scholarly journals Events in the affective city: Affect, attention and alignment in two ordinary urban events

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marion Ernwein ◽  
Laurent Matthey
Keyword(s):  
Urban Studies ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Event Studies ◽  
Critical Event ◽  
Affective Experience ◽  
Swiss Canton ◽  
Political Project ◽  
The City

In a representational regime, planned urban events are used by urban planners to render urban projects visible and acceptable. As a corollary of the focus of urban studies on their representational dimension and in spite of a burgeoning literature on the notion of affective urbanism, the experiential character of events remains surprisingly unexplored. This paper argues that an ordinary regime of events is mobilised by city-makers to act on the embodied, affective experience of the city and on the ways urban dwellers know and act upon the city. By analysing planned urban events in their embodied, experiential dimension, we focus on the ways in which, through the design of ephemeral material dispositives, urbanists attempt to encourage citizens to incorporate ways of knowing and acting on space and on the modalities of knowing and acting that are at play. We stage an encounter between critical event studies and Ingoldian approaches to affect and attention, examining two urban events in a Swiss canton. We show how intense encounters with urban matter are staged in an attempt to modulate affects, guide attention, and produce alignment with a specific political project, asking urban dwellers either to embody a project still in the making or to cultivate expectations regarding an already-written future.

Thinking with and beyond the informal–formal relation in urban thought

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 620-623 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin McFarlane
Keyword(s):  
Urban Studies ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Formal Relation ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way ◽  
Multiple Ways Of Knowing

This commentary to the special issue on ‘Transcending (in)formal urbanism’ reviews key threads common across the issue and opens up questions as to the work that the informal–formal dynamic does for urban studies. It points out the general agreement in that none of the papers rejects the utility of the category of informal and that the terms informal and formal still have value and utility. In doing so, the special issue articles offer three key contributions to demonstrate the ways in which the informal either composes or becomes a close partner to the formal, de-link informality from its more commonplace registers, and sketch how the formal and informal have always been blurred in practice. Centrally, this calls for a critical reflection on the structures of thought through which the informal–formal relation emerges. It advances an understanding of how informal and formal operate as a kind of ‘intellectual governmentality’ reiterating the same ways of seeing, carving up, and analysing the city, getting in the way of our ability to research urbanism differently. The appreciation of the informal–formal dynamic is situated as part of the challenge to build a more global urban studies that works with multiple ways of knowing and researching. To what extent does remaining within a structure of thought around the informal–formal relation enable or get in the way of that? Borrowing alternatives from movements to ‘provincialising’ that structure of thought, this commentary calls for a renewed interest in the potential, and limits, of the informal–formal inheritance in urban thought.

Problems of Analysis of Design and Research Methods of Interaction with the Urban Environment

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-110
Author(s):  
П. В. Капустин ◽  
А. И. Гаврилов
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Urban Studies ◽  
Environmental Movement ◽  
The Past ◽  
Types Of Knowledge ◽  
Historical Dynamics ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The City ◽  
Research And Design

Состояние проблемы. Проблематика городской среды заявила о себе в 1960-е годы как протест против модернистских методов урбанизма и других видов проектирования. Средовое движение не случайно тогда именовали «антипрофессиональным» - оно было направлено против устоявшихся и недейственных методов работы с городом - от исследования до управления. За прошедшие десятилетия в рамках самого средового движения и его идейных наследников наработано немало методов и приемов работы, однако они до сих не подвергались анализу как пребывающая в исторической динамике целостная совокупность инструментария, альтернативного традиционному градостроительству. Результаты. Рассмотрены особенности и проблемы анализа методологического «арсенала» средового движения и урбанистики. Методы работы с городской средой впервые структурированы по типам знания. Показана близость методов исследовательского и проектного подходов в отношении городской среды. Выводы. В ближайшее время можно ожидать появления новых синтетических знаний и частных методологий, связанных как с обострением средовой проблематики, с расширением круга средовых акторов, так и с процессом профессионализации урбанистики. Statement of the problem. The urban environment paradigm emerged in the 1960s as a protest against the modernist methods of urbanism and other types of design. It was no coincidence that the environmental movement was back then called "anti-professional" as it was directed against the established and ineffective methods of working with the city, i. e., from research to management. Over the past decades, within the framework of the environmental movement and its ideological heirs, a lot of methods and have been developed. However, they have not yet been analyzed as an integral set of tools in the historical dynamics which is an alternative to traditional urban planning. Results. The features and problems of the analysis of the methodological “arsenal” of environmental movement and urban studies are considered. The methods of working with the urban environment are first structured according to the types of knowledge. The proximity of research and design approaches in the case when the urban environment is dealt with is shown. Conclusions. In the nearest future, we can expect new synthetic knowledge and particular methodologies related to both the exacerbation of environmental problems to emerge as well as the expansion of the circle of environmental actors and the process of professionalization of urbanstics.

scholarly journals A Proposed Framework for Identification of Indicators to Model High-Frequency Cities

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 317
Author(s):  
Ahmad M. Senousi ◽  
Junwei Zhang ◽  
Wenzhong Shi ◽  
Xintao Liu
Keyword(s):  
Urban Studies ◽  
Traffic Congestion ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Highway Design ◽  
City Life ◽  
Cultural Affiliation ◽  
Internal Mobility ◽  
The City

A city is a complex system that never sleeps; it constantly changes, and its internal mobility (people, vehicles, goods, information, etc.) continues to accelerate and intensify. These changes and mobility vary in terms of the attributes of the city, such as space, time and cultural affiliation, which characterise to some extent how the city functions. Traditional urban studies have successfully modelled the ‘low-frequency city’ and have provided solutions such as urban planning and highway design for long-term urban development. Nevertheless, the existing urban studies and theories are insufficient to model the dynamics of a city’s intense mobility and rapid changes, so they cannot tackle short-term urban problems such as traffic congestion, real-time transport scheduling and resource management. The advent of information and communication technology and big data presents opportunities to model cities with unprecedented resolution. Since 2018, a paradigm shift from modelling the ‘low-frequency city’ to the so-called ‘high-frequency city’ has been introduced, but hardly any research investigated methods to estimate a city’s frequency. This work aims to propose a framework for the identification and analysis of indicators to model and better understand the concept of a high-frequency city in a systematic manner. The methodology for this work was based on a content analysis-based review, taking into account specific criteria to ensure the selection of indicator sets that are consistent with the concept of the frequency of cities. Twenty-two indicators in five groups were selected as indicators for a high-frequency city, and a framework was proposed to assess frequency at both the intra-city and inter-city levels. This work would serve as a pilot study to further illuminate the ways that urban policy and operations can be adjusted to improve the quality of city life in the context of a smart city.

scholarly journals A Cellular Automata Model for Integrated Simulation of Land Use and Transport Interactions

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Nuno Pinto ◽  
António P. Antunes ◽  
Josep Roca
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Cellular Automata ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Urban Studies ◽  
Particle Swarm Algorithm ◽  
Cellular Automata Model ◽  
Integrated Simulation ◽  
The Road ◽  
Ca Model ◽  
The City

Cellular automata (CA) models have been used in urban studies for dealing with land use change. Transport and accessibility are arguably the main drivers of urban change and have a direct influence on land use. Land use and transport interaction models deal with the complexity of this relationship using many different approaches. CA models incorporate these drivers, but usually consider transport (and accessibility) variables as exogenous. Our paper presents a CA model where transport variables are endogenous to the model and are calibrated along with the land use variables to capture the interdependent complexity of these phenomena. The model uses irregular cells and a variable neighborhood to simulate land use change, taking into account the effect of the road network. Calibration is performed through a particle swarm algorithm. We present an application of the model to a comparison of scenarios for the construction of a ring road in the city of Coimbra, Portugal. The results show the ability of the CA model to capture the influence of change of the transport network (and thus in accessibility) in the land use dynamics.

scholarly journals URBAN STUDIES IN THE CONTEXT OF THEORIES OF VISUAL PRACTICES

2017 ◽  
pp. 93-97
Author(s):  
A. M. Tormakhova
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Studies ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Mutual Influence ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Monumental Architecture ◽  
The City

One of the leading trends in contemporary cultural studies is the appealto the field of visual. Thepurpose of the article is to investigate the range of problems associated withthe existence, functioning of various visual practices in the urban space and the disclosure of the specifics of communication carried out through their intermediation. In urban space, there are many forms, such as monumental architecture, urban sculpture, outdoor illumination, landscape art, street art, graffiti and others. These artifacts are the subject of cultural research within different disciplines - aesthetics, cultural studies, design, and art. It may be noted that in recentdecades, significant development gets such a direction as Urban Studies, in which the focus of research serves the city. The methodology of the study includes an appeal to an interdisciplinary approach that relies on the achievements of practical cultural studies, Urban studies,and aesthetics theory by Ukrainian and Western authors. Scientific novelty consists in analyzing the connection ofactual visual practices presented in the urban space and forming of Internet activity, which facilitates the mutual influence of these spheres one on another. The author noted that urban space is gradually becoming not only interactive, but also fully assuming the characteristics of WEB 2.0, which means active rethinking and transforming the environment, urban residents involvement in decision-making that becomes a norm of everyday life. City is a kind of text that reflects changing tastes, politicaland economic factors in visualform. Town and city public spaces play an important role in shaping the interaction within society. One of the pressing problems of practical cultural studies in general and urban areas in particular, should be integrated into organization of the urban environment and design the image of the city. The practical significance lies in the fact that the results of the research can beused in developing the urban sphere in particular and in actualizing the issue of organizing the urban environment and constructing the image of the city.

Current debates in urban theory from a scale perspective: Introducing a scenes approach

Urban Studies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (8) ◽  
pp. 1487-1497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cary Wu ◽  
Rima Wilkes ◽  
Daniel Silver ◽  
Terry Nichols Clark
Keyword(s):  
Urban Studies ◽  
Urban Theory ◽  
Urban Scenes ◽  
The World ◽  
Geographical Scale ◽  
The City ◽  
Review Current ◽  
Hierarchical Scale

Cities, all over the world, have become more diverse than ever. This poses great challenges to urban studies and theorising. In this article, we review current debates in urban theory through Howitt’s (1998) three-facet conceptualisation of geographical scale and find that urban theorists have high levels of disagreement on the areal (scale as size), the hierarchical (scale as level) as well as the dialectical (scale as relation) aspects of the city. We show that, if urban theorists are to find a common approach to the city, we should contemplate: 1) what cities to study; 2) from which geographical level(s); and 3) how the city relates to other entities. We illustrate how the theory of urban scenes could potentially be used to address these debates in urban theory.

From Chicago to China and India: Studying the City in the Twenty-First Century

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 497-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuefei Ren
Keyword(s):  
Urban Studies ◽  
Neighborhood Effects ◽  
Urban Sociology ◽  
Urban China ◽  
First Century ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Urban Networks ◽  
China And India ◽  
Social Polarization ◽  
The City

Since the last quarter of the twentieth century, cities in the Global South have seen extraordinary growth, with China and India as the epicenters of urbanization. This essay critically assesses the state of the field of global urban studies and focuses particularly on the scholarship relating to urban China and India. The essay identifies three dominant paradigms in the scholarship: the global city thesis, neoliberalism, and postcolonialism. In contrast to US urban sociology, which is often preoccupied with the question of how neighborhood effects reproduce inequality, global urban studies account for a much wider array of urban processes, such as global urban networks, social polarization, and the transformation of the built environment. This essay points out the disconnect between US urban sociology and global urban studies and proposes a comparative approach as a way to bridge the divide.

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