‘Stop calling it graffiti’: The visual rhetoric of contamination, consumption and colonization

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 686-704
Author(s):  
Deborah Landry
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Crime Prevention ◽  
Visual Rhetoric ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Urban Art ◽  
The City

Municipal graffiti abatement approaches in North America have shaped the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves upon these city walls. This article examines how the City of Ottawa (Canada) manages graffiti and murals. In doing so, I demonstrate how those management practices connect to longstanding tensions about unauthorized markings in public places and the criminalization of style. Drawing from extensive ongoing ethnographic research on graffiti and the moral and legal regulation of urban performances, I reveal the aesthetics of security which fosters a visual logic of so-called ‘crime prevention,’ state-sanctioned redactions and racialized dispossession of phrasing and text. To close, I consider how urban art regimes are implicated in the colonizing of public spaces, while also considering the liberating possibilities of graffiti.

Streets, scum and people: Discourses of (in)civility in postwar Bihać, Bosnia and Herzegovina

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 326-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Azra Hromadžić
Keyword(s):  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Careful Attention ◽  
Political Inclusion ◽  
Material Things ◽  
Post War ◽  
The City

Building on more than ten years of ethnographic research in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina, this article documents discourses and practices of civility as mutuality with limits. This mode of civility operates to regulate the field of socio-political inclusion in Bosnia-Herzegovina; it stretches to include self-described “urbanites” while, at the same time, it excludes “rural others” and “rural others within.” In order to illustrate the workings of civility as mutuality with limits, the focus is on interconnections and messy relationships between different aspects of civility: moral, political/civil, and socio-cultural. Furthermore, by using ethnography in the manner of theory, three assumptions present in theories of civility are challenged. First, there is an overwhelming association of civility with bourgeois urban space where civility is located in the city. However, the focus here is on how civility works in the context of Balkan and Bosnian semi-periphery, suspended between urbanity and rurality. Second, much literature on civility implies that people enter public spaces in ways that are unmarked. As is shown here, however, people’s bodies always carry traces of histories of inequality. Third, scholarship on civility mainly takes the materiality of urban space for granted. By paying careful attention to what crumbling urban space looks and feels like, it is demonstrated how civility is often entangled with, experienced through and articulated via material things, such as ruins. These converging, historically shaped logics, geographies and materialities of (in)civility illustrate how civility works as an “incomplete horizon” of political entanglement, recognition and mutuality, thus producing layers of distinction and hierarchies of value, which place a limit on the prospects of democratic politics in Bosnia-Herzegovina and beyond.

A ‘crimmigrant ban’? Global mobility, urban (in)security and the changing dynamics of judicial practices

2021 ◽  
pp. 146247452110478
Author(s):  
Eleonora Di Molfetta
Keyword(s):  
Crime Prevention ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Urban Management ◽  
Residence Permit ◽  
Global Mobility ◽  
One Year ◽  
Empirical Material

In the last decades, western countries have developed a set of policies and practices aimed both at crime prevention and social reassurance. Within this trend, the old-fashioned sanction of banishment has regained prominence. Banning orders, in particular, are widely used to remove from public spaces individuals who are deemed a threat to public safety and urban decorum. This article investigates the use of banning orders towards foreign defendants without a valid residence permit in an Italian criminal court. Based on empirical material collected during a one-year period of courtroom ethnography in Turin, this article sheds light on the rationales and objectives behind the use of banning orders. The interviews with courtroom actors reveal how banning orders have lost much of their preventive dimension to become an instrument of socio-urban control towards immigrants. This article invites future research to consider the role that urban management practices might play in the field of global mobility.

scholarly journals Supporting Children’s Independent Activities in Smart and Playable Public Places

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 8352
Author(s):  
Chiara Garau ◽  
Alfonso Annunziata
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Historic Center ◽  
Physical Attributes ◽  
Process Of Urbanization ◽  
The City

The global process of urbanization, and the modification of social interaction determined by the pandemic crisis, poses the issue of the place of vulnerable users and, in particular, children, within the contemporary city. This research aimed to elaborate a theoretical and methodological framework, based on the concepts of affordance and capability, for analyzing the potential of public spaces to enable and support children’s independent activities. This potential, or meaningful usefulness, is expressed by the Index of Meaningful Usefulness of public Urban Spaces (IUIS). The latter is calculated via the tool ‘Opportunities for Children in Urban Spaces’ (OCUS). This methodology is applied to the analysis of significant public spaces within the historic center of the city of Iglesias in Sardinia, Italy. The results reveal adequate usefulness of the selected spaces, while underlining criticalities related to intrinsic spatial and physical attributes. The application to the case study confirms the validity of the theoretical and methodological framework embodied in the OCUS tool for supporting urban design and planning by orienting place-shaping processes towards the acknowledgement of children’s needs.

scholarly journals Supporting Children’s Independent Activities in Smart and Playable Public Places

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Garau ◽  
Alfonso Annunziata
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Historic Center ◽  
Physical Attributes ◽  
Process Of Urbanization ◽  
The City

The global process of urbanization, and the modification of social interaction determined by the pandemic crisis poses the issue of the place of vulnerable users, and in particular children, within the contemporary city. This research aims to elaborate a theoretical and methodological framework, based on the concepts of affordance and capability, for analyzing the potential of public spaces to enable and support children’s independent activities. This potential, or meaningful usefulness, is expressed by the Index of Meaningful Usefulness of public Urban Spaces (IUIS). The latter is calculated via the tool ‘Opportunities for Children in Urban Spaces’ (OCUS). This methodology is applied to the analysis of significant public spaces within the historic center of the city of Iglesias in Sardinia, Italy. The results reveal adequate usefulness of the selected spaces, while underlining criticalities related to intrinsic spatial and physical attributes. The application to the case study confirms the validity of the theoretical and methodological framework embodied in the OCUS tool for supporting urban design and planning by orienting place-shaping processes towards the acknowledgement of children’s needs.

scholarly journals Laneway redevelopment programs : a case study review

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Marie Oldhall
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
North America ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Design Guidelines ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
The City

The revitalization of formerly dark, dirty and often uninviting urban spaces is occurring across many cities throughout North America. This is because the hundreds of kilometers of laneways located behind buildings to be viewed as significant semi-public spaces and are being redeveloped into active spaces that can play a role in improving the state of the natural environment. The City of Toronto has a vast laneway system that is not being utilized to its full potential. This report attempts to demonstrate this point and suggests that there is an opportunity for recreating these laneways into vibrant spaces that support the natural environment while maintaining their primary functions as light vehicular thoroughfares and access points for homes and businesses. Through the examination of nine laneway redevelopment programs and projects this report highlights the successful techniques being implemented within these laneways and emphasizes the significant lessons that can be learned. Finally, each lesson learned is review, and recommendations are given on how the City of Toronto can potentially address each point if attempting to implement its own laneway redevelopment program. Among a host of recommendations, this includes the need to promote laneway redevelopment through a change to the City's existing land use planning policies; the development of laneway design guidelines; and, the implementation of a dynamic funding system.

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.

scholarly journals CITI-SENSE: methods and tools for empowering citizens to observe acoustic comfort in outdoor public spaces

Noise Mapping ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Itziar Aspuru ◽  
Igone García ◽  
Karmele Herranz ◽  
Alvaro Santander
Keyword(s):  
Public Spaces ◽  
Environmental Sensors ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Acoustic Comfort ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban Places

AbstractThe purpose of this research was to design and deploy tools that apply the concept of citizen observatories and empowering citizens in the assessment of acoustic comfort in public places. The research applies an iterative cycle of design and this article presents the results of a demonstrative experiment carried out in situ using the first products developed. This work was undertaken as part of the CITI-SENSE project. A viable technical and procedural solution was designed and tested in a field demonstration, where 53 people were engaged to provide 137 observations in the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz, using environmental sensors connected to a smartphone. The results have been analyzed and discussed in terms of the product’s attractiveness for engaging citizens in the evaluation of acoustic comfort in urban places, the accuracy of the noise levels measured by the acoustic app service integrated into the smartphone, and its ability to obtain simultaneous acoustic and perception data. The results presented in this article are considered a step forward in the research into developing solutions for assessing acoustic comfort. Limitations of the proposed solution are discussed, as are suggestions for further research.

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.

scholarly journals Laneway redevelopment programs: a case study review

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Marie Oldnall
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
North America ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Design Guidelines ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
The City

The revitalization of formerly dark. dirty, and often uninviting urban spaces is occurring across many cities throughout North America. This is because the hundreds of kllometres of laneways located behind buildings are beginning to be viewed as Significant semi-public spaces and are being redeveloped into active spaces that can play a role in improving the state of the natural environment. The City of Toronto has a vast laneway system that is not being utilized to its full potential. This report attempts to demonstrate this point and suggests that there is an opportunity for recreating these laneways into vibrant spaces that support the natural environment while maintaining their primary functions as light vehicular thoroughfare.s and access points for homes and businesses. Through the examination of nine laneway redevelopment programs and projects this report highlights the successful techniques being implemented within these laneways and emphasizes the significant lessons that can be learned. Finally, each lesson learned is reviewed, and recommendations are given on how the City of Toronto can potentially address each point if attempting to implement its own laneway redevelopment program. Among a host of recommendations. this includes the need to promote laneway redevelopment through a change to the City's existing land use planning policies; the development of laneway design guidelines; and, the implementation of a dynamic funding system. Key words: Laneway, Redevelopment. Natural Environment, City of Toronto

scholarly journals Household Waste Management Policy and Practices in Bengaluru

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 5059-5066
Keyword(s):  
Waste Management ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Management Policy ◽  
Household Waste ◽  
Waste Collection ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Waste Management Policy ◽  
Waste Management Practices ◽  
The City

Households play a very important role in waste management policy development and its implementation in any city. This study is done among households of 12 wards in Urban Bengaluru(India). It is observed that waste management is open of the most important issue among households and households in general are not satisfied by waste collection, segregation its transport service and maintenance of public places, provided by local municipal body. Garrett's ranking method is also used to give ranking for various waste management practices adopted by various wards. The results suggest that problems faced by households across the city is not same, also perception towards the policy and practices of local bodies towards waste management differs significantly across the city. Cleanliness of public places and waste collection process should be given highest priority by the policy makers. The study also determines a different perspective towards understanding behaviour of household. the policymakers may use this technique to identify specific geographic areas where immediate action is required

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