Solutions and frictions in civic hacking: collaboratively designing and building wait time predictions for an immigration office

Smart and data-driven technologies seek to create urban environments and systems that can operate efficiently and effortlessly. Yet, the design and implementation of such technical solutions are full of frictions, producing unanticipated consequences and generating turbulence that foreclose the creation of friction-free city solutions. In this paper, we examine the development of solutions for wait time predictions in the context of civic hacking to argue that a focus on frictions is important for establishing a critical understanding of innovation for urban everyday life. The empirical study adopted an ethnographically informed mobile methods approach to follow how frictions emerge and linger in the design and production of queue predictions developed through the civic hacking initiative, Code for Ireland. In so doing, the paper charts how solutions have to be worked up and strategies re-negotiated when a shared motivation meets different data sources, technical expertise, frames of understanding, urban imaginaries and organisational practices; and how solutions are contingently stabilised in technological, motivational, spatiotemporal and organisational specificities rather than unfolding in a smooth, linear, progressive trajectory.     

Architectural rumors: unrealized megaprojects in Baku,Azerbaijan and their politico-economic uses

This article examines the agency of unrealized megaprojects in bolstering economic activity, legitimizing political regimes, and expanding designer’s portfolios. It argues that such proposals serve as a form of “Architectural Rumor,” providing politico-economic agency despite ultimate project infeasibility. Specifically, it looks at two case studies of proposed yet unrealized island megaprojects in the city of Baku, Azerbaijan: the 2009 Zira Island Master Plan and the 2010 Khazar Islands Plan. Spectacular urban design and architecture have long served as catalysts for development, investment attraction, and real estate speculation. As cities compete with one another to lure capital and boost their global status, many design proposals have become increasingly expensive, ostentatious, and technologically sophisticated. The high-risk financial nature of grand urban design proposals and their frequent associations with displacement or environmental destruction suggests that the megaproject model is becoming flawed. At the same time, there remain advantages for clients and politicians to proposing designs that are more spectacular than feasible. Using a mixed-methods approach, four key arenas in which unrealized proposals circulate are described. The various benefits and detriments of such an approach to architectural commodification are also discussed, foregrounding the broader societal costs.     

多类型微博舆情时空分布关系的差异性及其地理规则

以新浪微博转发行为作为舆情时空分布的研究对象,分别选取4·20雅安地震事件代表重大社会舆情、凤凰古城收费事件代表公众生活舆情、郭某某事件代表网络热点舆情3类案例,总结不同类型微博舆情的时空分布特征及差异性,进而透视客观存在的地理规则。研究发现：①3类舆情事件微博转发量的时间分布分别表现为：长尾型、山峰型、多个时间段上的波浪型。②与时间轴对应的空间分布呈等级结构,信息扩散节点城市等级（转发量）结构还会表现出一定的空间伸缩变形或与距离衰减形成叠加关系,3类事件分别表现为：延续传统规律的“始终金字塔”结构、在相对较长时间过程中具有范围伸缩的“始终金字塔”结构、距离衰减影响下的“始终金字塔”结构。城市规模效应主导和距离摩擦阻尼效应影响构成网络信息空间分布的基本地理规则。③微博舆情时空分布的差异性与事件类型有关,并与不同微博用户的作用有关。微博用户的不平衡区域分布和其跨区域流动对信息空间分布产生直接影响。     

Property and Propriety: Jewish Landlords in Early Twentieth-Century Toronto

Drawing on literatures on the social construction of place and identity, and on the changing nature of urban property ownership, this paper examines Jewish immigrants to Toronto as housing landlords, situating their activities in the context of wider changes in the city's housing market and of their needs to raise capital, achieve status and foster group identity. Using archival and newspaper evidence to reconstruct the behaviour of individual landlords, it is argued that ownership of inner-city property fulfilled numerous functions, especially related to other aspects of business proprietorship, but that it also accentuated the geographical concentration of poorer Jews, with critical implications for their relations with non-Jews.     

战国时宋都彭城辨

钱穆著<战国时宋都彭城证>提出十五证并二事,以为战国时"宋都彭城,不都睢阳,断可定矣."查钱氏提出的诸证据没有一条是直接的,都为推测之论,而且存在很多问题,于直接说到战国时彭城属楚属齐的材料也没有提出很好的解释.通过对钱先生有关论述之辨析,及诸多反证之综合讨论,宋都彭城(今江苏徐州市)说实不可信."宋"与"相"古为双声叠韵字,"相城"实即"宋城"之异写,再参考其他一些旁证资料,说战国时宋国迁都于相城(今安徽淮北市),可能性要更大一些.     

Care‐full Justice in the City

Feminist theorists in geography and beyond have long been calling for an ethic of care to be considered alongside justice as a normative ideal that can assist us in repairing our world. In urban theory this call has largely remained unheard as an ethic of care remains absent from theorisations of what comprises a just city. In this paper I argue for care to be considered alongside justice as an equally important ethic in our search for justice in the city. I develop the concept of care‐full justice, which assists us in negotiating the inherent tension between the normative and situated in the search for the ideals, and actually existing expressions, of justice and care in the city. I demonstrate the generative potential of this concept and argue that it enables us to re‐think what cities can be and to reveal times and places where this is the case.     

Ghosts,Memory, and the Right to the Divided City: Resisting Amnesia in Beirut City Centre

Violently divided cities are incubators of ethnic conflicts. Under the auspices of postwar reconstruction, these cities are supposedly disciplined into peace through the regeneration of the city centre, including privatization, commercial adaptation and gentrification strategies. Such dynamics render city centre space amnesiac, with no reference to the history of sectarian violence, and exclusivist by limiting public access. Rather than foster peacebuilding, city centre regeneration exposes the dangerous weakness of the neoliberal peace built on accommodating ethnic and socioeconomic divisions. This paper connects Lefebvre's right‐to‐the‐city to non‐sectarian social movements’ struggle to forge participatory democracy in Beirut's city centre. A key aspect of these movements’ activities is to reprogramme memory—cosmopolitan and inclusivist—into the city centre, a project supporting peacebuilding.     

Prefiguring a future city: urban growth,spatial planning and the economic local context in Catalonia

This study undertook a quantitative analysis of town master plans to define future urban growth. Spatial direction and intensity of urban expansion were analysed in relation to local contexts using land zoning and a comprehensive database of socio-economic indicators at the municipal scale in Catalonia, Spain. Our results illustrate a progressive shift towards discontinuous settlements consolidating urban centres in most accessible rural areas. Contrary to what was hypothesized (and partly observed) in recent decades, settlement expansion will modestly contribute to a balanced urban spatial structure. Future urban development in Catalonia will not follow a polycentric model, fuelling instead the growth of medium and small urban centres. This process may consolidate the incipient divide in rural areas with high accessibility and a dynamic economic base with remote inland areas experiencing land abandonment and depopulation. The use of indicators derived from town master plans in the assessment of (scattered or polycentric) future urbanization in Europe is finally discussed.     

商汤都亳研究综述

商汤都亳,是夏商史研究中的最重要内容之一,涉及商代第一都、早商文化、夏商分界、夏文化界定等重大学术课题,因而成为学术界一直以来关注的焦点和热点。本文对这一课题的学术史进行了回顾与总结,归纳与概括主要研究成果,指出在学术讨论中暴露出的一些问题。     

风景旅游城市传统旅游服务业空间布局分异研究——以泰安市主城区旅行社和星级酒店为例

本文以泰安市主城区为研究案例地,选取该区域内的旅行社和星级酒店为研究对象,利用分形的网格维数和空间句法方法,对传统旅游服务业的布局分异进行研究。结果表明：旅行社对城市整体及局部交通环境要求都较高,多集中分布于车站-景点及景点-景点的连线上;星级酒店分布则相对分散,在不同级别的整体交通集成度空间上分布差异不大（除交通极为不便的整体集成度最低区域外）,而对局部交通环境要求较高,多分布于局部交通集成核心。在此基础上,本文探讨了这两种旅游服务业在泰安市主城区的布局分异的成因。