scholarly journals KippCity

2014 ◽  
pp. 23-40
Author(s):  
Christine Hentschel

This chapter explores the potentials of multistable figures (Kippbilder) for conceptualizing urban change. This potential, Hentschel argues, lies in the flip-moment itself, in the space-time of urban transformation. In Berlin-Neukölln, a neighbourhood long branded as poor and failing, multiple and partly conflicting flip-scenarios have begun to inspire and haunt the neighbourhood and its self-reflective talk. KippCity Neukölln is thus a flickering figure. But unlike an artefact Kippbild, which flickers between duck and rabbit, for example, KippCity Neukölln does not simply tip into a new pre-fabricated form, but rather wavers between different future scenarios. Neukölln’s flickering urbanity is thus nervous, full of uncertainty, frustration and enthusiasm. The article shows how the neighbourhood seeks escape from the dystopia of two dominant flip scenarios of ghettoization and gentrification by digging its claws into its Now.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-114
Author(s):  
Eugene Kb Tan

AbstractThe physical transformation of a colonial backwater city, Singapore, in one generation has been described as a feat of urban planning, renewal, and development. Less studied is the political will of the government to create a thriving city fit for purpose. Even less studied is the role of law that provides the powerful levers for the rapid and deep-seated changes to the urban landscape in Singapore. In this regard, the mindset shift that accompanied the massive urban transformation has facilitated a national psyche that embraces the material dimension of progress, for which urban renewal is not just a mere indicator but also a mantra for the fledgling nation-state desirous of change as a mark of progress. This essay examines the multi-faceted role of law in undergirding urban planning, policy, and development in Singapore. Rather than just providing a focus on specific laws that enables the government to shape the processes of urban redevelopment, the essay argues that these laws have to be understood within the context of “urban redevelopment pragmatism” in which pragmatism is as much a planning ideology as it is a driver of urban change and renewal. Furthermore, this planning pragmatism, very much mission-oriented towards national goals, has become a potent source of political and performance legitimacy for the ruling People’s Action Party. The legal regime that provided the wherewithal for urban renewal, economic activity, water quality management, and spatial integration of a polyglot society is now being reconfigured for the urgent aspiration of becoming a global city and a smart nation. The essay also considers the limitations to this planning and redevelopment pragmatism, and how the rapid urban change has somewhat enervated the urban heritage and contributed to a weakening of the collective memory of change amid continuity.


2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilla Lewis

In 2002, the Commonwealth Games were championed as a win-win solution for Manchester. The sporting event would bring worldwide attention and investment to the city and offer a unique opportunity to kick start social regeneration, transforming the fortunes of some of Manchester's poorest neighbourhoods. This paper explores experiences of urban change, from the perspective of long-standing residents in the neighbourhoods of Beswick and Openshaw, which lie in East Manchester. Despite promises of legacy, these localities remain dislocated from the rest of the city and the future continues to be defined by uncertainty by the area's residents. In order to understand some of the tensions and difficulties that arise in projects of urban transformation we need to pay attention to the practical ways in which people make relationships to place ( Massey 1995 , 2001 ) which tend to be erased in dominant narratives about ‘legacy’. It argues that we must go beyond drawing simple conclusions of the ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ implications of regeneration processes in order to investigate the social effects of urban change for local populations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-160
Author(s):  
AbdouMaliq Simone ◽  
Vyjayanthi Rao

Abstract Sustainable urban transformation increasingly relies upon technicities of computation and interoperability among variegated registers and domains. In contrast, the notion of an “urban majority,” first introduced by the authors nearly a decade ago, points to a different “mathematics” of combination. Here the ways in which different economic practices, demeanors, behavioral tactics, forms of social organization, territory, and mobility intersect and detach, coalesce into enduring cultures of inhabitation or proliferate as momentary occupancies of short-lived situations make up a kind of algorithmic process that continuously produces new functions and new values for individual and collective capacities, backgrounds, and ways of doing things. This capacity, albeit facing new vulnerabilities and recalibration, will become increasingly important in shaping urban change in a post-pandemic era.


2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. B. Kennedy
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Roger Penrose ◽  
Wolfgang Rindler
Keyword(s):  

2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 173-184
Author(s):  
Wenxing Yang ◽  
Ying Sun

Abstract. The causal role of a unidirectional orthography in shaping speakers’ mental representations of time seems to be well established by many psychological experiments. However, the question of whether bidirectional writing systems in some languages can also produce such an impact on temporal cognition remains unresolved. To address this issue, the present study focused on Japanese and Taiwanese, both of which have a similar mix of texts written horizontally from left to right (HLR) and vertically from top to bottom (VTB). Two experiments were performed which recruited Japanese and Taiwanese speakers as participants. Experiment 1 used an explicit temporal arrangement design, and Experiment 2 measured implicit space-time associations in participants along the horizontal (left/right) and the vertical (up/down) axis. Converging evidence gathered from the two experiments demonstrate that neither Japanese speakers nor Taiwanese speakers aligned their vertical representations of time with the VTB writing orientation. Along the horizontal axis, only Japanese speakers encoded elapsing time into a left-to-right linear layout, which was commensurate with the HLR writing direction. Therefore, two distinct writing orientations of a language could not bring about two coexisting mental time lines. Possible theoretical implications underlying the findings are discussed.


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