Naples for urban voy(ag)eurs: Tourism and the representation of space in Gomorrah and My Brilliant Friend

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-219
Author(s):  
Alfio Leotta

Abstract The production and release of the critically acclaimed TV drama series Gomorrah (2014‐present) and My Brilliant Friend (2018) has been characterized by extensive debates about the impact of the two shows on national and international perceptions of the city of Naples. While some local authorities openly criticized Gomorrah and denied shooting permits to the producers, the TV adaptation of Elena Ferrante's best seller, My Brilliant Friend, has garnered unanimously positive responses from local stakeholders. This article aims to analyse the representation of place and space in both Gomorrah and My Brilliant Friend. More specifically, it will analyse the stylistic and narrative strategies deployed by the series' producers to construct a tourist gaze over an urban space that plays a crucial role within the narrative economy of both shows. It will argue that Gomorrah and My Brilliant Friend articulate a consistent aesthetic treatment of Naples that in the two shows is simultaneously depicted as a site of poverty, violence and abuse and a potentially appealing and exotic urban destination.

Author(s):  
Fonna Forman ◽  
Teddy Cruz

Cities or municipalities are often the most immediate institutional facilitators of global justice. Thus, it is important for cosmopolitans and other theorists interested in global justice to consider the importance of the correspondence between global theories and local actions. In this chapter, the authors explore the role that municipalities can play in interpreting and executing principles of global justice. They offer a way of thinking about the cosmopolitan or global city not as a gentrified and commodified urban space, but as a site of local governance consistent with egalitarian cosmopolitan moral aims. They work to show some ways in which the city of Medellín, Colombia, has taken significant steps in that direction. The chapter focuses especially on how it did so and how it might serve as a model in some important ways for the transformation of other cities globally in a direction more consistent with egalitarian cosmopolitanism.


Food Security ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Kiaka ◽  
Shiela Chikulo ◽  
Sacha Slootheer ◽  
Paul Hebinck

AbstractThis collaborative and comparative paper deals with the impact of Covid-19 on the use and governance of public space and street trade in particular in two major African cities. The importance of street trading for urban food security and urban-based livelihoods is beyond dispute. Trading on the streets does, however, not occur in neutral or abstract spaces, but rather in lived-in and contested spaces, governed by what is referred to as ‘street geographies’, evoking outbreaks of violence and repression. Vendors are subjected to the politics of municipalities and the state to modernize the socio-spatial ordering of the city and the urban food economy through restructuring, regulating, and restricting street vending. Street vendors are harassed, streets are swept clean, and hygiene standards imposed. We argue here that the everyday struggle for the street has intensified since and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Mobility and the use of urban space either being restricted by the city-state or being defended and opened up by street traders, is common to the situation in Harare and Kisumu. Covid-19, we pose, redefines, and creates ‘new’ street geographies. These geographies pivot on agency and creativity employed by street trade actors while navigating the lockdown measures imposed by state actors. Traders navigate the space or room for manoeuvre they create for themselves, but this space unfolds only temporarily, opens for a few only and closes for most of the street traders who become more uncertain and vulnerable than ever before, irrespective of whether they are licensed, paying rents for vending stalls to the city, or ‘illegally’ vending on the street.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bambang Sulistyantara ◽  
Imawan W. Hidayat ◽  
A. Nasirudin Taher ◽  
Hendrawan

Trees are essential elements of an urban space. The presence of trees in urban areas is not only appreciated as physical attribute, but beyond this, it serves a fundamental function in balancing and conserving urban ecosystem. Especially in tropical countries like Indonesia which receive high levels of solar radiation, trees contribute to the protection of urban areas from the impact of excessive micro-climatic conditions. But, the presence of trees sometimes resulted in the accidents for the residences because of broken branches and human injuries. This situation leads the city to prepare a tree inventory system, which is beneficial in giving the information about tree conditions and thus the information that would be useful for tree maintenance activities. The tree inventory on application for the city of East Jakarta was built for this purpose, comprising a tree inventory and easy access to the database. The application connects the database source with the GIS map, so that the users could retrieve information for each kind of data.


Dimensions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-202
Author(s):  
Sergiy Ilchenko

Abstract This contribution elaborates upon the appropriation of urban space in spatiotemporal and procedural interventions in the example of the city of Kharkiv, as well as the impact of urban space on the process of how various groups rediscover and use various parts of the city. Being moved during collective actions - in the sense of feeling urged to move along - goes beyond routine practices by influencing the city and its perception. It seems that these general processions, celebrations, and festive activities of the residents are their contributions to the process of »urban renaissance« - the rebirth of interest in the urban way of life. Since public spaces reflect the historical inheritance of local communities, joint transformative actions such as, »appropriation «, »production«, and »governance« of urban spaces are considered. This article advocates for the practice of domestication of urban space by the local community, as well as the need for the existence of »urban lagoons« - free (unregulated) areas of the city used as resources for urban development and interaction of citizens.


2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sajad Afzali ◽  
Faezeh Taheri Sarmad ◽  
Mojtaba Heidari ◽  
Seyed Hossein Jalali

Urban geology is a preliminary study for the construction and development of cities, which has been more prominent in recent decades in some countries despite its long application history. It assesses the impact of geological and natural phenomena on urban space and available structures. The earthquake on Nov. 21, 2017, inflicted a lot of damage to the city of Sarpol-e Zahab, west of Iran, including financial losses and casualties. Reconstruction of this city and planning for its sustainable development entail conducting urban geological studies. In the present study, the effect of natural phenomena on Sarpol-e Zahab County was studied by investigating its geology and geomorphology. The results showed that, in addition to the earthquake that habitually affected the city of Sarpol-e Zahab, the hazards of other phenomena are also significant. Recorded horizontal acceleration in the recent earthquake confirmed the high seismicity of Sarpol-e Zahab has.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 975-981
Author(s):  
Ekaterina V. Vishnevskaya ◽  
Tatiana B. Klimova ◽  
Inna S. Koroleva ◽  
Olga K. Slinkova ◽  
Svetlana N. Yasenok

Purpose: The modern city with its complex structure and dynamics is an important part of the tourist space, which has become especially attractive for travelers who tirelessly exploring the cultural heritage. Hotels, restaurants, amusement parks and other tourist infrastructure actively invading the urban environment changed the usual composition of the city. During the trip, tourists buy not only goods and services, they perceive the image of the city as a synthesis of impressions from the movement in the urban space, exploring it from different points of view, at different times of the day and in different seasons. Methodology: To assess the impact of environmental factors on the activities of catering enterprises of the Belgorod region and the quality of customer service, the authors proposed a method using STEP-analysis and SWOT-analysis. The analysis of environmental factors was carried out on the basis of the expert evaluation results conducted in two stages. Result: In tourism, the food infrastructure acts as an important element of entertainment and knowledge of local culture. Food is not just a common need of every person; tourists see it as entertainment and pleasure. Food of different peoples and even areas is usually very peculiar, so attractive to tourists. Catering infrastructure as an integral part of the hospitality industry should have a significant potential for adaptability, providing an opportunity for catering enterprises to respond quickly to frequent changes in the situation of the unstable tourism market, as well as to comply with the requirements of the destination brand. Applications: This research can be used for universities, teachers, and students. Novelty/Originality: In this research, the model of The Infrastructure of Public Catering In the Context of Tourist City Space Development is presented in a comprehensive and complete manner.


2006 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Brown

This article examines the impact of the capitalist economy, colonial rule, and wage labor on African masculinity and how African ideas about manhood impacted behavior and expectations of work in the coal mines of the Enugu Government Colliery in southeastern Nigeria from 1914 until the great depression. These mines were a “site” where racism became a crucial part of British strategies to control African labor and is one of the first places African workers experienced the “colonial masculinity” of racist white bosses. Both the workplace and the development of the city of Enugu encouraged subordinate local men (local slaves, unmarried men, poor men) to challenge the hegemony of powerful elite rural men in the form of rural revolts by men pressed into the mines and waves of industrial protest against conditions in the mines. Coalminers' presence in and political ties to rural villages led them to push for increased wages used to enhance their standing as men in their communities. Also, both the material and ritual requirements of rural male status and the masculine ethos of coalmining figured critically in workers' assessments of a “just” wage and respectful working conditions. Finally, miners drew strength from their position as “modern,” self-improving rural men to challenge racist (the African “boy”) and emasculating treatment in the mines. At the same time working men drew strength from their jobs in a “modern” industry (and the income they generated) to challenge the power of authoritarian colonial chiefs and elite men in the rural village. The article suggests that by factoring race and masculinity into the analysis of African laboring men scholars can gain new insights into the consciousness of workers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 105-113
Author(s):  
Alina Źróbek-Różańska

Abstract Predicting the population size of a city is one of the key tasks preceding the creation of city development plans, seeing as how urban space management should be adequate to current and forecasted economic and social trends, including demographic ones. In many cities of the world, apart from capitals and metropolises, the phenomenon of depopulation and shrinking has been observed, which is due to a decrease in the fertility rate and a negative migration balance. Apart from the inhabitants registered in the city for permanent residence, there are also people living there temporary, including students. Some graduates will decide to stay in the city, thus increasing the population of the city’s residents. The purpose of the study described in this article was to attempt to determine the extent to which new-coming students are able to alleviate the effects of the adverse phenomenon of city depopulation. The city chosen as the research area - Olsztyn - has been experiencing the loss of residents for 10 years and is also the largest university center in the province. Understanding settlement / migration plans required a broad survey. As a result, it was concluded that the impact of graduates on inhibiting depopulation is relatively small as most of them planned to move out to a larger urban center, and only every fifth one declared a willingness to live in Olsztyn. Retaining graduates would require the development of the labor market towards new, well-paid jobs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 217 ◽  
pp. 02005
Author(s):  
Valentina Kurochkina

Recently, housing construction in cities has been carried out at a high rate. Increasingly, urban abandoned and flooded depressive spaces near water bodies (often rivers), which were previously used as industrial facilities or temporarily used, are becoming the sphere of architectural and landscape transformations. The restoration of such territories helps to improve the quality of urban space and improve its ecological properties. Correct development of territories near rivers and various water bodies has a great health-improving effect on the urban environment, improves its natural and climatic conditions. In addition, social and economic factors play an important role in this process, since such transformed territories and territories adjacent to them significantly increase investment attractiveness. This paper examines modern approaches to the development of urban public spaces, based on the formation of architectural environments that ensure the relationship of urban development with water bodies and adjacent territories. The paper notes that water bodies are not only an important component of the natural-ecological framework, but are also the basis for the framework of urban-planning natural-technogenic systems as a whole. And the creation of a continuous urban fabric is impossible without the organization of a ‘water’ line of development, provision of compositional, functional and communication interconnection of open urban and water spaces, which is actively being introduced today in architectural and urban planning practice. The paper examines the role of water bodies in the ecological system of the city, as well as in its structure as a whole. The aim of the study is to identify the features of the formation of a public urban space, to determine the patterns of its development, to identify criteria that reflect the nature, scale and features of the impact of urbanization on a water body. Some principles of revitalization of coastal areas, as well as the creation of a system of publicly accessible, compositionally expressive spaces are considered. The principles of space transformation aimed at the formation of a holistic image of the city, as well as the impact of such a spatial arrangement of urban and water bodies on the safety and quality of the urban environment are considered.


Author(s):  
Karen Valentin

The article discusses the role that cities play in constructing and mediating particular historical accounts. Drawing on fieldwork experiences from Hanoi and Kathmandu it adopts a comparative perspective and explores how history is mediated, experienced and interpreted through the physical organisation of the city. History is conceptualised both chronologically as sequences of events that can be traced in the physical environment of the city and as a temporally specific narrative about the city and the wider society of which it is part. The article throws light on the impact different political regimes have had on the built environment and how this has informed the social organisation and human use of urban space in Hanoi. Comparing this with the social and physical organisation of Kathmandu two particular issues become salient, firstly the way in which the influence of foreign powers is physically manifest in the city; secondly how specific places, as national symbols of unity, frame everyday activities in the city.  


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