The Dynamics of Metropolitan Change

A collaborative research project entitled “Nested Dynamics of Metropolitan Processes and Policies” was initiated at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in 1982. The ultimate objective is to enhance our primitive understanding with respect to interacting metropolitan change processes which are operating at significantly different speeds. In this introductory paper, some aspects and results of the project are summarized prior to a short discussion of the three related papers which follow in this volume.     

PLACE BRANDING GOES TO THE NEIGHBOURHOOD: THE CASE OF PSEUDO‐SWEDISH ANDERSONVILLE

As the centre of Swedish immigration to the United States, Chicago developed several neighbourhoods with a strong Swedish presence. However, the only Swedish neighbourhood that remains is Andersonville, although few Swedes continue to reside there today – it has become a “pseudo‐ethnic” neighbourhood. Drawing from interviews with neighbourhood activists, commercial, and political interests, as well as fieldwork focused on the ethno‐visual markers of the neighbourhood, we analyse attempts of these actors to commodify ethnicity at the neighbourhood level. The process of actively using a Swedish identity in Andersonville involves the use of branding, a marketing concept used by places to promote themselves. This article investigates branding on the neighbourhood level, and also the role of ethnicity in the branding process. Brand managers struggle to maintain the Swedishness of the Andersonville neighbourhood as demographic and economic forces threaten to weaken the Swedish brand.     

Including babies and toddlers: a new model of participation

ABSTRACT

Models relating to the participation of children are often explicitly aimed at facilitating or evaluating participation in decision-making processes on local levels. However, these models often build on hierarchically ordered ‘ladders’ of children’s involvement starting with passive involvement and increasing gradually to highly active engagement. Such models become problematic when designing or evaluating participative activities for young children. On the basis of two ethnographic studies conducted in children’s libraries, we propose an alternative model based on a view of participation as processual rather than definitive. Theoretically, the paper draws mainly on human rights theory as well as on theories and concepts derived from childhood studies such as participation and citizenship. The new model of participation demonstrates how the idea of participation can be operationalized at practical levels to include the very youngest children.