Encounters in the Metropole

Author(s):  
Maud S. Mandel

This chapter discusses how migration and settlement in Marseille in the 1950s and early 1960s illustrates the impact of colonial legacies in shaping the contours of Muslim–Jewish relations in the metropole. While Paris remained the main pole of attraction for both, Marseille's close proximity to North Africa, its Mediterranean climate, and its expanding economy meant that the city attracted thousands of repatriates and immigrants in the 1950s and 1960s. Shared cultural frameworks and the common experiences of migration and displacement meant that Muslim and Jewish newcomers often had much in common, creating the basis for convivial exchange in the mixed immigrant neighborhoods where many initially settled. Such commonalities did not, however, ensure similar processes of incorporation into French urban life. Differing relationships to the French state and levels of communal development meant that incoming Jews often not only had more resources available to them than Muslims arriving in the same period but also benefited from a local administration sympathetic to their concerns.

Author(s):  
Anastasiya Nikolaevna Soboleva

The object of this research is the youth of Buryat-Mongolian ASSR as most active social group within the social structure of 1941 – 1945, which was the major source for replenishment of labor reserves. The subject of this research is the examination of core financial and social problems faced by the youth working at the defense industry plants of the republic. Special attention is given to analysis of the impact of wartime struggles and hardships upon household and food procurement. It is noted that shortage of housing, low salaries, insecure life, poor nutrition, deficit of clothing and footwear often led breach of employee discipline. The article explores the important vectors in the activity of Komsomol with regards to housing and living conditions, as well as various forms of financial and psychological incentives that promote adaptation of youth to working at the industrial plant. The scientific novelty consists in introduction into the scientific discourse of a number of previously unpublished source that were collected specifically for this research. As a result of the conducted research, it was established that working youth, who for the most part came from rural localities to the city, were put in quite difficult social and living conditions, experiencing critical problems in the process of adaptation; however, they accomplished significant labor achievements and made their contribution to the common Victory.


Literator ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sambulo Ndlovu

This article focuses on the characterisation of S’ncamtho toponyms in Bulawayo and it goes on to measure the impact of these toponyms on the population of Bulawayo dwellers. S’ncamtho is an urban youth variety that is built on urbanity and streetwise style. The study assumes that, as S’ncamtho is the language of the youth in Bulawayo, people are exposed to S’ncamtho toponyms as the youth are found in all spheres of urban life in Bulawayo, especially the taxi industry which is used by the majority of people in the city. The research collected S’ncamtho verbal toponyms from Godini taxi rank in Bulawayo through undisclosed nonparticipant observations and some from the intuition of the researcher. Intuition and interviews were used to get the etymology of the toponyms and questionnaire tests of familiarity and usage were used to measure the impact of these toponyms on the population. Content analysis is used to characterise and classify S’ncamtho toponyms in Bulawayo and the metaphor comprehension test is used to measure their impact on the population. This article assumes that S’ncamtho has its own toponyms for locations in the city and that these are popular, especially with the youth, but people across age groups now use them.


2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Pírez

El presente artículo se refiere a la ausencia de respuesta institucional en Argentina, como consecuencia de la falta de reconocimiento de la ciudad como objeto real de gobierno. Se entiende que lo metropolitano es el resultado de la intersección de una dimensión urbano territorial (crecimiento y expansión de la ciudad) y otra político territorial (la organización territorial del estado).La configuración metropolitana, desde que se iniciaron los procesos de expansión propios de la industrialización sustitutiva de importaciones hasta que se resintió el impacto de la reestructuración y la globalización, ha transformado el territorio acentuando las diferencias y las desigualdades, las fragmentaciones y las zonas excluyentes que pese a todo se complementan.Esas desigualdades se concretan en tres contradicciones fundamentales; la primera entre el ámbito territorial de los problemas y el relativo al gobierno y a la gestión local; la segunda entre el ámbito territorial de las necesidades y el de la representación política; y la última entre el ámbito territorial de las necesidades y el de los recursos. Tales contradicciones en tanto no son resueltas tienden a configurar desigualdades que se polarizan territorialmente.La cuestión metropolitana se convierte en un asunto de gobernabilidad como falta de orientación o conducción gubernamental, que deriva en problemas metropolitanos como la “ilimitada” expansión urbana, las desiguales condiciones de la calidad de vida urbana y de la seguridad ciudadana, la distribución no equitativa de los recursos financieros, la mala gestión de los servicios, las dificultades para la gestión ambiental, y la falta de un ejercicio democrático que legitime las decisiones que afectan el ámbito metropolitano.Frente a esos problemas existen alternativas institucionales que, desde la fragmentación hasta la consolidación, intentan una gobernabilidad metropolitana. No todas esas formas tienen conexión con las condiciones reales del Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires. Su complejidad político institucional y su peso (demográfico, económico y político) en el contexto nacional, relativizan una posible solución hacia la consolidación. Frente a esas dificultades, procesos de centralización estatal y de transferencia de decisiones al mercado caracterizan la gestión urbana en esa Área Metropolitana, fortaleciendo sus contradicciones y dificultando la gobernabilidad. AbstractThis article concerns to the lack of institutional response in Argentina, as a result of the failure to recognize the city as the real object of government. Metropolitan affairs are understood to be the result of the intersection between a territorial urban dimension (growth and expansion of the city) and a territorial, political dimension (the territorial organization of the state).From the time when the processes of expansion characteristic of import- substitution industrialization began until the impact of restructuring and globalization was felt, the metropolitan configuration has transformed the territory by accentuating differences and inequalities, fragmentation and the exclusive zones which, nonetheless complement each other. These inequalities are expressed in three fundamental contradictions: the first between the territorial sphere of problems and that of government and local management, the second between the territorial sphere of needs and that of political representation and the last between the territorial sphere of needs and that of resources. As long as these contradictions remain unresolved, they tend to configure inequalities that become territorially polarized.The metropolitan issue becomes a matter of governance in the sense of the lack of government orientation or management, which leads to metropolitan problems such as “unlimited” urban expansion, unequal conditions as regards the quality of urban life and safety on the streets, the unfair distribution of financial resources, poor administra­tion of services, difficulties in environmental management and the lack of a democratic exercise legitimizing the decisions that affect the metropolitan environment.In order to deal with these problems, institutional alternatives have been created which, from fragmentation to consolidation, attempt metropolitan governance. Not all these methods, however, are linked to the actual conditions of the Buenos Aires Metro­politan Zone. Its institutional and political complexity and its demographic, economic and political importance within the national context limit possible solutions to consolida­tion. Given these difficulties, processes of state centralization and the transferal of decisions to the market characterize urban management in this metropolitan area, reinforcing its contradictions and hindering governance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 64 ◽  
pp. 01005
Author(s):  
Gorsev Argin ◽  
Burak Pak ◽  
Handan Turkoglu

In the last decade, the advances in mobile technologies and location-based applications reshaped our mutual relationship with the urban environment. These technologies, as both a mean and barrier to the engagement between humans and their environment, have transformed the urban experience in profound ways. Urban experience is a relatively new concept introduced with the rise of modern cities in the nineteenth century. Its loss due to the rapid urbanization has been a subject of debate since then. Among the discussions that take place in this debate, the figure of ‘flâneur’ plays an extensive role. The flâneur is a figure who wanders through and appropriates the metropolitan city in pursuit of urban experience and reaps aesthetic meaning from the spectacle of the teeming crowds. Flânerie, or the act of wandering, and its implications for our understanding of urban life have been profound. Today, mobile technologies create a new kind of urban wanderer which is described as “post-flâneur”. In this paper, by examining the altering concept of flânerie, we discuss the effects of mobile technologies on urban experience. Based on an informed study of a wide range of theories, we make reflections on the impact of mobile devices on the mutual relationship between humans and their environment, introduce key concepts for understanding the emergent phenomenon of post-flânerie and elaborate on its interconnections with the phenomena of cyber and hybrid-flânerie.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Marge Käsper ◽  
Anu Treikelder

The article explores how foreign students discover and experience the space of their hosting city, as reflected by their discourse about the common landmarks and places of the urban space. Our study concerns a specific social group that is in-between a local inhabitant and a tourist staying only a short time in a city – students in the situation of mobility. To study in what ways these students talk about the city, how they position themselves in respect of its space, adopting different viewpoints, we analyze, by a series of interviews conducted with them, how their discourse reveals the process of the appropriation of the hosting space. We examine first how the cognitive appropriation process of a city space is reflected in students’ discourse in general, in what elements it appears and also how it is constructed and developed during the interview. We focus then on the answers to the question concerning a postcard representing Tartu where the discourse of students reveals the best the in-between status of the foreign students, standing between an exterior observer and an “expert” of the city. The most explicit fluctuation between the viewpoints is reflected in personal pronouns use, the more implicit ways are observed in the ways of describing the places, and in the argumentations about the discussed postcard. Furthermore, we also point out the impact of the interview as a disposal for interviewed persons to think about these spatial relations for themselves and for their perception of space in general. 


Author(s):  
Juan Manuel Parreño Castellano ◽  
Josefina Domínguez-Mujica ◽  
Claudio Moreno-Medina

The legal proceedings of real estate dispossession are essential elements in understanding the impact of the economic crisis on Spanish cities. Those that took place between 2009 and 2017 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, their quantitative dimension and their intra-urban distribution are analysed in this study. This perspective allows an appreciation of their relationship with the unequal distribution of income and alien status, factors leading the investigations on the loss of property. In order to achieve this objective, the records of the Common Service of Notifications and Seizures have been used together with data of the Inland Revenue Ministry and Municipal Register, combining statistical and cartographical analysis with the purpose of finding associations and predictive factors. The study reveals that there is a great concentration of real estate deprivation in the central areas of the city and that the standards of distribution of dispossession are inversely related to the level of income of the urban districts and directly related to the foreign population. This tends to confirm that dispossession must be interpreted as the result of mechanisms of capitalist accumulation, which reinforce socio-urban inequalities.


ILUMINURAS ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (37) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolin Loysa

Shopping malls are a global phenomenon that has transformed the urban landscape towards a division in homogenized spaces worldwide throughout the last decades. We find malls in almost every bigger city. They offer a space where everybody, no matter where they are from, knows one’s way around. Especially Mexico seems to offer a fertile ground for the success of malls as they offer a presumably needed safe and prestigious space for social encounter. Furthermore, they often provoke the consolidation of whole new city districts. In consequence, what makes this phenomenon interesting for an anthropological study, are the socio-spatial practices that go beyond the intended use of a mall. This article wants to give a brief insight on the impact that malls can have on Mexican cities, using the city of Puebla as an example. Therefore it shall be questioned what makes malls so attractive and how this changes social dynamics in the urban landscape.Keywords: Shopping Malls. Urban Anthropology. Globalization. Public Space. Social Exclusion.


Author(s):  
Irina V. SKIPINA ◽  
Andrey N. Nemkov

This article studies a topical problem: the history of Tyumen “Stalinkas” in the 1930s-1950s and the everyday urban life of their inhabitants. The authors aim to show the process of pre- and post-war construction of residential buildings to provide apartments for Tyumen residents. Housing is considered as a necessary component of human activity. The object of the study is an architectural ensemble of pre- and post-war Tyumen, which reflected the realities of the 1930-1950s. It was a time when slogans of equality were proclaimed, the authorities said that they would provide the same opportunities for life and self-realization for all Soviet citizens. However, the houses in the center of the city with spacious apartments were built for the Soviet elite, and small apartments of poor quality on the outskirts of the city — for workers. Housing for workers was located far from educational, leisure, and retail outlets. Using the new documentary data, introduced for the first time into academic circulation, and taking into account a comprehensive approach to the study of the topic, the authors show the impact of housing development on urban daily life. “Stalinkas” are considered a legacy of the era of the cult of personality, which allows studying people’s everyday life, taking into account their social stratification based on their life, housing, everyday practices, and opportunities to participate in urban life. The results show that “Stalinkas” are not only our past, but also our present, they are a clear proof of the construction of a bright future, which has proven to be unattainable, and their construction stopped shortly after Stalin’s death. Further study of urban ordinariness and everyday practices of citizens will bring us closer to understanding the phenomenon of the “Soviet” as an essential part of Russian identity.


2020 ◽  
pp. 22-56
Author(s):  
Kristian Kloeckl

This chapter introduces the digitally augmented city as a major focus of current design research and practice. It critically examines the impact that the entanglement of networked information technologies with the urban realm has produced and discusses this in reference to extant literature. The entanglement of networked information technologies and urban environments has changed cities and urban life, and it has changed how we think about cities. Over the past two decades, a profusion of terms have been coined by scholars and practitioners to describe aspects of this changing urban condition. Networked city, real-time city, virtual city, smart city, hybrid city, responsive city, and ad hoc city are terms that are at times used lightly but that have underlying concepts that can help us capture more of the current urban condition and point to ways of working with it.


2013 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul S. Moore

The emergence of movie palaces is traced for St. Catherine Street in Montreal, Yonge Street in Toronto, and Granville Street in Vancouver. Beginning in 1896, film shows were included in a range of urban amusement places. When dedicated movie theatres opened by 1906, they were quickly built throughout the city before the downtown "theatre districts" became well defined. Not until about 1920 were first-run vaudeville-movie palaces at the top of a spatial hierarchy of urban film-going, lasting into the 1950s. After outlining the formation of movie palace film-going, the paper notes how the downtown theatres were next to each city's major department store. A theoretical analysis of how amusement and consumption make "being downtown" significant in everyday urban life follows. A review of the social uses of electric lighting and urban amusements finds that movie palace marquees become a symbol for the organization of downtown crowds and consumers into attentive mass audiences. A brief account of the decline of the movie palace, from the 1970s to 2000, concludes by reviewing the outcomes of replacement by multiplex theatres, demolition, or preservation.


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