Introduction: Self-building as a right to the city

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Willem Salet ◽  
Camila D’Ottaviano ◽  
Stan Majoor ◽  
Daniël Bossuyt
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Urban Housing ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
City Regions ◽  
Low Income Groups ◽  
Global North ◽  
The One ◽  
The City

The chapter sets up the analytical framework for the comparison of cases of self-building by low income groups in city-regions of the Global North and South. Considering the enormous local differences, a choice of paradigm is needed to enable comparison. By designing a framework of contested urban governance, the analysis focuses on the struggle of social and economic forces that are underlying the local experiences: it consists of the economic powers that capitalize on material growth of cities on the one hand and the social and cultural powers of the urban population, claiming their right to the city, on the other. Crucial is the commissioning role of the residents in the attempts to control their housing situation in relation to other relevant players on urban housing markets. These attempts are not only made in the micro-level performance of self-building but also in the political and social struggle on the conditions that rest on these practices.

scholarly journals State-rescaling and re-designing the material city-region: Tensions of disruption and continuity in articulating the future of Greater Manchester

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 198-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Hodson ◽  
Andrew McMeekin ◽  
Julie Froud ◽  
Michael Moran
Keyword(s):  
Urban Governance ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
City Region ◽  
National Space ◽  
Future Design ◽  
City Regions ◽  
The Future ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The City

In a context of globalisation, the emergence of city-regions and the politics and dynamics of their constitution has been debated for almost two decades. Recent writings have extended this focus to seeing city-regions as a geopolitical project of late capitalism where the state takes a critical role in the re-design of city-regions to make them amenable to international competition and to secure strategic inward investments in the built environment and infrastructure. We explore this issue in the context of state redesign of sub-national space in England and focus on Greater Manchester, as the de facto exemplar of ‘devolution’ to English city-regions. We argue that though re-scaling in Greater Manchester is a long-term historical process this has been punctuated by the UK state’s process of ‘devolution’ since 2014, this has involved a re-design and formalisation of Greater Manchester’s governing arrangements. It has also involved invoking a long dormant role for city-regional planning in articulating the future design of the material city-region over the next two decades as an attempt to formalise and continue a pre-existing, spatially selective growth trajectory by new means. Yet, the disruption of new hard governing arrangements also provides challenges to that trajectory. This produces tensions between, on the one hand, the pursuit of a continuity politics of growth through agglomeration, material transformation of the city-region and narrow forms of urban governance and, on the other hand, a more disruptive politics of the future of the city-region, its material transformation and how it is governed. These tensions are producing new political possibilities and spaces in the transformation of Greater Manchester. The implications of this are discussed.

scholarly journals Mitigating Pro-Poor Housing Failures: Access Theory and the Politics of Urban Governance

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 439-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katja Mielke ◽  
Helena Cermeño
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Development Discourse ◽  
Housing Policies ◽  
Governance Practices ◽  
Housing Scheme ◽  
Path Dependent ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

Looking at evolving urban governance and planning practices in the city of Lahore, Pakistan, the article aims to understand—from an Evolutionary Governance Theory perspective—to what extent these practices steer paths and modes of service provision and housing for low-income residents. With a focus on the endurance and transformations of urban governance practices and institutions, we first explore the influence of the changing development discourse and the impact it has had on the (re)configuration of urban governance and housing policies in Lahore. Second, drawing on extensive fieldwork and empirical data collected between 2012 and 2016, we highlight three vignettes depicting the development of different housing options for low-income residents in Lahore, i.e., a government-steered subsidised housing scheme, a privately developed ‘pro-poor’ settlement in the peri-urban fringe of the city, and residential colonies already—or in the process of being—regularised. By analysing the relationship between governance frameworks, the establishment of the three types of settlements and how residents manage to access housing and services there, we demonstrate how purposive deregulation in governance and policy generates a disconnect between urban normative frameworks (i.e., urban planning tools and pro-poor housing policies) and residents’ needs and everyday practices. We argue that this highly political process is not exclusively path-dependent but has also allowed the creation of liminal spaces based on agency and collective action strategies of low-income residents.

scholarly journals Towards a genuinely humanizing smart urbanism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Kitchin
Keyword(s):  
Smart Cities ◽  
The Other ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
The Public ◽  
Alternative Future ◽  
Prejudice And Discrimination ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City ◽  
Smart Urbanism

This paper considers, following David Harvey (1973), how to produce a genuinely humanizing smart urbanism. It does so through utilising a future-orientated lens to sketch out the kinds of work required to reimagine, reframe and remake smart cities. I argue that, on the one hand, there is a need to produce an alternative ‘future present’ that shifts the anticipatory logics of smart cities to that of addressing persistent inequalities, prejudice, and discrimination, and is rooted in notions of fairness, equity, ethics and democracy. On the other hand, there is a need to disrupt the ‘present future’ of neoliberal smart urbanism, moving beyond minimal politics to enact sustained strategic, public-led interventions designed to create more-inclusive smart city initiatives. Both tactics require producing a deeply normative vision for smart cities that is rooted in ideas of citizenship, social justice, the public good, and the right to the city that needs to be developed in conjunction with citizens.

Community gardening for integrated urban renewal in Copenhagen: securing or denying minorities’ right to the city?

2019 ◽  
pp. 91-107
Author(s):  
Parama Roy
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Community Gardening ◽  
Spatial Justice ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

This chapter presents a case study from Copenhagen on a community-based, but state-initiated urban gardening effort to examine what such efforts mean for the minorities’ (the homeless and the ethnic minorities’) right to the city (Purcell, 2002; 2013) especially within the context of a traditionally welfare-driven, but increasingly neoliberalized urban context. David Harvey has described the right to the city as “not merely a right of access to what already exists, but a right to change it after our heart’s desire” (Harvey, 2003). As such, in this chapter the concept of “right to the city” is operationalized as a measure or proxy for social and spatial justice to explore how the state-initiated community gardening effort in the Sundholm District shapes/secures/denies the homeless and the ethnic minorities’ ability to, a) use and just be in the physical space of the garden (a public space) and b) to translate this into access to the political space of urban governance (and governance of the garden space) where they can voice their needs/concerns.

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.

scholarly journals The politicisation of diversity planning in a global city: Lessons from London

Urban Studies ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 891-916 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Raco ◽  
Jamie Kesten
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Investment ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Physical Development ◽  
Global City ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Economic Sectors ◽  
Global Models ◽  
The One ◽  
The City

This paper explores the politics of diversity planning in one of Europe’s most socially and economically divided and globally oriented cities: London. The analysis draws on Latour’s writings on modes of politicisation to examine the processes and practices that shape contemporary urban governance. It uses the example of diversity planning to examine the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of urban politics. It shows that on the one hand diversity is represented in pragmatic, consensual and celebratory terms. Under prevailing conditions of contemporary global capitalism, the ‘what’ of diversity has been politicised into an agenda for labour market-building and the attraction of ‘talented’ individuals and foreign investment. However, at the same time this celebratory rhetoric represents part of a wider effort to deflect political attention away from the socially and economically divisive impacts of global models of economic growth and physical development. There is little discussion of the ways in which planning frameworks, the ‘how’ of diversity policy, are helping to generate new separations in and beyond the city. Moreover, despite claiming that policy is pragmatic and non-ideological, the paper shows how diversity narratives have become an integral part of broader political projects to orientate the city’s economy towards the needs of a relatively small cluster of powerful economic sectors. The paper concludes with reflections on the recent impacts of the vote for Brexit and the election of an openly Muslim London Mayor. It also assesses the broader relevance of a Latourian framework for the analysis of contemporary urban politics.

scholarly journals Pedaleando con Lefebvre por el carril-bici de Sevilla. Por qué no debemos presuponer que las infraestructuras públicas restringen por defecto el derecho a la ciudad.

2021 ◽  
pp. 263-286
Author(s):  
Pedro Malpica
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Urban Intervention ◽  
Urban Cycling ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

The notion —clearly inspired by Lefebvre— according to which public works have per se a coercive character that curtails the inhabitants’ right to the city, should not be applied when evaluating certain infrastructures which actually improve the livability of the urban space, such as those promoting urban cycling. Considering this possible error, it is necessary to examine the repeated exceptions that Lefebvre himself enunciates throughout his work when he characterizes some types of urban intervention that, when fulfilling certain conditions, contribute to the resignification and reappropiation of urban space. We here pursue not only to enumerate these notes by Lefebvre, but to illustrate them taking as a model an urban intervention of great repercussion such as the infrastructure for the promotion of urban cycling in the city of Seville in the first decade of the 21st century, and applying such Lefebvrian contributions to its characteristics. In the confrontation of the different space-producing strategies, some infrastructures —such as the one addressed in this case study— guarantee the right to the city, instead of being, as could be argued from a superficial reading of Lefebvre’s analysis, an element that restricts that right.

scholarly journals The role of residential fabric in the configuration of the city in Spain in the 1940s and 1950s. The case of Jaca

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raimundo Bambó Naya
Keyword(s):  
Public Housing ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Urban Housing ◽  
Housing Projects ◽  
Local Experience ◽  
Architectural Language ◽  
City Structure ◽  
The One ◽  
The City

The housing problem was one of the fundamental concerns of the new State that emerged after the Civil War in Spain. Different official bodies were created to this end, facing the need for reconstruction of different cities and villages and the dwelling shortage. During the 1940s and 1950s there was a progressive shift of interest from rural housing to urban housing. A series of residential projects of different nature were developed in towns and cities, modifying their urban configuration. The objective of this work is to study different public housing projects carried out during the 1940s and 1950s in the city of Jaca by Lorenzo Monclús, municipal architect of the city, regional delegate of the National Housing Institute and urban planning technician. On the one hand, the study focuses on the theoretical models and international references on which they are based, the building types, the architectural language, and the design of the urban space. On the other hand, on the adaptability of these models to the existing city structure and its planning: a 1917 extension project according to nineteenth century models, carried out after the demolition of the city walls, and revised on successive occasions during the studied period. This analysis of a local experience is part of a wider debate: that of the urban culture in Spain during the postwar period. Despite all the limitations, modern functionalist urbanism was assimilated through public housing projects and urban extensions with open edification in smaller settlements, with techniques akin to those used in larger cities throughout the country.

scholarly journals The welfare consequences of the suburbanisation of poverty in UK cities: air pollution and school quality

2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Bailey ◽  
Joanna L. Stewart ◽  
Jon Minton
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Low Income ◽  
School Quality ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Housing System ◽  
Low Income Groups ◽  
Market Driven ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Market Restructuring

Abstract The suburbanisation of poverty has been noted in the cities of a large number of countries, including the UK. The main drivers are labour market restructuring on the one hand, and market-driven change in the housing system on the other although social and housing policies are also factors. This paper explores the possible consequences for the welfare of low-income groups in relation to two dimensions: exposure to air pollution and access to good quality schools. Results show that, for these groups, suburbanisation has had mixed impacts on welfare. In most cities, suburbanisation is likely to bring improvements in air quality but there are only a minority where it improves access to good quality schools. Overall, it is clear that suburbanising low income households enjoy fewer of the benefits of suburban locations than middle class households.

scholarly journals Strategi Peningkatan Kualitas Lingkungan Kampung-Kota dalam Rangka Pembangunan Kota yang Inklusif dan Berkelanjutan: Pembelajaran dari Kasus Kota Bandung

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 64
Author(s):  
Iwan Kustiwan ◽  
Afrizal Ramadhan
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Affordable Housing ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Swot Analysis ◽  
Urban Housing ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Equal Distribution ◽  
Economic Dimension ◽  
Basic Infrastructure ◽  
The City

<p class="ISI-Paragraf">Among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there is a goal to create cities and settlements that are safe, resilient, inclusive, and sustainable. In the context of inclusive and sustainable development, all citizens have rights on the city, especially in the context of housing as one of the primary needs that have to be addressed and prioritized by government. All of urban residents, including low-income and urban dwellers, have equal rights to live a decent life, for affordable housing, for healthy residential environment and for equal distribution of public services and basic infrastructure. In this context, the existence of urban kampongs, which dominate urban-housing areas and provide residential area for many low-income communities, needs attention in urban development. The purpose of this study is to formulate generic strategies towards urban kampong quality improvement, both socially and environmentally. Using mix-method (spatial analysis, content analysis, dan SWOT analysis) this paper explains the distribution and characteristics of urban kampongs in Bandung city and formulate strategies to improve the quality of urban kampong environments towards inclusive and sustainable development. This study shows that more than 55% of urban kampong in Bandung belong to the category of slums area. The results of this study concluded that the sustainability status on the socio-economic dimension is still relatively higher compared to physical dimension. This study also formulated strategies both from physical and socio-economic aspects based on case studies in three urban kampong areas in the city of Bandung.</p>

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