Urban Studies: An International Journal of Research in Urban Studies

Kamete, Amin Y

doi: 10.1177/0042098018821588pmid: N/A

Planning relies on the strict classification and disposition of things in space. Intended to establish and maintain order, planning’s classifying practices are reinforced by binarisms that revolve around legality/illegality. The article deploys Bauman’s notion of the ‘stranger’ to recast hostility to informality as a symptom of antipathy against strangerhood and ambivalence. Drawing from qualitative research in urban Zimbabwe, I posit that because informality cannot be pigeonholed as either ‘friend’ or ‘enemy’, it instils a sense of unease in planners. I argue that this is a failure of the pursuit of order through binary antagonisms and contend that fixation with binarisms spawns ‘spatial undecidables’ and fuels resentment against informality. I propose that the notion of strangerhood complements and extends the concept of ‘gray spacing’.

Navarro, John C; Ruther, Matt

doi: 10.1177/0042098018817474pmid: N/A

This study explores whether a relationship exists between sale prices and the presence of registered sex offenders in Jefferson County, Kentucky after accounting for observed and unobserved neighbourhood characteristics in accompaniment with property characteristics. The sale prices of single-family properties sold in 2015 were estimated as a function of the characteristics of the property, the housing and population characteristics of the neighbourhood, block group fixed effects and two separate measures of sex offender presence: a) the distance of the nearest registered sex offender to sold single-family properties; and b) the density of registered sex offenders within a half mile distance to sold single-family properties. Registered sex offender distance and density are associated with sale price when controlling for property characteristics and observed neighbourhood characteristics of the property, but these relationships cease to exist when unobserved neighbourhood characteristics are accounted for in the model.

Friedman, Rachel; Rosen, Gillad

doi: 10.1177/0042098018818967pmid: N/A

This article makes borrowed use of the ‘paradigm shift’ concept to explain the development and culmination of Israel’s neoliberal housing transformation. Using a mixed-method approach based chiefly on 60 interviews conducted with key players in Israel’s housing industry, we examine how a shift in authority over housing policy promoted two central ideas that reshaped the housing arena and urban space. We explore how these themes, specifically, construing housing in-affordability as a supply issue and defining its beneficiaries as the middle class, shaped key affordable housing mechanisms. These mechanisms include increasing the supply of general housing, small-size housing units and rentals. We also identify a parallel paradigm – a shadow paradigm – alongside the reigning neoliberal paradigm that is used as an intervention mechanism in times of crisis or during windows of opportunity. We demonstrate how the shadow paradigm addresses housing needs that cannot be met within the governing paradigm, for example, through the buyer’s price programme.

Certomà, Chiara; Chelleri, Lorenzo; Notteboom, Bruno

doi: 10.1177/0042098018819734pmid: N/A

This paper investigates the emergence of informal planning practices and their relationship with the new geometries of power and responsibility that characterise what is here defined and described as ‘fluid governance’; and that leads to co-creative forms of public space governance. In particular, the research explores the key role played by some politically progressive forms of urban gardening in pivoting actions that transform green spaces through informal planning into areas for food production and collaborative management. This challenges traditional governance networks and re-defines the functioning of public spaces. The case of Parco delle Energie in Rome (Italy) serves as an example of a process of space re-appropriation, planning and finally co-management performed by a dense network of very diverse actors, who established a collaborative framework with the administration in order to re-shape decision-making dynamics. A comparative analysis of international cases confirms that urban gardening is challenging the dominance of a traditional planning perspective worldwide, both spatially as on the level of governance, and is turning citizens’ dissensus into a productive force in the re-imagination and stewardship of public urban space. The conclusion suggests the self-design and co-managing capacities of urban gardeners and citizens could lead to adequate synergies between actors, enabling new urban governance models in line with the global ambition to build more sustainable and inclusive cities.

Rammer, Christian; Kinne, Jan; Blind, Knut

doi: 10.1177/0042098018820241pmid: N/A

We analyse the geographic proximity of innovative firms to different types of knowledge sources in an urban environment on a microgeographic scale. Based on a comprehensive panel data set of manufacturing and service firms in the German capital city Berlin, we investigate the characteristics of firms’ knowledge environment while differentiating by the type of innovation. Geocoded firm locations at the level of individual addresses allows us to describe the knowledge environment of firms on a very fine microgeographic scale. We find that innovative firms are located in places with higher numbers of same-sector firms, more start-ups and a higher inflow of other firms. They also locate in closer proximity to universities and research institutes. These differences decay rapidly within a few metres (50–250 m), indicating a truly microgeographic scope of knowledge sources in urban environments.

Micheli, Martin

doi: 10.1177/0042098018821069pmid: N/A

This paper estimates the causal effect of public debt on real estate prices and rental prices. We identify shocks to debt of self-governed cities in Germany and control for potential benefits such as an increased supply of public goods, which may come together with increased indebtedness. Using spatial variation across self-governed cities, we can quantify the causal effect. We find that shocks to public debt capitalise into property prices, questioning the presence of debt illusion in Germany. Rental prices, on the other hand, do not seem affected by public debt but by the actual tax burden, indicating that renter illusion does not reflect an illusion but rational behaviour.

Kemppainen, Teemu; Elovainio, Marko; Kortteinen, Matti; Vaattovaara, Mari

doi: 10.1177/0042098019827521pmid: N/A

Involuntary staying, or a desire to move without the possibility to do so, is an under-studied topic. In this study, we examine involuntary staying among the residents of post-Second World War Finnish housing estates; we study its frequency, association with self-rated health and role in the relationship between neighbourhood disadvantage and self-rated health. Involuntary staying and poor health are expected to be associated through long-term stress related to housing and health-based selection in inconvenient housing outcomes. Furthermore, we address the self-perceived reasons for involuntary staying and the interaction between involuntary staying and household income. Two types of involuntary staying are distinguished, depending on whether a resident wants to move within or away from the current neighbourhood. The survey data (n = 7369) from a stratified cluster sample of the residents of 70 Finnish housing estate neighbourhoods are combined with the corresponding geo-referenced register data on these neighbourhoods’ sociodemographic characteristics. Of the residents, 35% are found to be involuntary stayers, and over half of the involuntary stayers want to move away from their current neighbourhoods. Financial concern is the most common self-perceived reason for involuntary staying. Both types of involuntary staying are associated with low self-rated health after adjusting for potential confounders. Being trapped in the current neighbourhood partially mediates the adjusted association between neighbourhood disadvantage and self-rated health. The association between self-rated health and involuntary staying is not modified by household income. In conclusion, involuntary staying is common in the study population and furthers the understanding about neighbourhood inequalities in health.

Sweeting, David; Hambleton, Robin

doi: 10.1177/0042098019827506pmid: N/A

Within the context of debates regarding depoliticisation, this article considers how the introduction of a directly elected mayor system of governance impacts on urban politics. Directly elected mayors are now a fundamental feature of many political systems. They have been widely introduced as a reform to improve processes of local democracy, enhance the effectiveness of governing practices and to offer a more potent form of city leadership. This article focuses on developments in England, by presenting the case of Bristol, a city epitomising many aspects of modern neo-liberalised urban development. Bristol adopted a mayoral system in 2012 and the article presents empirical data from before and after this reform pertaining to two frameworks to understand city leadership. We conclude that the move to mayoral governance, in Bristol in the 2012–2016 period, eroded the influence of party politics and led to the adoption of elements of a leadership style associated with a depoliticisation of urban politics in the city. Nevertheless, the analysis suggests that the mayoral model also provides significant space for the expansion of political agency on the part of the city leader, not least because power becomes concentrated in the mayoral position.

Lam-Knott, Sonia

doi: 10.1177/0042098019829413pmid: N/A

Since the 2000s, Hong Kong has become inundated with retail centres, such that the territory is now known as ‘Mall City’, a condition now problematised by youth activists in the city. This article is interested in why these youths take issue with this form of urban development. By tracing the emergence of the contemporary consumerist landscape from the colonial era to the present, it is shown that the current manifestation and characteristics of Hong Kong’s brandscapes are the product of unequal power dynamics between the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government, estate developers and the Hong Kong citizenry in shaping the city. By bringing youth activist voices to the forefront through the use of ethnographic data, the discussion then examines youth activist accounts detailing the experiential dimensions of living in this consumerist landscape, noting the feelings of alienation and exploitation circulating within the vernacular domains of Hong Kong society. The article concludes by reviewing the different ways these youths have attempted to reconfigure their relationship with this brandscape, and thus challenge the control the HKSAR government and estate developers have over Hong Kong urban space.

Rossi, Ugo

doi: 10.1177/0042098018821581pmid: N/A

It is generally assumed that the so-called populist explosion that has swept across liberal democracies since 2016 has led to a crisis of neoliberal reason in its original formulation. Owing to the close relationship between cities and neoliberalism, the crisis of neoliberal rationality has significantly impacted what is defined here ‘Western urbanology’. This definition brings together influential apologists of the urban age and its entrepreneurialist potential, starting with Richard Florida and Edward Glaeser. In recent times, these authors have started revisiting their conceptions and related policy proposals, in response to the growing sense of dissatisfaction with mainstream theorisations of economic development that has been associated with the populist explosion of 2016. However, this article shows how their revisions are minimal, and fundamentally illusory, as these authors have glossed over the very foundations of capitalist societies, drawing a veil over the issue of economic-value creation within contemporary platform urbanism. After having critically assessed the trajectory of Western urbanology, the article concludes by arguing that a substantial revision of the role of contemporary urbanism in economic development processes would require interrogating the creation and capture of economic value in today’s capitalist societies.