‘It's a public,I reckon’: Publicness and a Suburban Shopping Mall in Sydney's Southwest

Traditionally, public space has been perceived as an integral part of fully functioning liberal democracy. Yet much research argues that public space is in decline due to regimes of neoliberal governance paralleled with a growth in quasi-public spaces such as shopping malls, casinos and gated communities. It is argued that these new spatial forms posit a commercialised, sanitised and ultimately exclusionary urban form in place of more egalitarian, engaging and ultimately democratic public spaces. Increasingly, however, urban research has questioned the veracity of the claims made about the nature of traditional public space as well as investigating the marginal and contingent nature of publicness as constituted by and enacted in a variety of places. Drawing on Foucault's concept of heterotopic space, this paper reports on a qualitative study based on focus group interviews conducted with users of a suburban shopping mall in Sydney's southwest. The research uncovers both a more complex and less overtly deterministic publicness than has previously been identified in such spaces. From these findings the paper argues for a conception of publicity which moves beyond the zero-sum game approach endemic in much work in this area to one which analyses the qualitative effect quasi-public spaces are having on the nature of publicness in the Australian context. The paper concludes by arguing that a rethinking of publicness allows room for the emergence of a more progressive public ethic.     

HUME,HISTORY, AND THE USES OF SYMPATHY

This article focuses on the role of sympathy and antipathy in David Hume's History of England (1754–1762) in relation to the broader place of sympathy in Hume's moral philosophy. Hume, in his earlier philosophical work, argues that sympathy is a naturally occurring responsiveness to others’ feelings, similar to the resonance between musical strings. In his History, however, he carefully curates his readers’ emotional responses, inviting sympathy with figures of suffering—such as King Charles I and Mary Queen of Scots—while also, often almost simultaneously, stirring intense antipathy for those whose religious extremism he regards as socially dangerous and beyond comprehension. After first situating the emergence of Hume's theory of sympathy in its early eighteenth-century context, this article explores in detail the techniques of sentimental management that appear across the six volumes of the History of England. The elaborate deployment of emotions in Hume's historiography is shown to be in tension both with some aspects of his philosophy of natural human sympathy and with his brief reflections on the writing of history. Hume channeled his readers’ sympathies toward particular targets and against others. A careful analysis of this usefully sheds light on the management of sympathy in modern historiography, on which Hume has had an enduring influence.     

Competing imaginaries: Crypto-utopianism and the material forces of Bitcoin mining

Drawing on Marx's theory of history, this article argues that the competition and capital accumulation inherent in the production of Bitcoin (i.e. ‘mining’) are at odds with the narrative discourses that position Bitcoin as a revolutionary technology capable of subverting traditional power structures. Through an analysis of the evolution of Bitcoin mining, the article demonstrates how the material conditions of its production have shifted over time, leading to the concentration of mining power among a few large corporate entities and a concomitant erosion of the decentralized ethos that underpinned the early Bitcoin community. The article also argues that this shift is not simply a result of the ‘natural’ evolution of the technology, but also the outcome of specific social and economic forces that encourage the accumulation of capital over Bitcoin's democratic and decentralized potentialities. Overall, the article suggests that the narrative discourses surrounding Bitcoin need to be understood in relation to the material forces that shape its production and circulation, and that a more nuanced analysis of the interplay between material and discursive factors is necessary to fully grasp the dynamics of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.     

Spatial Policies for Metropolitan Regions—Identity,Participation and Integration

In times of globalization the attention of spatial planning obviously changes from rural to metropolitan regions. This change of perspective goes along with the expectation that metropolitan regions are key factors for a dynamic development of the nation as a whole. This article refers to metropolitan strategies in Germany and considers one special strategy element in greater detail: spatial planning completed a policy for metropolitan regions as a 'top down' approach. In addition, a network of German Metropolitan Regions was established from below. Recently the members of this network have prepared a common strategy paper that includes eight demands for metropolitan strategies. One of the demands is dedicated to regional identity, participation and integration. Aspects concerning this demand are discussed in this article.     

‘Her Cause Against Herself’: Margaret Fuller,Emersonian Democracy,and the Nineteenth‐Century Public Intellectual

Recent interpretations of Margaret Fuller's ideological significance have embedded her biography in an older understanding of Transcendentalism's history that imagines a post‐Brook Farm cleavage between ‘Emersonian individualists’ and more socially conscious communitarians. In late 1844, Margaret Fuller left New England for employment at Horace Greeley's New‐York Tribune, a moment that a number of biographers and critics have imagined as Fuller's own personal Brook Farm, her resignation from the ‘party of Emerson.’ Recent work in the history of Transcendentalism and romantic liberalism more generally, however, has been more careful about confusing romantic individuality with modern bourgeois individualism. This essay furthers the discussion of Transcendentalist ideology by arguing that Fuller's New York journalism was representative of the broad intellectual unity of the movement's democratic experiments – experiments that experientially, socially, and intellectually aimed to overcome the boundaries between the body and the mind, manual and mental labor, and the manual and mental classes.     

Making Homes by Machine: Images, Ideas and Myths in the Diffusion of Non-Traditional Housing in Britain 1942-54

To understand more fully the widespread—and arguably mistaken—postwaradoption of prefabricated and systems construction, scholarshave sought to place this process in its broader social andpolitical context. In so doing they have located, apparently,a subversion of rational public decision-making, where a widelybelieved mythology was purposefully constructed by self-servinginterests. This erroneously equated non-traditional housingwith modernity and efficiency. This article suggests this tobe a false reading. Undoubtedly a strong tendency existed amongmanufacturers and architectural ideologues to eulogize nontraditionalmethods. However, despite this ubiquitous promotion, key sectorsamong the architectural profession, public sector purchasersand other decision-makers overtly rejected, or remained questioninglysceptical towards, modernistic claims and creeds. Instead, decisionswere largely determined by contemporary necessity, a rationalinterpretation of a broader national interest and the best advicethen available. Importantly, non-traditional performance wasconstantly investigated and largely validated. To speak, therefore,of a determining mythology is to largely misconstrue contemporaryunderstanding. ¹ First presented as a paper to the Fourth International Conferenceon Urban History, Venice. I am also indebted to Ian Inksterand Jeff Hill for their comments on an earlier draft of thisarticle.     

INTRAURBAN MORTALITY VARIATION and INCOME DISPARITY: A CASE STUDY OF HAMILTON-WENTWORTH REGION

This paper characterizes and explains mortality variation among census tracts of Hamilton-Wentworth Region, Ontario, during 1980–82. Analysis is based on the age-specific death rate of the 55 to 64 age group, computed for each sex by categories of major cause. Mosk and lohansson's (1986) four stages of mortality/income relationship and Omran's (1977) theory of epide-miological transition provide context for understanding mortality variations. Logit models and the maximum quasi-likelihood estimation method allow for statistical inference. Research findings show that spatial patterns of mortality are more fragmented and less explainable for females than for males; that mortality is dependent (1) negatively on median family income and the percentage of individuals who are married and (2) positively on unemployment rate and the percentages of individuals who are single, widowed, and divorced or separated; among socioeconomic variables derived from the 1981 census, median family income is the most powerful explanator of intraurban mortality variation and, in this context, other explanatory variables are not statistically significant; and, in terms of the theoretical frameworks of Mosk and johansson (1986) and Omran (1977), mortality patterns for females are shown to have progressed further than for males. Cet essai caractérise et explique les variations de mortalité apparues en étudiant les tracts de recensement de la Région d'Hamilton-Wentworth, Ontario, en 1980–82. L'analyse est basée sur le taux de mortalité spécifique au groupe des 55 à 64 ans, en prenant en considération les deux sexes et les différentes catégories de cause majeure de mortalité. La relation mortalité/revenu en 4 étapes de Mosk et Johansson offre un contexte permettant de mieux comprendre les variations de mortalité. Les modeles Logit et la méthode d'estimation de quasi-probabilité permettent de considérer une inférence statistique. On a trouvé tout d'abord, que les modèles spatiaux de mortalité sontplus fragmentés et moins expliquables pour les femmes que pour les hommes; ensuite, sur la base d'une série d'analyses bi-variées, la mortalité prouve dépendre (1) négativement du revenu familial moyen et du pourcentage d'individus mariés et (2) positivement d'un taux de chomage et de pourcentages d'individus célibataires, veufs, divorcés et séparés; troisièmement, parmi toutes les variables socio-économiques dérivées du rencensementde 1981, le revenu familial moyen est la variable expliquant le mieux les variations de mortalité intra-urbaine et, dans ce même contexte, les autres variables explicatives ne sont pas suffisamment significatives sur le plan des statistiques; et (4) en termes des cadres théoriques de Mosk et lohansson et Omran, cette étude démontre que les modèles de mortalité ont progressé davantage pour les femmes que pour les hommes.