scholarly journals Digitizing freeways: researching urban resources

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathalie Bredella ◽  
Katrin Lahusen

At the beginning of his study on Los Angeles Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four EcologiesReyner Banham writes “ ... like earlier generations of English intellectuals who taught themselvesItalian in order to read Dante in the original, I learned to drive in order to read Los Angeles in theoriginal (Banham 1971:23).” Banham implies, that Los Angeles can only be experienced whiledriving. The metropolis, the ‘urban sprawl’, cannot be experienced walking but only through thecar. ‘Autopia’ became one of the ‘Four Ecologies’ of Los Angeles and he states that the ‘automotiveexperience’ “prints itself deeply on the conscious mind and unthinking reflexes (ibid.:214).”Cees Nooteboom draws upon this image of the city in his essay “ ‘Autopia’(1973) and Passagesfrom ‘The Language of Images’(1987)” and writes about the character of Los Angeles: “Itis, if one can say this, a ‘moving’ city, not only a city that moves itself – breaks itself down, buildsitself up again, displaces and regroups itself – but also a city in which movement, freedom ofmovement, is a strong premise of life (Nooteboom 2001:15).” Nooteboom continues how theeveryday live depends upon the system of the road. The constant Movement of the city repeatsitself: “The other cars are mirror images of you in your car. You are driving behind yourself andin front of yourself, next to yourself and opposite yourself, you are the taillights of the one in frontof you. Everything is on the move (ibid.:21).”

1902 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 126-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Ashby

It is a tendency of all great cities to possess two distinct and often independent sets of communications, the one for local, the other for long-distance traffic; and, unless a city has suddenly sprung into being, it will be found that, in order of development, the former precedes and is the germ of the latter. In the case of Rome, we are able to trace with remarkable clearness the successive stages of the development of the road system. The roads which, when this system had attained its perfection, we find radiating in all directions from the city, may be divided into two groups. The first of these, the local roads, take their name from the cities to which they lead; the second, the longdistance roads, from those who were chiefly responsible for their construction. All, however, must have originated as short-distance roads, leading to some town or other, and if we possessed sufficient information as to the spread of the Roman supremacy in Italy, we should be able to trace step by step the development of the long-distance roads from the local ones in every case. For the growth of the road system is intimately connected with the growth of the power of Rome. As soon as we are able to fix approximately the earliest bounds of her territory, we find her enclosed within very narrow limits. Except along the banks of the Tiber, her dominion extended hardly five miles from the city gates.


1982 ◽  
Vol 72 (6B) ◽  
pp. S19-S28
Author(s):  
Ralph H. Turner

abstract A 3-yr content analysis of all items dealing with earthquakes in six major Los Angeles newspapers and a review of television and radio treatment of earthquake topics in the same period, coupled with periodic surveys of popular understanding and attitudes toward the earthquake threat following announcement of the southern California uplift (Palmdale Bulge), lead to the identification of four media problems that contributed to the often erratic treatment of earthquake threat. First is the problem of newsworthiness, determining when and how to feature discussions of the continuing earthquake threat in the absence of either dramatic events or mobilized public controversy. Second is the problem of finding sources to provide a steady flow of material for use in preparing news items, in the absence of well-organized interest groups, especially those concerned with individual, household, and neighborhood earthquake preparedness. Third is the dilemma of how to balance the needs for alarm and reassurance, shocking people out of lethargy into action on the one hand versus trying to minimize unproductive anxiety and community disruption on the other hand. The fourth problem is communicating science when nonscientific world views are prevalent and merged to the point of confusion with scientific world views in popular thinking.


2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-294
Author(s):  
Ina Schabert

In this period the city of Rouen is known for commercial activity and for certain literary connections, but its status as a centre of sorts for English-French translation has gone unrecognized. This paper explores the writers involved (some well known, some less familiar), the rationales for their translations (particularly from the poetry of Alexander Pope), and their relation on the one hand to the commercial life of Rouen, on the other to its Académie Royale, founded in 1744.


1873 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-164
Author(s):  
A. R. Fuller
Keyword(s):  
The Road ◽  
The Hill ◽  

On the 3rd of Ramazán, I left Ramlah, and went to a village called Khátún, and from thence to another, which they styled Kariatu-l-'Anab (Grape hamlet). On the road I observed plenty of wild rue growing spontaneously on hill and dale. I also noticed at this village a very delightful spring of water gushing out of a rock, where they had constructed reservoirs, and built edifices. From thence I proceeded up some rising ground, under the impression that I was ascending a hill, and that on going down the other side the city would lie before me. After I had climbed the ascent however for a short way, a vast wilderness lay in my front, partly stony, and partly showing merely the bare earth. At the summit of the hill stands the city of the “Baitu-l-Mukaddas” (Sacred Tabernacle, i.e. Jerusalem), between which and Tarábulis, whichis on the coast, are 56 parasangs, and from Balkh to Jerusalem 876.


Author(s):  
Fátima Valenzuela ◽  
Fernando Pozzaglio

En este artículo nos proponemos explorar el fondo judicial del Archivo General de la Provincia de Corrientes. Por un lado, desarrollaremos un catálogo de las causas judicializadas entre 1612 y 1680, es decir, un instrumento descriptivo que puede ser utilizado por historiadores y/usuarios del archivo. Por otro lado, caracterizaremos los pleitos que corresponden a los albores de la configuración de la ciudad de San Juan de Vera. En ese contexto, presentaremos  una primera lectura en torno al funcionamiento de la justicia ordinaria y el accionar de otros funcionarios reales en el espacio colonial. De ese modo, lograremos una aproximación a los discursos y experiencias por medio de las causas judiciales. In this article we propose to explore the judicial fund of the General Archive of the Province of Corrientes. On the one hand, we will develop a catalog of judicial cases between 1612 and 1680, that is, a descriptive instrument that can be used by other historians and users of the archive. On the other hand, we characterize the lawsuits that took place at the dawn of the configuration of the city of San Juan de Vera. In this context, we will develop a first reading about the operation of ordinary justice and the action of other royal officials in the colonial space. In this way, we get an approximation to discourses and experiences through judicial cases.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Lopes

<p>The city of Évora, a World Heritage Site recognized by UNESCO in 1986, also owes this recognition to the stones that built its monuments and preserve them until today.</p><p>This work brings together the contributions that we have gathered over the past three decades and allow us to have a very complete idea, not only about the materials used in the hundreds of monuments and historic buildings but also about their provenance. If some materials are so emblematic that they allow an immediate identification with the naked eye, others needed more sophisticated and precise techniques so that there was no doubt about their origin.</p><p>The igneous rocks and gneisses of granite composition are part of the “Massif of Évora” on which the city is built. Thus, and quite naturally they are by far the most represented group in monuments from all historical periods. Its function is essentially structural, but there are also functional, ornamental and decorative objects. For example, the oldest megalithic structures found in the vicinity of the city are made up of large granite blocks that often had to be transported to their locations.</p><p>On the other hand, many gargoyles and statues that decorate the churches are also made up of these granite rocks. On these, the natural erosion of centuries of exposure to the environment has led to a state of alteration, sometimes very accentuated, which would justify its replacement by replicas sculpted in similar rocks. Provenance studies have made it possible to identify old quarries in the vicinity of the city where, on the one hand, the ancient rock extraction techniques can be observed and on the other hand, they allow the obtaining of the raw material necessary for these restoration and conservation works. In any case, they are places that need to be inventoried and protected, with the municipality already aware of their existence.</p><p>As well as the monuments of the Roman Period, also the structures of the Medieval Period, such as the city walls, the Cathedral (started to be built in 1186 AD) and all the great churches, were also built with these granitoids.</p><p>In addition to these rocks, many others of multiple varieties and origins are present. The marbles, especially the Estremoz Marbles (Global Heritage Stone Resource), are ubiquitous in the city, but there are also emblematic marbles from other places, some easily identifiable (ie Viana do Alentejo, Escoural, Trigaches, Serpa and Vila Verde de Ficalho, for presenting mineralogy, textures, colors and patterns which, together with more recent analytical techniques, have confirmed its provenance.</p><p>Sedimentary rocks, with emphasis on Portuguese Mesozoic limestones, ie Lioz - GHSR and Brecha da Arrábida - GHSR candidate, among others more rare and with very specific use in ornamental details, are also present and contribute to enrich a heritage in stone that makes this city so special and very popular with tourists of all nationalities.</p><p>Acknowledgments: the authors thank to FCT for funding the ICT (UID/GEO/04683/2019), as well as COMPETE POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007690.</p>


Author(s):  
Slađana S. Stamenković

In the contemporary discussion of the concept of space, there is a tendency to employ space to make a comment about the society that inhabits it. Regarding this and the prose of the contemporary American authors, the theory of Bakhtin’s chronotope may be one of the most legitimate ways to depict the society of contemporary America. In the fiction of Don DeLillo, one could discuss three typical American chronotopes: the city, the desert, and the road. The said chronotopes may be interpreted within the scopes of Bakhtin’s original chronotopes. They operate on both individual and mutually overlapping levels. In one way or the other, the American chronotopes mentioned seem to function as the ultimate Nowhere, space where the modern characters go to disappear in DeLillo’s prose.


2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 663
Author(s):  
Martha De Alba

En el presente artículo se estudia el imaginario urbano de la Ciudad de México valiéndose de la comparación de la perspectiva de una muestra de residentes del Distrito Federal con otra muestra de funcionarios encargados de la gestión de la metrópoli. Se parte del supuesto de que las imágenes que esta gran ciudad suscita corresponden a dos registros distintos: por un lado la experiencia urbana captada a través del discurso sobre la ciudad y por el otro las imágenes cartográficas que se materializan en mapas cognitivos del espacio. Se presentan aquí los resultados de estas dos perspectivas complementarias de análisis de las representaciones de la ciudad y se propone una metodología para su estudio. Asimismo se analiza si la vivencia y la representación de la ciudad corresponden a las propuestas teóricas que plantean que la metrópoli contemporánea ya no es más un lugar de convivencia, sociabilidad e identidad, sino que se ha convertido en un espacio únicamente funcional. AbstractThis article studies the urban imagination in Mexico City, using the comparison of the perspective of a sample of residents from the Federal District with another sample of functionaries in charge of managing the metropolis. It begins with the assumption that the images this great city evokes correspond to two different registers: on the one hand, the urban experience recorded through the discourse on the city and on the other, the cartographic images materialized in cognitive maps of space. This article presents the results of these two complementary methods of analyzing the representations of the city and proposes a methodology for studying them. It also analyzes whether the experience and the representation of the city correspond to the theoretical proposals suggesting that the contemporary metropolis is no longer a place of coexistence, sociability and identity but has become a purely functional space.


Author(s):  
Stephan F. De Beer

This article reflects on the unfinished task of liberation – as expressed in issues of land – and drawing from the work of Franz Fanon and the Durban-based social movement Abahlali baseMjondolo. It locates its reflections in four specific sites of struggle in the City of Tshwane, and against the backdrop of the mission statement of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria, as well as the Capital Cities Research Project based in the same university. Reflecting on the ‘living death’ of millions of landless people on the one hand, and the privatisation of liberation on the other, it argues that a liberating praxis of engagement remains a necessity in order to break the violent silences that perpetuate exclusion.


Africa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 88 (S1) ◽  
pp. S51-S71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexis Malefakis

AbstractFor a group of Wayao street vendors in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, kinship relations were simultaneously an advantage and a hindrance. Their migration to the city and entry into the urban economy had occurred along ethnic and kinship lines. But, as they perceived the socially heterogeneous environment of the city that potentially offered them opportunities to cooperate with people from different social or ethnic backgrounds, they experienced their continuing dependency on their relatives as a form of confinement. Against the backdrop of the city, the Wayao perceived their social relations as being burdened with an inescapable sameness that made it impossible to trust one another. Mistrust, contempt and mutual suspicion were the flip side of close social relations and culminated in accusations ofuchawi(Swahili: witchcraft). However, these accusations did not have a disintegrative effect; paradoxically, their impact on social relations among the vendors was integrative. On the one hand,uchawiallegations expressed the claustrophobic feeling of stifling relations; on the other, they compelled the accused to adhere to a shared morality of egalitarian relations and exposed the feeling that the accused individual was worthy of scrutiny, indicating that relationships with him were of particular importance to others.


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