Edible public space. Experimenting with a socio-environmentally just urbanism

TERRITORIO ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 39-43
Author(s):  
Chiara Tornaghi

This paper presents an English case of urban agriculture, the Edible Public Space Project in Leeds, contextualised in a context of urban agriculture initiatives committed to social-environmental justice, to the reproduction of common goods and the promotion of an urban planning which promotes the right to food and to the construction of urban space from the bottom up. The case study emerged as the result of action-research at the crossroads between urban planning policies, community work and critical geography. As opposed to many similar initiatives, the Edible Public Space Project is not intended merely as a temporary initiative hidden within the tiny folds of the city, but rather as an experiment which imagines and implements alternatives to current forms of urban planning within those folds and it contextualises them in the light of the ecological, fi nancial and social crisis of the last decade.

Author(s):  
Annie Crane

The purpose of this study was to analyze guerrilla gardening’s relationship to urban space and contemporary notions of sustainability. To achieve this two case studies of urban agriculture, one of guerrilla gardening and one of community gardening were developed. Through this comparison, guerrilla gardening was framed as a method of spatial intervention, drawing in notions of spatial justice and the right to the city as initially theorized by Henri Lefebvre. The guerrilla gardening case study focuses on Dig Kingston, a project started by the researcher in June of 2010, and the community gardening case study will use the Oak Street Garden, the longest standing community garden in Kingston. The community gardening case study used content analysis and semi-structured long format interviews with relevant actors. The guerrilla gardening case study consisted primarily of action based research as well as content analysis and semi-structured long format interviews. By contributing to the small, but growing, number of accounts and research on guerrilla gardening this study can be used as a starting point to look into other forms of spatial intervention and how they relate to urban space and social relations. Furthermore, through the discussion of guerrilla gardening in an academic manner more legitimacy and weight will be given to it as a method of urban agriculture and interventionist tactic. On a wider scale, perhaps it could even contribute to answering the question of how we (as a society) can transform our cities and reengage in urban space.


2020 ◽  
pp. 213-229
Author(s):  
Karina Chérrez-Rodas

El siguiente escrito es una revisión bibliográfica que se desarrolla en función de tres conceptos claves de Lefebvre: El Derecho a la Ciudad, El Control Social y el Espacio Urbano; concebidos en el marco de sus líneas de investigación y orientación marxista. La investigación pretende emplear apreciaciones del autor en mención, enmarcadas en el acontecer de la ciudad en la actualidad, y trasladar a la relectura de problemáticas puntuales en dos ciudades latinoamericanas: Cuenca-Ecuador y Córdoba-Argentina. A partir del Derecho a la Ciudad definido por Lefebvre; se realiza una crítica, al trazado de la nueva área de planificación urbanística en Cuenca, basado en principios funcionalistas, que ha jerarquizado la circulación vehicular, en detrimento del uso peatonal del espacio público. En la misma línea de la crítica de la modernidad, el control social se manifiesta en un sector de la ciudad de Córdoba, el predio de la Casa de Gobierno. Analizar problemáticas en contextos similares, pero a la vez con diferentes escalas de ciudad, permiten validar las tesis y reflexiones de Lefebvre en su época para la planificación de ciudades contemporáneas, cuyos modelos de desarrollo han tenido como consecuencia deficiencias en la vida urbana. Palabras clave: Ciudades, control social, Derecho a la ciudad, espacio urbano, vida urbana. AbstractThe following piece of writing is a bibliographic review that was developed from three key concepts of Lefebvre: Right to the City, Social Control and Urban Space. It was conceived within the framework of his lines of research and Marxist orientation. The research intends to use the author's appreciations in mention, framed in the events of the city at present, and to transfer to the re-reading of specific problems in two Latin American cities: Cuenca-Ecuador and Córdoba-Argentina. Based on the right to the city defined by Lefebvre, a critique was made of the new urban planning area in Cuenca, based on functionalist principles, which has hierarchized vehicle circulation to the detriment of the pedestrian use of public space. Under the same line of the criticism of modernity, social control was manifested in a sector of the city of Córdoba, the Government House site. Problems in similar contexts were analyzed, but at the same time with different city scales. It allowed us to validate Lefebvre's thesis and reflections in his time for the planning of contemporary cities, whose development models have resulted in deficiencies in urban life. Keywords: Cities, social control, Right to the city, urban space, urban life.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 422-451
Author(s):  
Catrine Cadja Indio do Brasil da Mata ◽  
Erica Almeida Leal ◽  
Aniram Lins Cavalcante ◽  
Zina Angelica Caceres Benavides

ResumoEste trabalho visa demonstrar o processo de redemocratização da cidade, tendo em vista que o Brasil enquanto Estado democrático de Direito, necessita dos instrumentos de participação social, capazes de conferir ao cidadão o sentimento de pertencimento e de apropriação do espaço urbano. Utilizou-se como metodologia a revisão bibliográfica para construção do primeiro e segundo capítulo, enquanto o terceiro capítulo foi construído através do estudo de caso do Projeto MobCidades no Município de Ilhéus-BA. Como resultado, constatou-se que a mobilização dos atores sociais e os mecanismos de democracia participativa ganham relevância no cenário político, mostrando-se imprescindíveis para viabilizar a destinação de recursos públicos para ações e projetos que atendam aos interesses de diversos segmentos sociais e propiciem melhorias significativas no âmbito da acessibilidade e da mobilidade urbana. Apesar da legitimação da participação popular nas questões urbanas, percebe-se que poderes deliberativos ainda permanecem sobre o manto da máquina estatal, enquanto o cidadão encontra-se distante da gestão pública, o que nos faz questionar sobre o funcionamento dos mecanismos de participação social, visando incluir os anseios da população nas decisões referentes a políticas de mobilidade.Palavras-chave: Redemocratização da cidade. Participação social. Inclusão. AbstractThis work aims to demonstrate the process of redemocratization of the city, considering that Brazil as a democratic State of Law, needs the instruments of social participation, capable of giving the citizen the feeling of belonging and appropriation of the urban space. To this end, a case study of the MobCidades Project was carried out in the Municipality of Ilhéus-BA, based on information and data obtained from the Instituto Nossa Ilhéus proponent of the project and a bibliographic review, based on books, periodicals and legislation dealing with on the matter, and case study. As a result, it was found that the mobilization of social actors and the mechanisms of participatory democracy gain relevance in the political scenario, proving to be essential to enable the allocation of public resources for actions and projects that meet the interests of different social segments and provide improvements significant in the scope of accessibility and urban mobility. Despite the legitimacy of popular participation in urban issues, it is clear that deliberative powers still remain under the mantle of the state machine, while the citizen is distant from public management, which makes us question the functioning of the mechanisms of social participation, aiming to include the population's concerns in decisions regarding mobility policies.Keywords: Redemocratization of the city. social participation. Inclusion.


2021 ◽  
pp. 263-286
Author(s):  
Pedro Malpica

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.


Author(s):  
Robert Gottlieb ◽  
Simon Ng

The chapter analyzes and compares the different uses of urban space – whether public space, open space, or privatized space -- in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and China. It contrasts the modernist spatial strategies that cater to the automobile and traffic flow and the desire for speed with an alternative view about a more walkable, bikeable, and transit friendly urban environment. It compares the immigrant and different ethnic experiences – a Latino immigrant urbanism in Los Angeles, elderly women dancing in the streets of the city in China, or the immigrant communities constructed in the village-in-the-city enclaves in places like Shenzhen and Guangzhou. It describes the rise of the gated communities in all three places in contrast to the growing advocacy around the right to the city for everyone.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emil Nasritdinov ◽  
Nurgul Esenamanova

In this article, we explore how religion claims its space in the city of Bishkek. The growing community of practicing Muslims asserts the right to be in the city, live according to its religious ideals, and create Islamic urban spaces. Such claims do not remain uncontested and, because religious identity has strong visual manifestation, religious claims become the subject of strong public debate. This contestation overlaps with socially constructed gender hierarchies—religious/secular claims over the urban space turn into men’s claims over women with both sides (religious and secular) claiming to know what women should wear. Yet research shows that Kyrgyz women in Bishkek do not really need fashion advice. The Islamic revivalist movement among women in the Kyrgyz capital has since the 1990s created a strong momentum that has a life of its own and is fairly independent. Muslim women wearing a hijab have become very visible and influential urban actors with their own strong claims for the city.


Author(s):  
Rosario Sommella ◽  
Libera D'Alessandro

The contribution starts from the historical importance of the commercial function in Naples in structuring the urban space, a function to which it is possible largely to trace the long-lasting relationship between consumption and demand for places, as well as many changes in the urban image. Retail organized the city not only on the main streets but also at the scale of non-minoritarian and widespread micro-spaces in the various neighborhoods, in a Naples that, especially in the twentieth century, was transformed according to macro logic very different from today’s. Today the element that seems to most order the structure of places and the urban landscape is consumption, mixed with living and related activities, walking and cultural functions: elements mediated by local authorities, which in turn must deal with new phenomena. The question arises in territorial terms, as retail and consumption (and their protagonists) claim places and public space. The case study will be that of the metropolitan territory in an extended sense and will be analyzed through four scales chosen as the most exemplary of the change: the upgraded/touristified city-centre; the historical centre in its marginal parts; the metropolitan interstices; the small and medium-sized centers at the metropolitan scale. Demands of products and places that become the expression of a new demand for cities bring out the potential, contradictions and conflicts of a Mediterranean city in transition.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tijen Tunali

In the last three decades, across the world, there have emerged mass movements, uprisings and revolts targeting neo-liberal global capitalism and its radical reorganization of urban hierarchies. As a result, cities have become the central stage for sociopolitical struggles. While the scholarship on new social movements has recognized the aesthetic potential of political organizing since the beginning of the anti-globalization movement in 1999, new approaches are needed to understand the aesthetic dissensus of contemporary activism within the urban space. This article theorizes aesthetics as a potentially radicalizing force in proposing a democratic citizenship in the city. Indebted to the theories of Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, James Holston, Mark Purcell and Jacques Rancière, it discusses the new synthesis of political and aesthetic forms, action and experience in urban social movement praxis. Taking Gezi Park resistance in Turkey (2013) as a case study, it seeks to understand the relationship of activist aesthetics to changing practices and conceptions of citizenship.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 85-91
Author(s):  
Bartosz Kaźmierczak ◽  
Dominika Pazder

Abstract Complete place visioning is an idea of designing active places in the city space. It is important part of urban design so as to act in accordance with inhabitants’ needs and provide vivid and socially desired places. In the paper there is presented an idea of complete places visioning introduced into academic learning system within the urban planning course at the Faculty of Architecture of Poznan University of Technology. The presented example of collaborative and problem oriented learning seems to be a useful tool in solving real urban problems and aiming at improving a quality of a city space. In the paper, collaboration is considered also in terms of participatory planning. There is shown the case study of polish commune Tarnowo Podgórne in which the project of civic activity centre together with neighboring public space is designed and realized as the final result of longterm collaboration between academic institutes and municipality.


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