scholarly journals Mapping spatial cultures: contributions of space syntax to research in the urban history of the nineteenth-century city

Urban History ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 488-511 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Griffiths ◽  
Laura Vaughan

AbstractThe theory and methods of space syntax can help to rebalance the prevailing cultural perspective, which views maps as ideological representations, with an analytical approach that emphasizes maps as sources for understanding space and spatial relationships embedded in built forms. The quantitative descriptions of urban street networks produced by space syntax analyses can be used to formulate and test hypotheses about patterns of urban movement, encounter and socio-economic activity in the past that can help in the interpretation of other historical source materials to give an overall account of urban spatial culture. In this article, the authors explain how space syntax, a theory and method originally developed in the field of architectural research, is making a distinctive contribution to research in social and urban history. The key principles of the method are explained by clarifying the relationship of space syntax to HGIS (Historical Geographical Information Systems) and through a worked example of research undertaken into political meeting places. A survey of research into the urban history of the nineteenth-century city using space syntax is used to highlight a number of important methodological themes and also demonstrates the range of innovative contributions that this interdisciplinary approach is able to advance. A final, theoretical, section reflects on maps and the practice of ‘mapping’ from a space syntax perspective.

Author(s):  
Joseph Ben Prestel

The introduction shows that the historical parallels between cities in Europe and the Middle East during the nineteenth century are an underresearched topic in history, demonstrating that Eurocentric tendencies have led to a separation between historical studies on cities in these two regions. It shows how a comparison between Berlin and Cairo contributes to the study of potential parallels between cities in Europe and the Middle East. It is in this context that the history of emotions opens up a new perspective. While older comparative studies have focused on the origins of urban change, the introduction argues that a history of emotions shifts the focus towards the study of how contemporaries negotiated urban change. In this way, the history of emotions helps to overcome Eurocentric pitfalls and offers the possibility of a more global urban history, in which the histories of Berlin and Cairo begin to speak to each other.


Author(s):  
Joseph Ben Prestel

Between 1860 and 1910, Berlin and Cairo went through a period of dynamic transformation. During this period, a growing number of contemporaries in both places made corresponding arguments about how urban change affected city dwellers’ emotions. In newspaper articles, scientific treatises, and pamphlets, shifting practices, such as nighttime leisure, were depicted as affecting feelings like love and disgust. Looking at the ways in which different urban dwellers, from psychologists to revelers, framed recent changes in terms of emotions, this book reveals the striking parallels between the histories of Berlin and Cairo. In both cities, various authors associated changes in the city with such phenomena as a loss of control over feelings or the need for a reform of emotions. The parallels in these arguments belie the assumed dissimilarity between European and Middle Eastern cities during the nineteenth century. Drawing on similar debates about emotions in Berlin and Cairo, the book provides a new argument about the regional compartmentalization of urban history. It highlights how the circulation of scientific knowledge, the expansion of empires, and global capital flows led to similarities in the pasts of these two cities. By combining urban history and the history of emotions, this book proposes an innovative perspective on the emergence of different, yet comparable cities at the end of the nineteenth century.


2000 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. E. dos SANTOS ◽  
M. SATO ◽  
J. S. R. PIRES ◽  
P. S. MAROTI

A non-formal Environmental Education (EE) Program has been implemented in the natural conservation area (Ecological Station of Jataí, Luiz Antônio, São Paulo State), through (EE) paradigms, which consider the objectives of education about, in and for the environment within cultural and natural perspectives. The aim of this Program is to support information and scientific knowledge to provide opportunities to the local population to be aware of environmental impacts and risks resulting from the soil use that threaten the environmental quality and the biodiversity of the Ecological Station of Jataí. The Program understands that the promotion of community empowerment could bring the sense of participation and the directives to management for decision-making for local sustainability. The model was projected on local reality, but considering the global issues of environmental paradigms. The environmental characterization (biophysical components) through a Geographical Information Systems was related to the hydrographic basin analysis. The environmental perception was utilized as a main tool to analyse population understanding of local environment, and (EE) pedagogical tools were produced to promote environmental awareness. Since the ecological dimension of (EE) was the main approach, the programme intends to assemble the cultural perspective, achieving the global view of (EE).


Author(s):  
Вячеслав Раклов ◽  
Vyacheslav Raklov

The textbook considers the basic concepts of cartography, the history of its development, as well as the classification of maps and the main elements of the map, the issues of mathematical cartography, the main stages of creating maps, the factors, types and methods of cartographic generalization. Separate sections of the manual are devoted to cartographic signs and methods of image on maps of thematic content, the development of cartographic scales and methods of use of maps in land management and cadastre. Separately, the issues of the functioning of geographical information systems (GIS): their composition, structure, technology for creating thematic maps in the GIS environment. The manual concludes with a section on GIS mapping for real estate cadastre, environmental protection and land monitoring, as well as recommendations on the choice of GIS and requirements for cartographic documentation of real estate cadastre. Recommended for students studying in the field of "land Management", "Land cadastre", "Urban cadastre".


Urban History ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 726-729
Author(s):  
PAUL LAXTON

Of the British scholars gathered by H.J. Dyos in 1966 to give substance to his vision of urban history as a distinctive genre of history only a few would claim the study of cities and city life as their prime academic interest. No more than a handful of those involved in the Urban History Group in the mid-1960s went on to publish major work in urban history. That was left to the generation whose careers were established in the early 1970s. The handful included Jim Dyos himself, Tony Sutcliffe, David Reeder, John Kellett and Peter Hennock. For the latter part of his career Hennock concentrated on the history of the welfare state and social policy in Britain and Germany and that is what those historians familiar with his name will associate him with. But his first book, based partly on his doctoral research, Fit and Proper Persons: Ideal and Reality in Nineteenth-Century Urban Government (1973) was as squarely a work of municipal history as one could find, and if a test of a contribution to history is not the quantity of publications but what endures of them, then Ernest Peter Hennock more than justifies our recognition amongst historians of towns and cities.


X ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camillo Berti ◽  
Massimiliano Grava

The use of toponymy as an indicator of settlements and fortified structures: the Tuscan caseThe purpose of this contribution is to analyze the spatial distribution of the place names referred to the Tuscan territory, to fortified structures and settlements, through the study of the place names recorded geodatabase RE.TO.RE. (Regional Toponymic Repertory) created by the Tuscany Region with the scientific contribution of the Universities of Pisa, Florence and Siena. The Tuscan toponyms has been the object of both a synchronic study within each of the cartographic sources that make up the geographical database, and a diachronic analysis between the temporal thresholds in which the archive is articulated. The database, extrapolated from cartographic supports, in fact covers a time span between the first decades of the nineteenth century (nineteenth century land registries) and the most recent information series produced in the regional context (Carta Tecnica Regionale). In the contribution, the place names related in various ways to different types of structures and fortified settlements, such as castle, fort, tower, fortress, has been analyzed both in relation to the distribution and spatial aspects, and in reference to their evolutionary dynamics (persistence, disappearance, transformation), with the aim of identifying possible relationships between the territory and the distribution in time and space of the different types of fortifications. From a methodological point of view, the study has been carried out, in addition to the traditional tools of the topomastic survey, especially taking advantage of the potential of spatial analysis functions typical of geographical information systems.


Author(s):  
CAROLINE FINKEL

This chapter comments on the Ottoman frontier, historical archaeology, Ottoman archaeology, and suggests future developments in these studies. The history of the frontiers of the Ottoman world played out in significantly different ways at each point along their great distance. Geographical and climatic circumstance and human conditions conspired to produce uniqueness. Meanwhile, the fortuitous degree of overlap between archaeological and historical data at Anavarin encourages people to search for a better understanding of the matters dealt with here. Each of the projects documented is this volume is tied to a specific geographic location. This simple fact opens up opportunities for virtual representation of historical and archaeological findings using GIS (Geographical Information Systems) software. GIS provides a means of digitally storing and analysing large amounts of data relating to defined locations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 116-135
Author(s):  
Malcolm Little ◽  
Stephen Peplow

The tithe files contain a large amount of agricultural production data, but have not been much used for econometric analysis. The data is the result of averaging and estimating, thus some doubt has been cast on its accuracy. This article shows that for eight counties in the southwest of England, some data from the tithe files is reasonably reliable and was recorded in a consistent manner. The article demonstrates how tithe files and other data can be geocoded with spatial information so that an analysis using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) may be performed. Three tests are carried out, showing that pastoral rents followed a ‘distance decay’ model; that reported arable yields were consistent with exogenous variables; and that arable rents were set with economic variables in mind.


Author(s):  
Sermin Çakici Alp ◽  
Neriman Şahin Güçhan

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a framework of introducing a proper method to document and to analyze conservation process of cultural heritage in Bursa, known as one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Turkey and to discuss challenges in use of geographical information systems (GIS) for assessment of a complex data collected and analyzed during different phases of the historic researches. Design/methodology/approach A systematic approach is used to understand relations between theoretical and practical processes of heritage conservation in Bursa. Due to the complicated structure of input data, GIS was used as the major tool in illustration of cultural heritage in various spatial scales, while providing connection between different timelines of its urban history. Within this concept, at first, conservation history of cultural heritage in Bursa is briefly described. Second, four stages of the method, used to make reliable and convenient assessment, are given. Finally, facilities and challenges in using this system are discussed in relation with the results achieved. Findings As a result of this study, both chronological and spatial distribution of all types of conservation practices are described in related with theoretical and legal aspects. There appear both advantages and limitations in use of GIS, during assessment of input data to understand conservation history of Bursa. Originality/value Therefore, it would be possible to see if it is adequate to understand the complicated structure of such kind of overlapped sources in a systematic way of information management system.


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