Mapping “drug places” from below. The lived cities of marginalized drug users

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-212
Author(s):  
Mélina Germes ◽  
Luise Klaus ◽  
Svea Steckhan
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Drug Users ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Political Perspective ◽  
Drug Policies ◽  
Situated Perspective ◽  
German Cities ◽  
The City

Purpose On top of their legal, economic, social and institutional marginalization, marginalized drug users (MDUs) also experience political marginalization: drug policies shape their lives without their political participation. From a scientific as well as a political perspective, the inclusion of their various viewpoints and situated knowledge is a major challenge, and one to which this paper aims to contribute in light of the experiences and imaginaries of MDUs urban spaces in several German cities. Design/methodology/approach Following a socio-geographical approach, this paper interrogates how MDUs appropriate and imagine the city, drawing on Lefebvre’s Production of Space and mixing critical cartographic with grounded theory, in the attempt to both understand and reconstruct the world from the situated perspective of MDUs based on their own words, drawings and emotions. Findings The narratives and drawings of participants show another cityscape, radically different from the hegemonic discourses and mappings antagonizing MDUs and making their existence a social problem. Space appears as a means of marginalization: there are barely any places that MDUs can legitimately appropriate-least of all so-called “public space.” By contrast, MDUs’ imaginaries of an ideal city would accommodate their existence and address further social justice issues. Originality/value The notion of “public places” appears unable to express MDU’s experiences. Instead of focusing on the problem of public spaces, policymakers should tackle the question of placemaking for MDUs beyond the level of solely drug-related places.

Tolerance zones: a pragmatic approach to respond to problems related to open alcohol and drug scenes in Bremen/Germany

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanna Prepeliczay ◽  
Henning Schmidt-Semisch
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Drug Users ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Related Disorder ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Tolerance Zones ◽  
Drug And Alcohol ◽  
The City

Purpose This study aims to describe and analyse an approach in the city of Bremen (Germany) to establish streetwork-supported tolerance zones for local open drug and alcohol scenes to reduce related disorder and nuisance in public spaces. Design/methodology/approach The qualitative methodology included systematic participant observations at public sites of drug and alcohol use, and problem-centred interviews with different groups of respondents (residents, passers-by, trades people, drug users, experts from addiction help and police). Findings In residential districts, tolerance zones were well accepted by their target group and found to reduce perceived disorder and nuisance in public space. However, their success depends on the social and spatial conditions of the chosen location, its surrounding urban infrastructure, cooperation among local actors and characteristics of drug using groups. Originality/value Usually, policing of open drug scenes focuses on repression and law enforcement. The example of Bremen suggests that streetwork-supported tolerance zones dedicated to the drug scene can substantially reduce disorder and nuisance in public space.

scholarly journals Placemaking in Arab Cities. Realities, Challenges, and Prospects

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Place Branding ◽  
Core Component ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Inclusive Approach ◽  
Distinct Sense ◽  
Urban Conditions ◽  
The City

Placemaking is an inclusive approach to the planning, design, and management of public places by which people create and/or recreate places. In the context of the Arab cities, placemaking projects are often envisaged to transform communities’ spaces into lively and attractive places; to enhance quality of life and opportunity for existing residents. It also aims to (re)create a distinct sense of place or place branding at large. Exploring how contemporary Arab cities have framed placemaking processes within the contemporary urban conditions, and sometimes the threats to the quality of the city, are helping in creating healthier, equitable, and humane public places. Such challenges and opportunities of these processes is a core component of this special edition of The Journal of Public Space, which discusses various aspects of placemaking in Arab Cities, ranges from creating, enhancing, adapting and developing attractive and efficient public places in Arab Cities. In this context, academic papers and viewpoints have manifested a variety of perspectives, theories and practices of placemaking concepts, methods, recent challenges and possible solutions. They portrayed several tools on establishing and revitalizing public places starting from governmental toolkits, reaching unplanned activities fostering community engagement in placemaking.

scholarly journals Genopdagelsen af gadens kultur – om Isaac Joseph og den pragmatiske vending i fransk bysociologi

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-25
Author(s):  
Martin Severin Frandsen
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Culture ◽  
Urban Sociology ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Transit Systems ◽  
Local Populations ◽  
Pragmatic Turn ◽  
The City

Denne artikel tager afsæt i den aktuelle sociologiske og offentlige diskussion om offentlige byrum og præsenterer nyere og i dansk sammenhæng stort set ukendte bidrag fra den strømning i fransk sociologi, der betegnes som ”den pragmatiske vending”. Artiklen har to hovedpointer. For det første at den pragmatiske bysociologi kan bidrage til denne diskussion ved at beskrive og fremhæve betydningen af de oftest upåagtede og dagligdags kompetencer, ved hjælp af hvilke byboere skaber sociale overenskomster og fredelig sameksistens på offentlige steder i socialt og kulturelt differentierede byer. For det andet at bysociologien ifølge de pragmatiske sociologer ikke kan standse ved analyser af segregation, ghettodannelser og lokale fællesskabers tilegnelser af territorier. ”At tænke byen” indebærer at bevæge sig videre til også at undersøge de byrumsmæssige design og trafikale forbindelser og passageveje, der skaber sammenhængen i det urbane væv og tillader byboeren at overvinde fremmedheden på et ikke fortroligt territorium. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Martin Severin Frandsen: Rediscovering Urban Culture and Public Space: On Isaac Joseph and the Pragmatic Turn in French Urban Sociology This article analyses current sociological and public discussions concerning public urban spaces, and introduces new (and in a Danish context largely unknown) contributions from the movement in French sociology that has been labelled ”the pragmatic turn”. The article makes two main arguments. Firstly, the pragmatic urban sociology can contribute to these discussions by highlighting the importance of the often unnoticed and everyday civilities through which city-dwellers create social agreements and peaceful co-existence in public places in socially and culturally heterogeneous cities. Secondly, urban sociology cannot, according to the pragmatic sociologists, stop with inquiries into segregation, ghettos and local populations appropriations of territories. Imagining the city implies moving on to explore the designs of public spaces and public transit systems that create continuity and mobility in urban agglomerations and allow city-dwellers to overcome the strangeness of unfamiliar territories.

Public installations or how to reclaim our rights as citizens

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 97-106
Author(s):  
Rana Haddad
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Public Places ◽  
American University ◽  
American University Of Beirut ◽  
Human Scale ◽  
The People ◽  
The Face ◽  
Art And Architecture ◽  
The City

This article focuses on the importance of reclaiming our rights as citizens and our public spaces by documenting two different public installations/performances that took place in Beirut. The first took place in Spring 2018 and was organized by BePublic Lab at the American University of Beirut, and the second was the Architectural Association Visiting School that took place in Beirut in Summer 2019. Both installations led to a series of interventions on the stretch between Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhael, an area that has been witnessing gentrification in recent years. Both projects aim to trigger political engagement and raise public awareness in the face of the lack of public space, especially for the youth, in a city that is gradually moving towards a near total privatization of its public places. They emerged as a response to the sociopolitical strategies of depriving the citizens of their basic needs by privatizing what was once everyone’s. This article argues that urban interventions are an opportunity to address sociopolitical issues through spatial and temporal public installations. These installations, tailored to a human scale and anchored in the city as both art and architecture, reflect on the power of public interventions as urban catalytic tactics that engage with the people and challenge the blasé attitude of the citizens, pushing them to claim their rights to the city.

Philo's in Flaccum: Ethnicity and Social Space in Roman Alexandria

1997 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Alston
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Spatial Factors ◽  
Public Action ◽  
Anti Jewish ◽  
The City

Philo's famous account of anti-semitic rioting in Alexandria in A.D. 38, the InFlaccum, has frequently been exploited by scholars interested in the legal status of the Jewish community within the city and the issue of the constitution of Alexandria. This legalissue lies near the heart of the dispute which leads to some ancient and most modern accounts tracing the roots of the dispute to the Ptolemaic period. It is notable, however, that the first major attested outbreaks of anti-Jewish feeling considerably post-date the Roman conquest, suggestingthat this is a problem of Roman Alexandria with its roots in the Roman administration of the city. Philo also places comparatively little emphasis on legality in the InFlaccum. The account of the persecution concentrates rather on the topography of the dispute. The centrality of spatial factors in the In Flaccum can be illustrated by comparing the persecution of the Jews and the fall of Flaccus. Flaccus was publicly humiliated through a show trial, through the sale of his property at public action, and on his journey into exile, by the crowds in Italy and Greece who flocked to watch him pass. He was excluded from public space, both from his city by decree of the emperor and from the urban spaces of his island exile, prompted in the latter case by his conscience. Finally, while in isolation, he was attacked and murdered. The Jews were robbed and driven from the streets of their city into exile and deprived of access to the theatre and market. Their leaders were humiliated in the most public places in the city and finally they were attacked in their own homes. Although the parallels are not exact, as can be seen in Table 1, they are explicit and thiselaborate structure demonstrates for Philo the justice of God in His persecution of the persecutors.

Placemaking and the right to the city of urban poor: a case studyin Sanandaj, Iran

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 508-528
Author(s):  
Kayoumars Irandoost ◽  
Milad Doostvandi ◽  
Todd Litman ◽  
Mohammad Azami
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Informal Settlements ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

Purpose This paper aims to present a critical analysis of placemaking by the urban poor based on the Right to the City, Henri Lefebvre’s influential theory regarding the production of space and placemaking. Design/methodology/approach This study reflects Lefebvre’s production of space and the right to the city theories and containing three main pillars including holism, the urban and praxis, and the use of spatial dialectics. Also, for collecting information in this research, along with scrutiny of documents and books, residents of the poor settlements of Sanandaj have also been interviewed. Findings In Sanandaj, urban poor who lack formal housing reclaim the Right to City by creating informal settlements. Such settlements, such as Shohada, Baharmast and Tagh Taghan, cover 23% of the city’s area but house 69% of the urban population. Originality/value This research seeks to understand placemaking in urban slums by low-income inhabitants using Henry Lefebvre’s critical theory of social production of space and the Right to the City. This case study examines the city of Sanandaj, Iran, where most residents are poor and live in cooperative informal settlements. It illustrates how the urban poor, as marginalized inhabitants, overcome the constraints of conventional planning and property ownership to creatively and cooperatively develop communities that reflect their needs. This indicates a schism between formal and informal sectors.

Walking the public: re(visiting) Athens’s historical centre

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 298-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitra Kanellopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Social Exchange ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
City Centre ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Space Planning ◽  
Space Projects ◽  
People Search ◽  
And Function ◽  
The City

Purpose Since the 1980s, planning public spaces for leisure walking is largely linked with economic and cultural objectives. Parallel to this tendency and the priorities of local authorities on barker public space projects, inhabitant’s associations, that grow up after the 2000s, propose new ways of visiting the city through collective walks. Drawing on the example of the Atenistas group, and based on the discourses of its founders, its presence on social media and the narratives of participants, the purpose of this paper is to question the emergence and function of new forms of urban walking that joggle between tourism, social exchange and act of citizenship. Design/methodology/approach The case study is based on personal semi-directive interviews with organisers and participants at “Atenistas Open Walks”. It is also based on interviews that have been held with architects and urban planners within technical services of the municipality of Athens as also as within private sector’s structures. Findings First insights from the study question pedestrianisation as a dominant urban planning tool towards animated street life and performant local economy. Contrary to the traditional top-down approach in Athens’s public space planning which uses pedestrianisation or land management to re-invest on the city centre, Atenistas Open Walks reveal the existence of alternatives ways of a re-engagement with city values and history. People search to explore the city by themselves and re-trace their proper itineraries (and ways of seeing the city) by outpassing official discourses on the decline, the success, the dangerousness or the beautifulness of certain neighbourhoods. Consequently, walkers constantly nourish their will to better understand the city. Public space experience outpasses morphological or functional issues. The act of walking with others in the city willing to explore places and to exchange on this experience, confront people with different narratives and trajectories and can momently be a strong factor of social cohesion and activation of public space with significant impacts on local economy. Walking collectively can emerge, in this way, as a counter model of public space planning capable of revitalise not only touristic activity, but also citizenship. Originality/value The study questions dominant discourses that link urban liveability and touristic attractiveness of urban centres with recreational events and streets’ pedestrianisation projects.

scholarly journals Narrating the Racialization of Space in Austin, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee

2015 ◽  
pp. 11-25
Author(s):  
Martha Norkunas
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
Complex Flows ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Racial Boundaries ◽  
The Public ◽  
Racialized Space ◽  
Social Custom ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The City

Narrating the Racialization of Space in Austin, Texas and Nashville, TennesseePeople of color in the United States have been obligated to move through public space in particular ways, dictated by law and social custom. Narrators create cognitive maps of movement in the city shaped by racial codes of behavior. The maps change over time as law and social custom changes. The fluidity of the maps is also influenced by status, gender, class, and skin tone. This paper examines a rich body of oral narratives co-created with African Americans from 2004 to 2014 focusing on how men and women narrate their concepts of racialized space. It moves from narratives about the larger landscape — the city — to smaller, more personal public places — the sidewalk and the store — to intimate sites of contact in the public sphere. Many of the narratives describe complex flows of controlled movement dictated by racial boundaries in the context of capitalism. The narratives form an urban ethnography of the power relations inscribed on the landscape by racializing movement in space. Narracje o urasowieniu przestrzeni w Austin (Teksas) i Nashville (Tennessee)Nie-Biali w Stanach Zjednoczonych byli zmuszeni do poruszania się w przestrzeni publicznej w szczególny sposób, określony przez prawo i zwyczaj społeczny. W swoich narracjach badani tworzą mapy kognitywne ruchu w mieście, kształtowane przez rasowe kody zachowania. Mapy te zmieniały się w czasie pod wpływem zmian prawnych i zwyczajowych. Na płynność tych map wpływały także status, płeć, klasa i odcień koloru skóry. W artykule przeanalizowano bogaty zbiór relacji ustnych tak zwanych Afroamerykanów, zbieranych w latach 2004-2014; uwaga skupia się na tym, jak mężczyźni i kobiety opowiadają o swoim widzeniu przestrzeni urasowionej. Omówiono narracje o szerszej przestrzeni miasta, jak i węższej, skoncentrowanej na bardziej osobistych miejscach publicznych, takich jak sklep. Wiele narracji opisuje złożone wiązki kontrolowanych ruchów, dyktowane przez granice rasowe w kontekście kapitalizmu. Narracje te tworzą etnografię miejskości o relacjach władzy wpisanych w krajobraz, opartych na urasowieniu ruchu w przestrzeni.

scholarly journals The cybercity as a medium Public living and agency in the digitally shaped urban space

2010 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 11-19
Author(s):  
Seija Ridell
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
Automatic Production ◽  
Urban Settings ◽  
Public Agency ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
The City

The digitalized urban environment is explored in the paper as a medium with several overlapping and interweaving spatial layers. The author suggests that it has grown increasingly complex in the multi-spaced and multiply scaled cybercities for people to share in public space. Moreover, the challenges of public living in contemporary urban settings emerge most intensely at the points of intersection of the invisible technostructure and the (mass) media saturated phenomenality of the city. At these intersections, one ethically and politically burning issue is how people through their ICT-related activities contribute to the ?automatic production of space‘. More specifically, critical attention should be paid to people‘s active, but not necessarily selfreflexive, participation in the consolidation of the ?technological unconscious‘ that conditions their own public agency.

scholarly journals PUBLIC PLACES IN THE MODERN CITY: DAILY PRACTICES OF THEIR CREATION AND PRESENTATION BY THE INHABITANTS OF THE CITY

2020 ◽  
pp. 24-27
Author(s):  
Mikhno Nadiya
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Modern City ◽  
Space Organization ◽  
The City ◽  
Ideological Context

The main focus of this article is on defining the specific characteristics of public space organization in a modern Ukrainian city. The study identified the vector of change in the organization of public spaces in recent decades under the influence of changing socio-historical, ideological context and under the influence of globalization processes. It is determined that the main formats of using public spaces in the city today are pragmatic formats of use – the practice of commercialization of urban space, the practice of interaction with strangers, «domestication» of public space, «Europeanization» of public space, desacralization and marking of public space as safe and convenient.

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