New York City has a long history of gentrification, well demonstrated by the strategies of “revitalization” and “re-development” that have occurred in Harlem throughout the last century. Less well known is the historical, political, and social context surrounding New York’s Pier 45, also known as the Christopher Street Pier. As a historically-known gathering spot for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals, the Christopher Street Pier gained recognition for harbouring what could be described as a queer public . However, recent processes (...) of gentrification have changed Pier 45 into the Hudson River Park, ostensibly privatizing the site. With reference to Braidotti’s nomadic subject, this paper explores the Christopher Street Pier as a representation of queer geographies. Further, it argues that the re-appropriation of the once queer public space of Pier 45 exposes a municipal agenda of surveillance in relation to sexualized and racialized identities. Through reference to the activist practices of FIERCE, a local NGO, I show how the nomadic subjectivities of queer youth open up a discussion of ethical responsibility and point toward strategic movements of resistance in the face of gentrification in New York’s West Village. (shrink)

field: Issue 8 Embodying an Anti-Racist Architecture comprises essays, articles, podcasts, drawings, designs, the cover image, and a film. ‘This Call to Action' is a document borne from dialogue, and as such derives its power from the activism that collaboration and cooperation engender. -/- Asma Mehan, Carolina Lima, Faith Ng’eno, and Krzysztof Nawratek discuss white hegemony across different geopolitical and academic spaces, mindful of the nuances of using English as their shared yet borrowed language. -/- .

Now that the usage and meaning of urban spaces have been dramatically challenged by the global pandemic, several debates and reflections are going on around the manner in which cities – both as concerns the public and the private spaces – have been designed. The article observes how “urban-human face” representations have served different models of urbanity across times and cultures. Using a framework deriving from semiotics of culture, according to which the city represents a model of the world, the (...) article attempts to interpret how portraits of faces have been modelling the city through different urban faciality mechanisms. The focus is on a sample of what we call ‘urban-human faces’, ranging from Soviet propaganda posters to the digital #selfiecity project. The expression refers to series of representations that bring together the city and the face. It can be argued that both the city and the face, produced at a specific historical and cultural moment, with their figurative and plastic elements, deploy the struggle for the city ownership and authorship. Nonetheless, the commensurability of the city and the face can be just based on the fact that both semiotic configurations represent an excess with the help of cartographic reproduction (the city) and the portrait (the face), respectively. A city can be represented by a face to the extent to which it is also multifaceted as a polylogue. On the basis of such instable commensurability, the article will ultimately attempt to bring together the semiotics of the face and the semiotics of the city. (shrink)

Although the idea of freedom has been well studied as an ideal in political philosophy, relatively little scholarship has focused on the human experience of freedom. Drawing on ethnographic research between 2012 and 2013, I examine how freedom was achieved by people who practice freeganism and freecycling in Hong Kong. I show that the freedom that these people pursue, either individually or collectively, is not a freedom without constraints but a freedom that must be attained through the exercise of deliberation, (...) restraint, and self-discipline. While freegans seek liberation by withdrawing from the world and practicing self-cultivation (chushi asceticism), freecyclers do so by engaging with worldly affairs in order to create social changes (rushi asceticism). In both cases, by reimagining freedom as ethical practices rather than a right that comes naturally with birth, freegans and freecyclers in Hong Kong are able to experience moments of freedom despite inevitable structural constraints. (shrink)

Given that one of the defining elements of capitalist society is the ubiquity of forms of abstraction through which social relations are mediated, it is not surprising that a generalised ‘reproach of abstraction’ has taken on a critical orthodoxy within social theory and the humanities. Many of these attacks against a pervasive culture of abstraction have an obvious resonance with longstanding critiques of the abstractions inherent in law. This article explores the critique of the power of abstraction that is a (...) central theme in Henri Lefebvre’s depiction of the ‘abstract space’ of contemporary capitalism. In doing so, it will be emphasised that Lefebvre’s work is not primarily concerned with the rejection of abstraction per se, but with understanding the relationships between dominant forms of abstraction and concrete social practices. Of particular interest here is Lefebvre’s reformulation of the concept of concrete abstraction which extends his work beyond a polemical dismissal of the violence of abstraction into broader theoretical debates about the role of the abstract in the reproduction of social relations. Building on this aspect of Lefebvre’s work, I will argue that the concept of concrete abstraction can provide a means of understanding the relationships between the concrete and the abstract in existing juridico-political relations. (shrink)

What, if anything, is problematic about gentrification? This article addresses this question from the perspective of normative political theory. We argue that gentrification is problematic insofar as it involves a violation of city-dwellers’ occupancy rights. We distinguish these rights from other forms of territorial rights and discuss the different implications of the argument for urban governance. If we agree on the ultimate importance of being able to pursue one’s located life plans, the argument goes, we must also agree on limiting (...) the impact of gentrification on peoples’ lives. Limiting gentrification’s impact, however, does not entail halting processes of gentrification once and for all. (shrink)

Globally, mortality and fertility rates generally fall as resource abundance increases. This pattern represents an evolutionary paradox insofar as resource-rich ecological contexts can support higher numbers of offspring, a component of biological fitness. This paradox has not been resolved, in part because the relationships between fertility, life history strategies, reproductive behavior, and socioeconomic conditions are complex and cultural-historically contingent. We aim to understand how we might make sense of this paradox in the specific context of late-twentieth-century, mid–demographic transition Chile. We (...) use distribution-specific generalized linear models to analyze associations between fertility-related life-history traits—number of offspring, ages at first and last reproduction, average interbirth interval, and average number of live births per reproductive span year—and socioeconomic position (SEP) using data from a cohort of 6,802 Chilean women born between 1961 and 1970. We show that Chilean women of higher SEP have shorter average interbirth intervals, more births per reproductive span year, later age at first reproduction, earlier ages at last reproduction, and, ultimately, fewer children than women of lower SEP. Chilean women of higher SEP consolidate childbearing over a relatively short time span in the middle of their reproductive careers, whereas women of lower SEP tend to reproduce over the entirety of their reproductive lifespans. These patterns may indicate that different SEP groups follow different pathways toward declining fertility during the demographic transition, reflecting different life-history trade-offs in the process. (shrink)

Matthew Desmond’s “Relational ethnography,” is a manifesto for a relational turn in ethnography, liberating it from the “substantialism” of bounded places, processed people and group culture. Substantialism, however, proves to be a largely mythical category that obscures two types of relational ethnography: Desmond’s empiricist transactional ethnography and an alternative, theoretically driven structural ethnography. Drawing on Desmond’s own ethnographies, On the Fireline and Evicted, I explore the limitations of his transactional ethnography—a “spontaneous sociology” that rejects the theoretical engagement and comparative logic. (...) I elaborate and illustrate structural ethnography, drawing out the implications for public and policy sociology. (shrink)

While a growing body of scholarship identifies urban agriculture’s broad suite of benefits and drivers, it remains unclear how motivations to engage in urban agriculture (UA) interrelate or how they differ across cities and types of organizations. In this paper, we draw on survey responses collected from more than 250 UA organizations and businesses from 84 cities across the United States and Canada. Synthesizing the results of our quantitative analysis of responses (including principal components analysis), qualitative analysis of textual data (...) excerpted from open-ended responses, and a review of existing literature, we describe six motivational frames that appear to guide organizations and businesses in their UA practice: Entrepreneurial, Sustainable Development, Educational, Eco-Centric, DIY Secessionist, and Radical. Identifying how practitioners stack functions and frame their work is a first step in helping to differentiate the diverse and often contradictory efforts transforming urban food environments. We demonstrate that a wide range of objectives drive UA and that political orientations and discourses differ by geography, organizational type and size, and funding regime. These six paradigms provide a basic framework for understanding UA that can guide more in-depth studies of the gap between intentions and outcomes, while helping link historically and geographically specific insights to wider social and political economic processes. (shrink)

Jakarta is a city of high aspirations of the entrepreneurial and professional middle classes. For the rich, this brave new world of malls, office parks, and apartments represents an optimistic economy. The displaced poor, however, express an emotional economy of fear and anger that begets a politics of resistance. This study seeks to grasp the new urbanisms that uncover this ‘structure of feeling’ among the poor. I suggest that the urban imaginary of Jakarta is co-constituted by a symbiosis of optimism (...) and ambitions on the one hand and, on the other, by pessimism, fear, and anger materialized in the resistance of the occluded and expressed through processes of questioning and cursing the profit-seeking dreams that are transforming the cityscapes. Exploring the making of Jakarta in this way can lead to a fuller understanding of the politics of urban transformation – one that moves away from assuming globalizing neoliberalism is the sole or primary force shaping the urban world. (shrink)

Currently, many consumers have expressed strong opinions about food production process, its distribution, and guaranteeing models. Consumers’ concerns about ecological and social sustainability issues can have significant impacts on both food demand and food policies. The choice of approach to an asset or service could determine the orientation of the markets; therefore, it is particularly important to pay attention to novel, collective, social movements which are practicing alternatives to the mainstream models of production, distribution, and consumption. Farmers markets, solidarity-based purchasing (...) groups, box scheme, shopping groups, ‘pick your own’, social shopping, are all examples of sustainable consumption patterns involving thousands of people seeking quality and ethical products and services at the best price. While a variety of definitions of the concept of ethical consumption have been suggested, throughout this paper it will refer to the participation of consumers in, and their orientation toward, political discourses on sustainable and fair agro-food production. Ethical consumption attitude has been analysed in the framework of political consumerism theory by administering six focus groups among Italian participants of a specific form of collective action, namely the solidarity-based purchasing group. Findings provide insights that represent a fruitful starting point for deepening the analysis of ethical consumers’ behaviour at a broader level in order to sustain and spread eco-socially production practices and ethical consumption behaviour. (shrink)

Based on their research showing that growing cities follow basic principles, two theoretical physicists, Luis Bettencourt and Geoffrey West, call for researchers and professionals to contribute to a grand theory of urban sustainability. In their research, they develop a ‘science of the city’ to help urban planners address problems that arise from population increases. Although they provide valuable insights for understanding urban sustainability issues, they do not give planners a manageable way to approach such problems. I argue that developing an (...) applied mereology to understand the concept of ‘city identity’ gives planners a theoretical device for addressing urban affairs, including ethical concerns. In turn, I devise a model of city identity to show how a ‘philosophy of the city’ contributes to a grand theory of urban sustainability. (shrink)

Acts of sexual violence in transit environments are everyday occurrences for women across the globe, and the fear of being on the receiving end of sexual violence severely impacts women’s mobility patterns. Gill Valentine, in her examination of women’s fear of male violence and women’s perception and use of public space, has argued that the impact on women’s mobility amounts to a spatial expression of patriarchy. The aim of this paper is to expand upon Valentine’s notion of “the spatial expression (...) of patriarchy” by engaging feminist philosophy within the context of sexual violence against women on public transportation. More specifically, I will argue for two particular interpretations of the spatial expression of patriarchy, one structural and one relational. It follows from my view that solutions to overcoming and ending sexual violence against women on public transportation hinge on both a structural and a relational understanding of the spatial expression of patriarchy. (shrink)

The mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa strives to deliver transit services that promote social equity through bicycle lanes, improved sidewalks, and a world-famous Bus Rapid Transit system, “TransMilenio.” Through examining the principles that guide his planning, we can flesh out a starting point for socially just transit systems. While such measures can alleviate several harms that transit systems cause, they rest on an incomplete foundation due to their top-down nature. To amend this situation, the author argues for a restorative justice (...) approach to transportation democracy, using examples from Peñalosa’s mayoral tenure. In turn, lessons from Bogotá’s transportation history reveal how to develop transit systems that strongly favor justice. (shrink)

Philosophy of the city has recently emerged as a new subfield, garnering global interest. While most inquiries in this area have ‘the city’ or an urban issue as common ground, particular approaches engage in a kind of study identified as ‘intra-disciplinary research.’ An intra-disciplinary approach draws from different areas of philosophy to address problems that extend beyond the limits of individual subfields. A close examination reveals that this practice challenges assumptions holding that definitively answering philosophical questions is the only path (...) to progress. Engaging in this kind of research adds to philosophy’s set of methods, and shows promise for philosophers wrestling with complex issues. (shrink)

The global city is a contested site of economic innovation and cultural production, as well as profound inequalities of wealth and life chances. These cities, and large cities that aspire to ‘global’ status, are often the point of entry for new immigrants. Yet for political theorists (and indeed many scholars of global institutions), these critical sites of global influence and inequality have not been a significant focus of attention. This is curious. Theorists have wrestled with the nature and demands of (...) global justice, but have for the most part supposed that the debate is between statist and cosmopolitan formulations. Questions of redistribution, immigration, humanitarian obligations, coercion at borders, and territorial rights have correspondingly been cast as either the domain of sovereign territorial states, or of the nascent web of supranational institutions that might bind those states and peoples, morally and legally. Examining some of these issues and arguments through the lens of the global city casts them in a new and informative light, and buttresses an associative turn in thinking about global justice. (shrink)

This contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Fuzzy Studies” reports on the rise of the “popular assemblies” movement that swept the streets of Madrid in the wake of the May 15, 2011, occupation of Puerta del Sol. Assemblies have since taken installation in public spaces as infrastructural with significant methodological implications. Their incorporation into the cityscape has demanded of participants an inventive deployment of techniques and tactics drawn from archival practices and practices of hospitality, as well as the development of (...) varieties of urban hardware. The “fuzz” or mess of the assembly — the difficulties that participants have at putting together, let alone understanding, the assembly as an urban form — offers a valuable perspective on present-day discussions concerning the city as an object of political claims and rights. (shrink)

Popular protest is occurring on a remarkable scale in South Africa. Nonetheless, there is a significant degree to which it tends to be organized and articulated through the local. This contribution argues that while the political limitations of purely local modes of organization are clear, it should not be assumed that local struggles are some sort of misguided distraction from building a broader progressive movement. It is suggested that, on the contrary, the best prospects for the emergence of a broader (...) popular struggle lie in building, sustaining and linking local struggles. (shrink)

Bill Bowring’s book attempts to argue for a Marxist account of international law that embraces it as a tool for progressive politics and revolutionary change. He argues it is necessary to give a substantive account of both, locating them in the real struggles of the oppressed. Specifically, he locates human rights in the three great revolutions ‐ the French, the Russian and the anticolonial. However, this revolutionary heritage has been ‘degraded’ by recent events. As such, it is necessary to adopt (...) ‘revolutionary conservatism’, invoking international law’s origins against its current degradation. This review argues that, owing to international law’s indeterminacy, Bowring’s project is susceptible to imperial appropriation. This means, however, that Bowring cannot give an account of why we should use international law. It then argues that Bowring’s account of Pashukanis is wrong, and that Pashukanis’s work can better make sense of Bowring’s insights and international law more generally. (shrink)

This paper is a call for educators to respond to the problematics that arise from reducing the Earth to a resource for human activities. The concept of ‘Anthropocene’ is a burning invitation to rethink education by putting the human to its place. We therefore argue for a spatial-embodied conceptualization of learning, which involves the more-than-human and nonrepresentational. In this effort, we use Latour’s concept of ‘geostory’ to problematize the prevailing anthropocentrism in education. We discuss the power of experimentation by introducing (...) a learning experiment that took place at a pop-up greenhouse in Helsinki. The idea was to encourage upper secondary geography students to playfully discard their human perspective and study the city from the viewpoint of plants: to probe the presumed human/nature divide through brief but moving encounters with ‘others’. We argue that through affective encounters with nonhuman others, the Earth speaks: it tells stories with us. If humans let themselves be addressed by these encounters, geostories can temporarily re-place human-centred narrative storytelling practices (histories), voiced by the modernist ‘I’, and generate alternative forms of knowledge that emerge from our belonging together. These stories emerging from geographical experimentation entail potential to cultivate both knowing and care that exceed the human. (shrink)

Este trabajo busca mostrar la relevancia de considerar el punto de vista de la geografía crítica en relación a la fundamentación normativa de los principios de justicia en el marco de la justicia global. Partiendo de la definición de Escalas de Justicia de N. Fraser considero importante apuntar que un énfasis en la noción de escala geográfica como resultado de la acción social puede ayudar a clarificar el problema del alcance de los principios de justicia. En este sentido la idea (...) guía para pensar la forma de las escalas de dominación consiste en asumir que las formas de interacción social mediadas por normas definen unas determinadas relaciones de poder entre miembros habitantes de un mismo espacio político delimitado por el alcance que suponen las mismas normas. En otras palabras, pensar el espacio de acción social a nivel de las escalas hace posible considerar la forma estructural en virtud de la cual dicho espacio se articula normativamente. (shrink)

Teniendo en cuenta que la filosofía es hija de la polis, a primera vista, el tema de la filosofía de la ciudad puede no revelar nada nuevo. De hecho, la filosofía y la ciudad cuentan una historia paralela. Es en el ágora, un espacio privilegiado para el ejercicio de la ciudadanía, donde la filosofía se desarrolla como debate de argumentos. Pero, aunque a lo largo de la historia las ciudades puedan reflejar un deseo civilizatorio, lo cierto es que la ciudad (...) contemporánea refleja muy poco de la realidad política de la polis, de la indiferenciación medieval entre lo público y lo privado o de la racionalidad normativa de la ciudad moderna. Las ciudades en el siglo xx, y especialmente en el siglo xxi, tienen que ver más con las relaciones sociales y económicas de la ciudad industrial y posindustrial. La progresiva mecanización del siglo xix y su extensión, en el siglo xx, a la automatización y a la digitalización, cambian definitivamente la forma en que nos relacionamos, pensamos y trabajamos —en resumen, cómo vivimos—. Con el establecimiento de un capitalismo de orden económico que afecta a todas las dimensiones de la vida de la ciudad, esta queda delimitada por el poder, revela las contradicciones de las sociedades urbanas diseñadas por los mercados y da lugar, según David Harvey, a la apropiación privada de la vida y los espacios. (shrink)

There is a certain allure to the idea that cities allow a person to both feel at home and like a stranger in the same place. That one can know the streets and shops, avenues and alleys, while also going days without being recognized. But as elites fill cities with “smart” technologies—turning them into platforms for the “Internet of Things” : sensors and computation embedded within physical objects that then connect, communicate, and/or transmit information with or between each other through (...) the Internet—there is little escape from a seamless web of surveillance and power. This paper will outline a social theory of the “smart city” by developing our Deleuzian concept of the “spectrum of control.” We present two illustrative examples: biometric surveillance as a form of monitoring, and automated policing as a particularly brutal and exacting form of manipulation. We conclude by offering normative guidelines for governance of the pervasive surveillance and control mechanisms that constitute an emerging critical infrastructure of the “smart city.”. (shrink)

Although there is a history in urban thought wherein scholars view cities as technologies, the encompassing character of such views inherently limits them. In turn, their usefulness does not efficiently support the kind of thinking that is required to deliver worthwhile outcomes that can promote social justice and human flourishing. However, narrowing the focus through examining municipalities as technologies offers possibilities that can help us achieve such goals. To maximize the utility of this endeavor, employing the structural-ethics approach provides a (...) way to assess urban technologies to achieve success. In this paper, the author explores the ideas above, revealing how they advance our thinking when it comes to remaking, planning, and building existing and future cities. The article concludes by linking these claims to other lessons in urban studies and geography. (shrink)

Responding to Open Philosophy’s call ‘Does public art have to be bad art?’, in this paper we argue that this discussion should pay attention to the consequences of structural transformations that guide the production and presentation of public art in today’s increasingly private city. While entrepreneurial governance and corporate branding strategies generate new opportunities, they might also result in increased risk averseness and control over the content of public art, thus putting its critical potential at risk. That observation ushers in (...) urgent questions about control, complicity and criticality. We aim to reflect on those questions through two public art projects in Hong Kong: Antony Gormley’s Event Horizon (2015) and Our 60-second friendship begins now (2016) by Sampson Wong Yu-hin and Jason Lam Chi-fai. After drawing conclusions on the justification of public funding for co-productions, the legitimacy for artists to sometimes not ‘follow the rules’, and the problematic nature of a narrow definition of professionalism as a means to discredit artists, our analysis underlines the urgent need to develop a framework that can guide discussions on the consequences of control and complicity for the critical potential of public art. (shrink)

In 2015, the predominantly visible minority immigrant community of Herongate, in Ottawa, Ontario, was slated for redevelopment by its landlord, Timbercreek Asset Management. This redevelopment involved mass eviction of the incumbent tenants, demolition of the existing affordable housing and its replacement with luxury rentals, which, by all indications, are beyond the financial reach of the former Herongage tenants. This paper seeks to problematize large-scale residential real estate redevelopment in Canada and examine its impact, using the Herongate situation as a case (...) study. Among other things, it profiles the Herongate community, its history and present redevelopment, and explores the legal framework, and the limits thereof, constraining mass evictions of this type in Ontario. The findings indicate that the selection of Herongate for redevelopment was not fortuitous; generally, racialized and immigrant communities like Herongate are disproportionately likely to be selected for large-scale redevelopment projects, and thus subjected to mass-evictions. Further results suggest that the dissolution of the Herongate community – and the attendant dislocation of its members – has exacted a pronounced social and economic toll and compounded the racial discrimination already experienced by the former Herongate residents, most of whom are visible minorities. The paper concludes with an appeal to imbue the redevelopment process with a greater regard for social justice, and a right to housing as a policy solution to address the injustice caused by real estate redevelopment. (shrink)

The bigness of cities has attracted much attention from urban academics and professionals whose perspective may be divided into two camps: productive science using agglomeration-based analysis or impact science using anxiety-based analysis. The two approaches need to be joined in order to resolve issues of urban ‘bigness’, and in this article the growth of Perth is used to illustrate the potential and challenges of this integration.

This paper is an ethnographic study of everyday walking practice in the city. The research was conducted in 2014-2015 in selected streets of Brno city and was based on a hybrid method of shared walking (go-along) coupled with observations and semi-structured interviews. As urban walking is recognized as a significant mode of travel, this paper aims to expand existing knowledge by contributing qualitative data. The key influence is the work of Michel de Certeau (1984) who understands walking as a practice (...) of everyday life. Everyday walking helps shape physical spaces and this subsequently affects human behavior. In this article I will discuss how people relate to walking, how they act in urban space and what importance they attach to their behavior. Another aim is to ascertain how pedestrians behave while performing their everyday routine and how they interact with drivers and cyclists. (shrink)

This article considers how Spatial Big Data is situated and produced through embodied spatial experiences as data processes appear and act in small moments on mobile phone applications and other digital spatial technologies. Locating Spatial Big Data in the historical and geographical contexts of Sydney and Hong Kong, it traces how situated knowledges mediate and moderate the rising potency of discourses of cartographic reason and data logics as colonial cartographic imaginations expressed in land divisions and urban planning continue on, in (...) a world that increasingly values models of calculability, interoperability and authority. It draws on ethnographic material gathered through walking interviews in both cities, and in doing so, it argues that by using ethnographic ‘moments’, it is possible to decentre the focus on data processes to consider the critical potential of a politics of everyday experiences that produce and reflect the structures of data logics. Through these ethnographic moments, this article examines how mobile technologies are complicit in the production of Spatial Big Data, and the impact this has on the increasing regimentation and surveillance of modes of being and expression via mobile media. At the same time, it will argue that while spatial calculability has expanded from cartographic reason into data logics, the epistemological universality of Spatial Big Data is constantly being resisted – in moments of experimentation, failure, intuition, memory and desire, the ghosts of the incalculable epistemes, experiences and people, forgotten by the emphasis on calculation, continue to speak. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The category of the right to the city, conceptualized over five decades ago by the French Marxist philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre, is currently experiencing its second life. It has become a significant political slogan, which – in its counter-hegemonic aspirations towards social change and transgressing the existing order, primarily in the fight against the reality of neoliberal urbanization – rallies together various socio-political movements most often defined under the umbrella term of urban social movements. In my analysis of (...) Lefebvrian notions, I utilize the increasingly widespread category of ‘real utopia’. Additionally, this real utopia treats the right to the city in epistemological terms: as a peculiar type of knowledge co-produced at the intersection of academia and social activism, which remains a relatively rare interpretation among readers, interpreters and practitioners following Lefebvre. I search for these themes both directly in Lefebvre’s work as well as that of his continuators, observing the practices of producing knowledge useful to contemporary Polish right to the city movements. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung: Der Beitrag systematisiert, kontextualisiert und evaluiert den eigentumstheoretischen Hintergrund der derzeit breit geführten Debatte um bezahlbaren Wohnraum in deutschen Großstädten. Ausgehend von der These, dass hinter der sogenannten ‚Wohnungskrise‘ eigentlich eine ‚Bodenkrise‘ steht, werden drei zentrale Konflikte um die politische Rahmung des Eigentums an Boden diskutiert: die Frage nach dem Gebrauch, der Verwertung und dem Eigentumsschutz. Dabei werden die normativen Potentiale eines immanenztheoretischen, apriorisch pflichtgebundenen Eigentumsverständnisses für eine zeitgemäße Wohnraum- und Bodenpolitik ausgelotet.

In this paper I discuss the concept of the right to the city in articulation with the concept of urban play and more specifically, the diverse body of research related with playable and playful cities. Following a brief review of these two concepts and related studies, I critically discuss the possibilities of articulating Lefebvre's radical concept of the right to the city to contemporary interventions on urban and digital play.

A largely qualitative body of literature has contributed to understanding the contradictory dimensions of community gardening as a social justice tool. Building on this literature through a city-wide, quantitative intervention, this paper focuses on community gardening as a facilitator of ecological gentrification in St. Louis, Missouri. Combining the analytical lenses of spatial justice, urban political ecology, and the rent gap theory of gentrification, I deploy spatial regression analysis to show that community gardening was positively associated with gentrification in St. Louis (...) between the years 2000 and 2010, as measured by the growth of high socioeconomic status residents in each neighborhood. This result suggests that a sociospatial dialectic exists in which the implementation of a community garden, a change in the use of urban space, leads to unintended social outcomes. Contextualizing this finding within the broader literature, I conclude that the potential of community gardening as an instrument for spatial justice is contingent on institutional support against larger-scale processes, like gentrification, that lead to spatially unjust outcomes. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung: Seit jeher dienen Städte als Projektionsfläche sowohl für die Identifikation von problematischen Tendenzen der Gesellschaft als auch für die Entwicklung erstrebenswerter gesellschaftlicher Zukünfte. Als Kristallisationspunkt und Triebkraft soziopolitischer Entwicklungen nimmt die Stadt eine zentrale Stellung in Praktiken des Regierens und deren Beobachtung ein – und doch tut sich die Politische Theorie traditionell schwer damit, ein Verständnis von Stadt zu entwickeln, das diesem Status und den damit verbundenen Ambivalenzen gerecht wird. Allzu oft verbleiben entsprechende Debatten dem Souveränitätsparadigma verhaftet, sodass die (...) Stadt primär in Relation zum Prinzip territorialstaatlicher Souveränität begriffen wird. Unser Beitrag argumentiert, dass eine Auflösung dieser konzeptionellen Verwicklung dazu beitragen kann, das Verhältnis zwischen dem Städtischen und dem Politischen als ein konstitutionslogisches, das sich von anderen Konstitutionslogiken des Politischen unterscheidet, sichtbar zu machen. Dazu greifen wir auf eine raumtheoretische Perspektive der Moderne zurück, die Stadt und Territorialstaat nicht als „Kleines“ und „Großes“, sondern als zwei eigenständige, zugleich komplementäre und konfligierende Modi der räumlichen Vergesellschaftung begreift. Unser Beitrag zeigt auf, dass Verdichtung und Heterogenisierung, als die beiden wesentlichen raumstrukturellen Merkmale des Städtischen, mit einer spezifischen Konstitution des Politischen im Sinne einer Erzeugung von kollektiver Macht und gesellschaftlicher Ordnung verbunden sind. Die Stadt tritt damit nicht bloß als Ort der Materialisierung übergreifender soziopolitischer Phänomene in den Blick, sondern als räumliches Prinzip, das Möglichkeiten für gemeinsames Sprechen und Handeln sowie für Praktiken der konfliktiven Infragestellung hegemonialer Projekte erst hervorbringt. Eine dergestalt angelegte politische Theorie der Stadt erlaubt es, politische Praktiken nicht nur in der Stadt zu lokalisieren, sondern als genuin städtische Phänomene zu erfassen und sowohl die Komplementaritäten als auch die Widersprüche zwischen den Raumprinzipien der Stadt und des souveränen Territorialstaats herauszuarbeiten. (shrink)