐centric ‘gridlocks’ cities are, at the same time, building both political–economic as well as very material ‘lock‐ins’. We need to pay serious attention to this impact of city diplomacy in international affairs, developing a greater appreciation of the path dependencies and responsibilities this diplomatic activity purports.     

No Place for Women? Anti–utopianism and the Utopian Politics of the 1890s

The word 'utopia' can mean both good place and no place, and the common–sense meaning of 'utopian' is unrealistic. This article argues that common–sense assumptions of the impossibility of utopia are ideological, and constructed in part by the way experiments in utopian living have been represented. Historical accounts suggest utopias are doomed to inevitable failure. In fiction and autobiography, committed participants in such experiments as well as outside observers use narrative structures which distance utopian spaces from 'real life'.
Using historical research and textual analysis, this argument is illustrated by discussing several women involved in utopian politics in 1890s England. Four of them, Helen and Olivia Rossetti, Edith Lees, and Gertrude Dix later wrote novels which re–created but also distanced their experiences. This distancing is partly a function of gender: for them utopia was no place for real women. This paper analyses the construction of utopian spaces in their novels, particularly the gendered relationship between domestic and political space. Narrative structure, imagery and humour are all used to undermine a sense of the possibilities of utopian living. These fictionalised accounts are compared with Nellie Shaw's more positive non–fiction account of life in the utopian community Whiteway. Although writing as a committed utopian, she, too, creates an account that distances readers. The critical analysis of such representations can begin to challenge anti–utopianism.     

Gramsci and the African Città Futura: Urban Subaltern Politics From the Margins of Nouakchott,Mauritania

This article offers reflection on how Gramscian theories can be useful for critically analyzing the political significance of the actions and resistances of urban subaltern Africans. It interrogates the potential of subaltern political forms to profoundly transform society and to thus prepare for the African “future city”. It merges a theoretical analysis of Gramsci's concepts relating to the città futura—and its relation to concepts of city, subalternity, political initiative and cittadinanza—with a comparative critique of urban theory applied to Africa and especially relating to the politicization of the city in Mauritania. Our reflections are based on Mauritania and the case of Nouakchott, its capital, where we have carried out our research for over a decade. We will interrogate the re‐appropriations or resistances, as well as the autonomous construction of modes of living and of city‐making, made by marginal inhabitants, in order to consider their political potentialities.     

CULTURE‐LED DEVELOPMENT AND CONFLICT OVER URBAN SPACE: REIMAG(IN)ING ST PETERSBURG,RUSSIA

Culture‐led projects have long been part of strategies to regenerate cities in advanced capitalist economies. In recent decades those projects also have become a focal point of urban development in post‐socialist cities. This study argues that an attempt to reimage(in)e the city of St Petersburg through its culture‐led flagship project, Mariinsky Theatre–2, has generated significant changes not only to its built fabric, but also to its social fabric. In the context of a post‐socialist city, this study examines how the urban space of the historical centre is being contested by its urban users, often on the basis of differences in perception, including the impacts of the culture‐led project on those perceptions. Civic awareness about social exclusion and inclusion in urban space is on the rise in this post‐socialist city.     

Luxury and Consumption in Eighteenth-Century Italy: Intellectual History,Methodological Ideas and Interdisciplinary Research Practice

Summary

This article has two aims. In the first part I will present some methodological considerations on intellectual history, particularly in relation to other disciplines considered similar yet different, such as the history of ideas, the history of concepts and the history of discourse. I will then seek to clarify what it means, in terms of research practice, to write intellectual history, taking as a starting point the subject of my own research, namely the political implications of economic thinking on luxury and consumption in Italy during the second half of the eighteenth century. More specifically, I intend to highlight the unique characteristics of intellectual history, understood as global history, which requires the reconstruction of the different contexts in which its underlying ideas and objectives developed, concentrating on its highly interdisciplinary nature. In particular, I will focus on a specific type of interdisciplinarity that characterised the methodology of my research, namely the attempt to hold together political thought and economic analysis. Eighteenth-century Italy was in fact marked by a strong, multifaceted political evaluation of economic thinking on luxury and consumption, which led me to examine the discussion of the subject through two lenses, those of economic analysis and political thinking. This specificity shows how the reconstruction of economic thought constitutes a fertile course for the investigation of the political culture and social projects of Italian authors in the eighteenth century, at a time when economic science was taking shape as a separate discipline.     

Marx's Utopian legacy

The terms "utopia" and "utopian" have long been used in predominantly dismissive ways. That this is the case is due partly to Karl Marx and his followers, who criticized socialist competitors as ineffectual dreamers. But while Marxism worked hard to present itself as realistic, serious and scientific, this essay argues that core elements of Marx's own project are utopian. Marx's utopianism lay in the aim of abolishing the distinction between state and civil society, and in the harmony he assumed would emerge as a result of that change. Consequently, the very concepts of "freedom" and "equality" would be transformed; the old debates about them would simply be redundant in communist society. This essay will explain why such objectives are utopian and even dangerous, and then evaluate the importance of and problems with this utopian legacy. In recovering Marx's utopianism we need not accept Marx's implication that utopianism itself has no real value for social and political change.     

Geneva's future: reflections on the role of a values‐based city

In a world where most of the great cities are heavily branding themselves to compete for lucrativebusiness, political and sporting events, what future role is there for an international values‐based city like Geneva? This article reflects on the history of ideas that have taken root in Geneva over the centuries and suggests how they might be actively re‐positioned to give the city continuing relevance in the coming century. It looks at eleven political and practical ideas that have hadimportant manifestations in Geneva and have been embodied in some of its international organizations, notably: freedom of movement; free thinking; political self‐determination; compassionate warfare; peace and trade among others. It then argues that, in order to survive as a leading international city, Geneva must develop real expertise on these big‐hitting political issues, improve its ability to deliver on them and create a dynamic alliance of other internationalist valuesbased cities around the world which can mobilize similar concerns and embody a similarly Genevan model of international space.     

Urban Political Ecology, Justice and the Politics of Scale

This and the subsequent papers in this special issue set out the contours of Marxian urban political ecology and call for greater research attention to a neglected field of critical research that, given its political importance, requires urgent attention. Notwithstanding the important contributions of other critical perspectives on urban ecology, Marxist urban political ecology provides an integrated and relational approach that helps untangle the interconnected economic, political, social and ecological processes that together go to form highly uneven and deeply unjust urban landscapes. Because the power-laden socioecological relations that shape the formation of urban environments constantly shift between groups of actors and scales, historical-geographical insights into these ever-changing urban configurations are necessary for the sake of considering the future of radical political-ecological urban strategies. The social production of urban environments is gaining recognition within radical and historical-materialist geography. The political programme, then, of urban political ecology is to enhance the democratic content of socioenvironmental construction by identifying the strategies through which a more equitable distribution of social power and a more inclusive mode of environmental production can be achieved.     

Spaces of Utopia and Dystopia: Landscaping the Contemporary City

Some of the most recent literature within urban studies gives the distinct impression that the contemporary city now constitutes an intensely uneven patchwork of utopian and dystopian spaces that are, to all intents and purposes, physically proximate but institutionally estranged. For instance, so–called edge cities (Garreau, 1991) have been heralded as a new Eden for the information age. Meanwhile tenderly manicured urban villages, gated estates and fashionably gentrified inner–city enclaves are all being furiously marketed as idyllic landscapes to ensure a variety of lifestyle fantasies. Such lifestyles are offered additional expression beyond the home, as renaissance sites in many downtowns afford city stakeholders the pleasurable freedoms one might ordinarily associate with urban civic life. None–the–less, strict assurances are given about how these privatized domiciliary and commercialized 'public' spaces are suitably excluded from the real and imagined threats of another fiercely hostile, dystopian environment 'out there'. This is captured in a number of (largely US) perspectives which warn of a 'fortified' or 'revanchist' urban landscape, characterized by mounting social and political unrest and pockmarked with marginal interstices: derelict industrial sites, concentrated hyperghettos, and peripheral shanty towns where the poor and the homeless are increasingly shunted. Our paper offers a review of some key debates in urban geography, planning and urban politics in order to examine this patchwork–quilt urbanism, In doing so, it seeks to uncover some of the key processes through which contemporary urban landscapes of utopia and dystopia come to exist in the way they do.     

Spaces of Utopia and Dystopia: Landscaping the Contemporary City

Some of the most recent literature within urban studies gives the distinct impression that the contemporary city now constitutes an intensely uneven patchwork of utopian and dystopian spaces that are, to all intents and purposes, physically proximate but institutionally estranged. For instance, so–called edge cities (Garreau, 1991) have been heralded as a new Eden for the information age. Meanwhile tenderly manicured urban villages, gated estates and fashionably gentrified inner–city enclaves are all being furiously marketed as idyllic landscapes to ensure a variety of lifestyle fantasies. Such lifestyles are offered additional expression beyond the home, as renaissance sites in many downtowns afford city stakeholders the pleasurable freedoms one might ordinarily associate with urban civic life. None–the–less, strict assurances are given about how these privatized domiciliary and commercialized 'public' spaces are suitably excluded from the real and imagined threats of another fiercely hostile, dystopian environment 'out there'. This is captured in a number of (largely US) perspectives which warn of a 'fortified' or 'revanchist' urban landscape, characterized by mounting social and political unrest and pockmarked with marginal interstices: derelict industrial sites, concentrated hyperghettos, and peripheral shanty towns where the poor and the homeless are increasingly shunted. Our paper offers a review of some key debates in urban geography, planning and urban politics in order to examine this patchwork–quilt urbanism, In doing so, it seeks to uncover some of the key processes through which contemporary urban landscapes of utopia and dystopia come to exist in the way they do.     

Slum Wars of the 21st Century: Gangs,Mano Dura and the New Urban Geography of Conflict in Central America

The political economy of violence in Central America is widely perceived as having undergone a critical shift during the past two decades, often pithily summarized as a movement from ‘political’ to ‘social’ violence. Although such an analysis is plausible, it also offers a depoliticized vision of the contemporary Central American panorama of violence. Basing itself principally on the example of Nicaragua, the country in the region that is historically perhaps most paradigmatically associated with violence, this article offers an alternative interpretation of the changes that the regional landscape of violence has undergone. It suggests that these are better understood as a movement from ‘peasant wars of the twentieth century’ ( Wolf, 1969 ) to ‘urban wars of the twenty‐first century’ ( Beall, 2006 ), thereby highlighting how present‐day urban violence can in many ways be seen as representing a structural continuation of past political conflicts, albeit in new spatial contexts. At the same time, however, there are certain key differences between past and present violence, as a result of which contemporary conflict has intensified. This is most visible in relation to the changing forms of urban spatial organization in Central American cities, the heavy‐handed mano dura response to gangs by governments, and the dystopian evolutionary trajectory of gangs. Taken together, these processes point to a critical shift in the balance of power between rich and poor in the region, as the new ‘urban wars of the twenty‐first century’ are increasingly giving way to more circumscribed ‘slum wars’ that effectively signal the defeat of the poor.