(In)visibilizing Vulnerable Community Members: Processes of Urban Inclusion and Exclusion in Parkdale, Toronto

2020 ◽  
pp. 120633122094410
Author(s):  
Elena Ostanel

The visibility and invisibility of vulnerable individuals or groups in public space have been extensively used as a conceptual tool to assess the “public” character of space. This article analyses the case study of the Parkdale neighborhood in Toronto demonstrating how public space is constructed in a path-dependent territorial process where different layers play a dynamic constitutive role: a material, a discursive, and a policy dimension. It argues that urban visibilization and invisibilization in public spaces extensively affect the dynamics of urban inclusion and exclusion, particularly when they are used in specific territorial stigmatization and destigmatization processes. The investigation enables to better understand the socio-spatial conditions comprising the “denial” and “recognition” of certain groups and individuals at the neighborhood level by understanding how local policies and community-based practices influence the complex dynamic of “seeing and being seen” in an urban environment.

Author(s):  
Minh-Tung Tran ◽  
◽  
Tien-Hau Phan ◽  
Ngoc-Huyen Chu ◽  
◽  
...  

Public spaces are designed and managed in many different ways. In Hanoi, after the Doi moi policy in 1986, the transfer of the public spaces creation at the neighborhood-level to the private sector has prospered na-ture of public and added a large amount of public space for the city, directly impacting on citizen's daily life, creating a new trend, new concept of public spaces. This article looks forward to understanding the public spaces-making and operating in KDTMs (Khu Do Thi Moi - new urban areas) in Hanoi to answer the question of whether ‘socialization’/privatization of these public spaces will put an end to the urban public or the new means of public-making trend. Based on the comparison and literature review of studies in the world on public spaces privatization with domestic studies to see the differences in the Vietnamese context leading to differences in definitions and roles and the concept of public spaces in KDTMs of Hanoi. Through adducing and analyzing practical cases, the article also mentions the trends, the issues, the ways and the technologies of public-making and public-spaces-making in KDTMs of Hanoi. Win/loss and the relationship of the three most important influential actors in this process (municipality, KDTM owners, inhabitants/citizens) is also considered to reconceptualize the public spaces of KDTMs in Hanoi.


2021 ◽  
pp. 78-107
Author(s):  
Lizeth Benavides ◽  
Natasha Cabrera_Jara ◽  
Belén Campoverde_Bermeo

El cambio de modelo urbano asumido durante el siglo XX, trajo un sinnúmero de problemas como la priorización del vehículo, por lo que en la última década han surgido esfuerzos para dotar de importancia al ciudadano de a pie, en el espacio público. Esta investigación estudió las condiciones físico-espaciales de un corredor urbano donde el modelo centrado en el vehículo se acentúa, con la fnalidad de generar posibles estrategias que reviertan esta situación. Se tomó como caso de estudio a la Av. 24 de Mayo, en Azogues, y se lo analizó mediante una metodología mixta, que evaluó, detalladamente, tres zonas de estudio, determinando que la falta de accesibilidad y conectividad y el modelo de movilidad defendido por la ciudadanía, en general, infuyen directamente en las condiciones del espacio público peatonal y por ende en la habitabilidad urbana, perjudicando los desplazamientos a pie. Palabras clave: Espacio público; habitabilidad urbana; conectividad; accesibilidad; percepción. AbstractThe change of urban model assumed during the 20th century, brought countless problems such as the prioritization of vehicles, so in the last decade eforts have emerged to give importance to the citizen on foot in the public space. This original research studied the relationship of urban habitability with the physical-spatial conditions of an urban corridor, where the vehicle-centered model is accentuated, to generate possible strategies to reverse this situation. The Av. 24 de Mayo in Azogues was taken as a case study and analyzed using a mixed methodology that evaluated in detail three study areas, determining that the lack of accessibility and connectivity and the mobility model defended by citizens in general have a direct infuence on the conditions of the pedestrianpublic space and, therefore, on urban habitability, which afects walking Keywords: Public space; urban habitability; connectivity; accessibility; perception.


Author(s):  
Nikos Bubaris

The term ‘cocktail party effect’ derives from acoustics and refers to the possibility to distinguish the voice of a particular speaker amid the noisy confusion produced by a plethora of overlapping voices and conversations. In this article I propose a conceptual elaboration of the term by considering the acoustic phenomenon in question, both literally and metaphorically, as one of the most characteristic conditions shaping contemporary collective and acoustic experience in environments overloaded with information. In the first part, I discuss the conditionsthat give rise to the cocktail party acoustic phenomenon, as they relate to particular types of social, communicative and listening practices. In the second part, I present a case study of the phenomenon based on the creation of a soundscape composition developed in conjunction with a written text, both occasioned by the political activity in the public space of the Syntagma Square in Athens during the summer of 2011.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Fengwen Wu ◽  
Shiyu Qin ◽  
Chunyu Su ◽  
Mingyuan Chen ◽  
Qian Wang ◽  
...  

Historic districts represent an important characteristic of Beijing and are also a crucial carrier of Chinese historic culture. However, they are significantly affected by the rapid urban constructions. Thus, it is of great significance to maintain and promote the public space in historic districts. This paper uses a multisource data superposition method to select the evaluation index of public space. The AHP was also used to complete the single-level and total-level ranking and calculation of evaluation indexes. Finally, based on the DEA model, a vitality evaluation model of Beijing historic district public spaces was developed and its validity was verified through a case study of the Wanping historic district.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 449-459
Author(s):  
Kin-Ling Tang

This article argues that in order to understand the resistance potentials of taking space movements, the temporal dimensions and spatial practices implied cannot be neglected, or else there would be a tendency to be overoptimistic about resistance in these movements. Using the Umbrella Movement that took place in Hong Kong in 2014 as a case study, this article notes that representational space and spatial practice by protesters were guided by a dualistic view of the public and the private, which in turn is the dominant ideology in neoliberalism, and that their acts of resistance were not able to go beyond the confines of conceived space. In the movement, protesters reclaimed public spaces through privatizing them. Based on the work of Lefebvre, this article argues that only with a radical critique of neoliberal values embedded in capitalism including the public-private dualism can any real transformations of everyday life and hence revolution be possible.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabrina Chua ◽  
Yahaya Ahmad

Back lanes are ubiquitously found in every city as they are a required component according to the by-laws. The intention of back lane is to serve as a service road and consequently society tends to neglect and had led to a forgotten public space due to its lack of maintenance. Thus, this has discouraged the pedestrian movement as it is unsafe because the laneway is mainly hidden from public eye. Therefore, it became a space for undesirable activities to be taken place especially for hoodlums. In line with the Kuala Lumpur Tourism Master Plan 2015-2025, that gives emphasise to revitalise forgotten spaces, this research looks into the issues of back lanes in Petaling Street with the aims to unlock its potentials. The study adopted a qualitative approach through 2 phases. The first phase is through literature review to study and understand its historical background follows by site observation through photographs and recording of the site existing conditions. The second phase is through interviews with urban planning experts and business owners to discuss the historical value, issues and parameters to revitalize the back lane. The outcome of the research divulges that revitalization of back lane and shifting the front façade to the back lane or adapting to a double façade are able to greet the public with new urban social spaces and that tenants are able to utilize and give it a new meaning.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 575-593
Author(s):  
Hee-Kyu Heidi Park

Abstract Public demonstrations shed much meaning when the precarity of the human body’s standing in the public space is considered. This article seeks to decipher the complex messages such instances communicate through a case study of a one-person protest against a multinational conglomerate on a CCTV pole in Seoul. It describes how the body’s precarity generates transformative social imaginations through interdisciplinary analysis. Starting with a thick description of the protester’s and his community’s history, this article interprets the message conveyed in this particular public space through interdisciplinary analysis. The resulting interpretation allows the formation of an eschatological theological imagination which brews with the possibility to transform the public onlooker into participants in such imagination.


Author(s):  
Annapurna Devi Pandey

Silicon Valley, known as the technology hub of the USA, has emerged as a medley of places of religious worship. It has become a home to wealthy Indian Americas and to many gods and goddesses who have come to reside there as well. Indian Americans have contributed significantly to the mushrooming of temples in this region. This chapter attempts to answer the following questions: How does diaspora provide a space to reconstruct the identity of the women practitioners? How does religion enable them to negotiate their roles in the public space? In this chapter, the author argues that Hindu women in the diaspora play a very significant role in selectively performing religious rituals in public places of worship as brought from their homeland. In performing these rituals, women are creating a distinct space in mainstream public culture to reconstruct their identity and agency beyond their roles as homemakers and professionals. In this specific case study, Odia women living in Northern California are not only reshaping their traditions but are engaged in interreligious dialogue in Silicon Valley corporate culture.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 13-26
Author(s):  
Francesca Menichelli

This article investigates what happens to urban space once an open-street CCTV system is implemented, framing the analysis in terms of the wider struggle that unfolds between different urban stakeholders for the definition of acceptability in public space. It is argued that, while the use of surveillance cameras was initially seen as functional to the enforcement of tighter control and to the de-complexification of urban space so as to make policing easier, a shift has now taken place in the articulation of this goal. As a result, it has slowly progressed to affect the wider field of sociability, with troubling consequences for the public character of public space. In light of this development, the article concludes by making the case for a normative stance to be taken in order to increase fairness and diversity in the city.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 445-463
Author(s):  
Laurie Mompelat

This article analyses the representational stakes of queer of colour performance, by taking the case study of the Cocoa Butter Club: queer of colour cabaret night in London. Within a British landscape that has silenced queer subjectivities of colour at the intersection of race, gender and sexuality, I explore the potential of QPOC performance to redress historical erasure. To enact their presence, I argue that the Cocoa Butter Club’s performers showcase their collective disidentification from the scripts pre-assigned to their bodies within the European imagination. By doing so, they disrupt hegemonic representations of queerness and racialised otherness, making room for a multitude of queer of colour becomings kept otherwise invisible from public view. Such disidentifications unleash ‘ghosts’ into the public space, spectres of elided subjectivities and unresolved coloniality within a city that likes to think of itself as a post-racial LGBT haven. Drawing on ethnographic material and interviews with performers, I analyse what happens when such queer of colour hauntings reach the audience’s gaze. I consider their unsettling effects in relation to the white gaze, as well as their empowering function in relation to desiring QPOC subjects, seeking reflections of themselves in spectatorship.


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