New transnational geographies of Islamism, capitalism and subjectivity: the veiling-fashion industry in Turkey

The rise of the transnational veiling-fashion industry in Turkey has taken place within the context of neoliberal economic restructuring, the subjection of the veil to new regulations, and the resurgence of Islamic identities worldwide. Even after almost two decades since its first catwalk appearance, the idea of 'veiling-fashion' continues to be controversial, drawing criticism from secular and devout Muslim segments of society alike. Analysing veiling-fashion as it plays out across economic, political and cultural fields is to enter into a new understanding of the role of Islam in the global arena today. Veiling-fashion crystallises a series of issues about Islamic identity, the transnational linkages of both producers and consumers, and the shifting boundaries between Islamic ethics and the imperatives of neoliberal capitalism. In this paper, our overarching argument is that controversies and practices surrounding veiling-fashion show how Islamic actors are adapting and transforming neoliberal capitalism at the same time as they navigate a complex geopolitical terrain in which Islam – and the iconic Muslim, headscarf-wearing woman – has been cast as a threatening 'Other'. Thus the rise of veiling-fashion as a transnational phenomenon positions women and women's bodies at the centre of political debates and struggles surrounding what it means to be 'modern' and Muslim today. Based on interviews with producers, consumers and salesclerks, and our analysis of newspaper articles, catalogues and web sites, this article traces out how the transnational production, sale and consumption of veiling-fashion works to order spaces of geopolitics, geo-economics and subject formation .     

The names of urban dispossession: a concluding commentary

ABSTRACT

This concluding commentary discusses some of the ways in which branded renaming reflects conflicts over ownership, authority, property and power. Practices of sponsored renaming and place branding are not monolithic, but this special issue shows that they are deeply rooted within neoliberal urbanism. It should therefore not be surprising that place branding is almost always contested, and often a flashpoint in struggles over urban space.     

Decoding dispossession: Eviction and urban regeneration in Johannesburg's dark buildings

In January 2012 the residents of an inner‐city tenement building in Doornfontein, Johannesburg, were evicted on a court order. The building was situated in a post‐industrial neighbourhood in which thousands of South Africans and foreign nationals, many blind or disabled, live in unlawfully occupied buildings without access to water, basic sanitation, electricity and waste management services. Such buildings are known in policy discourse as ‘bad buildings’, and informally as ‘dark buildings’, invoking both a sense of developmental failure and spiritual insecurity. In this paper I analyse how urban renewal policies created social divisions and alliances not only among the residents of Chambers, which were channelled along nationalist lines, but also between the able‐bodied and disabled, and produced new social alliances. In particular, I document how a group of blind Zimbabweans experienced threats of violence and accusations of betrayal, as they were offered alternate accommodation by the evicting company because of their disability. I argue here that the pressures of private‐sector housing developments intersected with the insecurities and divisions of inner‐city social spaces and also fostered new alliances. Following the work of Deleuze and Guattari, I invoke the concept of ‘decoding dispossession’, proposing that ongoing evictions and dispossessions are characterized by simultaneous movements of ‘decoding and deterritorialization’ and ‘overcoding‐reterritorialization’.     

Towards good governance of urban greening: insights from four initiatives in Melbourne,Australia

ABSTRACT

Urban greening can enhance sustainability and liveability, through conserving biodiversity, mitigating urban heat and enhancing people’s health and wellbeing. However, urban greening is complex, as it occurs in unique ecological settings, with social, cultural and economic factors shaping the forms it takes. This raises questions about the governance of urban greening, including what counts as ‘good governance’. In this paper, we first outline principles of good governance drawn from the natural resource management context. We then present four urban greening initiatives from Melbourne Australia representing different scales, land tenures and organising structures. Following this, we analyse how governance of the four initiatives addresses good governance principles. Our analysis shows that there are diverse ways in which urban greening can be practiced and governed. The importance of more ‘informal’ initiatives should not be discounted relative to formalised initiatives, as a spectrum of approaches can be seen as strength. Further, in determining what constitutes good governance, the standards against which initiatives are assessed should be tailored to their specific circumstances, and consider impacts to the environment itself. These findings point to good urban greening governance being both situated and principled.     

中国发展中国家地位的论证——基于190个经济体多维发展水平分类的实证分析

科学判断一个国家在全球体系中的地位是制定外交政策的基础。目前中国的发展中国家地位遭到了西方国家的质疑,国内学者从国别比较等视角出发论证了中国的发展中国家地位,但缺乏从全球尺度分类视角的回应。论文基于多面体法、洛伦兹曲线分类法等方法,从经济、社会、环境、治理等方面构建经济体的多维发展水平分类指标体系和测度模型,将全球190个经济体划分成发达经济体Ⅰ~Ⅲ型、发展中经济体Ⅰ~Ⅴ型和过渡型经济体共9种类型,并探讨了不同类型经济体的发展水平特征、中国在全球经济体分类体系中的地位等问题。研究发现：① 不同类型经济体在经济、社会、环境、治理等分维度发展水平方面具有显著的差异性。② 发达经济体各维度发展水平排名普遍较高,总体呈现“并驾齐驱”特征;过渡型经济体在很多维度的发展指标与发达经济体Ⅲ型接近,多数经济体处于逐渐向发达经济体过渡的发展阶段;发展中经济体在分维度发展水平方面存在显著的结构性差异。③ 中国属于发展中经济体Ⅰ型类别,在全球190个经济体中排在第64位,在139个发展中经济体中排在第13位。④ 中国在全球经济体多维发展水平排序、各维度发展水平差异等方面具备发展中国家的普遍特征。该研究洛伦兹曲线分类法等方法的应用可丰富区域发展分类理论,相关结论可为回击西方国家对中国发展中国家地位的质疑提供借鉴。     

Planning a Prosperous Sydney: The challenges of planning urban development in the new urban context

Since their post-war inception, Sydney's metropolitan plans have tended to be overtaken by the social, economic and environmental conditions they have had to confront. The depth and scope of Sydney's recent urban transformation threatens again to overtake metropolitan planning capacity creating, in the context of competitive globalisation, a potentially significant market disadvantage for the city, not to mention poor urban development outcomes. This paper reviews Sydney's post-war metropolitan planning strategies, examining the social and economic contexts and the policy paradigms in which they have been framed, in order to draw out the lessons to be learned from their successes and failures. We argue that future success in planning urban development will rely on richly informed and fine-grained understanding of the complex spatial outcomes of Sydney's ever-deeper global integration. Only such fine-grained understanding can empower metropolitan planning to be responsive to the evolving challenges of managing development in the contemporary urban context.     

Divergent responses to urban transformation projects in Turkey: common sense and state affinity in community mobilization

This article examines the role of state affinity in community struggles against authoritarian, neoliberal urban transformation projects (UTPs) in Turkey. It argues that as neoliberal hegemonic devices, UTPs produce contentious political spaces within which communities negotiate, resist, or comply with state-imposed, pro-market rationales (i.e. common sense). As an alternative to depictions of subaltern communities in mobilization as totally ‘co-opted‘ or ‘victimized‘ in neoliberal renewal or as ’unwilling’ or ’unable’ to produce a collective rights identity, the analysis offers a more complicated picture of community resistance, inactivity, and co-optation. To do this, it adopts a combination of Henri Lefebvre’s theory of production of space and Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony. The analysis is based on the findings from original ethnographic research on two ethnically distinct working-class neighborhoods under UTP threat in Gebze, a satellite city of Istanbul. It compares communities’ affinity with the state-sponsored ideologies (Sunni-Turkish nationalism, neoliberalism) by looking at their ethnic identities and social histories.     

Changing urban governance in Ghana: the role of resistance practices and activism in Kumasi

ABSTRACT

This article examines traders’ resistance practices in Kumasi, Ghana and their significance for changing urban governance in Africa. Conceptually, we introduce “activism” as a new variable into the present concept of urban governance as decentralization, entrepreneurialism and democratization (DED). From an empirical study in Kumasi, Ghana, findings reveal that activism by non-state actors does not only occur at the crucial earlier phases of the urban regeneration process, but extends into the subsequent phases, because urban governance is a continuous process. We demonstrate that activism and a multiplicity of resistance practices are embedded and significant dimensions of everyday urban governance in Africa. This paper argues that the additional dimension – activism – is necessary in rethinking urban governance in Ghana and Africa. This conceptualization views non-state actors not as resisters of urban governance but as activists whose resistance practices and innovations produce tangible and far-reaching changes in city governance. We learn that non-state actors do not rely on the state to control all aspects of urban governance but invent new practices to secure their socio-economic interests and provide them with leverage where they have to negotiate with or stand up to authorities. The study shows that successful change in urban governance is a function of the complementary and strategic adoption of contention, subversion and co-production. When the state perceives that the intervention of other key stakeholders legitimizes the grievances of non-state actors, it responds positively.     

Nonprofits and park equity in Los Angeles: a promising way forward for environmental justice

Disparities in park provision raise environmental and health justice concerns. With public agencies stepping back from providing environmental amenities in increasingly neoliberal urban regimes, nonprofits in the U.S. have assumed a prominent role in the parks and recreation sector. But very few studies have comprehensively assessed whether and how park nonprofits contribute to increasing or closing the equity gap in park provision. Focusing on Los Angeles, I analyze how park nonprofits operate and which demographic groups benefit from new and improved parks supported by nonprofits. Based on interviews with local practitioners and geospatial analyses, I find that nonprofits are leading a park equity movement in Los Angeles and helped address park disparities. To do so, nonprofits built diverse coalitions, leveraged complementary strengths, coalesced with public agencies, and helped generate public funds for parks. These findings show that equity-oriented nonprofits can successfully challenge the unjust outcomes of neoliberal governance.     

Network-scape metric analysis: a new approach for the pattern analysis of urban road networks

The spatial patterns of road networks reflect the morphological and structural characteristics of cities. Previous studies have focused mainly on seeking universal laws in road networks rather than explaining their differences. A new approach for road network pattern analysis is proposed that has been inspired by landscape metric analysis. The utility of this approach is illustrated through (but is not limited to) the extraction of the main factors in network landscapes, or network-scapes for short. Twenty-four metrics were calculated for network-scapes of 100 cities worldwide, before an exploratory analysis is performed to detect the main factors. Four main factors were revealed and may be regarded as the characteristic indicators of road networks, which were identified to be evenness, richness-density, shape irregularity, and size and shape variation. The meanings of these factors are explained, and their spatial distributions are illustrated. Compared to existing road network analytics, these factors depict better the characteristic differences of road networks. The proposed approach provides a new framework for road network pattern analysis from a cellular perspective.     

Experiences and issues of using cellular automata for assisting urban and regional planning in China

Since the late 1990s, there are growing studies on the development of cellular automata (CA) as a simulation tool for assisting urban and regional planning in China. Rapid urban development is the main reason that this country has become one of the best places to test the methodology of CA and analyze the effectiveness of using these models. This paper attempts to summarize the experiences and issues of using CA to solve various environmental and planning problems in China. The analysis is based on the literature review using the search engines of ISI Web of Science and Google Scholar. These experiences could be important for those who want to apply CA in developing countries. For example, which environmental and ecological problems can be solved by using this bottom-up approach? What are the data inputs to these models and how can they be calibrated? Our analyses indicate that CA have the great potential to support land-use planning and policy analysis for fast-growing regions. Some specific features of using CA in China are also identified in the literature review, including delineation of urban growth boundary, prevention of illegal development and formulating zoning schemes. The CA studies in this fast-growing country provided valuable experiences for other developing countries to solve a series of simulation and planning problems by using this bottom-up approach.     

Urban re-generations: afterword to special issue on the politics of urban greening in Australian cities

ABSTRACT

‘Urban re-generations' is written as an afterword to the special issue of Australian Geographer on ‘The Politics of Urban Greening in Australian Cities'. The collection prompts a deep questioning of reparative and regenerative work associated with greening, green spaces and green infrastructures. The climate-driven 2019-2020 bushfire crisis and COVID-19 have amplified the visibility of the more-than-human connectivity of our cities and the deep underlying structures of social and environmental inequity underpinning a variety of urban green spaces and agendas. Inspired by the articles in this special issue, the afterword explores how we might call back the grammars and practices of regeneration from their service to the neo-liberal, settler-colonial city and instead nurture reparative de-colonial practices that aid in the collaborative work of re-composing, becoming into better relation with, and working in modes of situated historical and cultural difference, with green and just cities.     

Measuring urban activities using Foursquare data and network analysis: a case study of Murcia (Spain)

Among social networks, Foursquare is a useful reference for identifying recommendations about local stores, restaurants, malls or other activities in the city. In this article, we consider the question of whether there is a relationship between the data provided by Foursquare regarding users’ tastes and preferences and fieldwork carried out in cities, especially those connected with business and leisure. Murcia was chosen for case study for two reasons: its particular characteristics and the prior knowledge resulting from the fieldwork. Since users of this network establish, what may be called, a ranking of places through their recommendations, we can plot these data with the objective of displaying the characteristics and peculiarities of the network in this city. Fieldwork from the city itself gives us a set of facilities and services observed in the city, which is a physical reality. An analysis of these data using a model based on a network centrality algorithm establishes a classification or ranking of the nodes that form the urban network. We compare the data extracted from the social network with the data collected from the fieldwork, in order to establish the appropriateness in terms of understanding the activity that takes place in this city. Moreover, this comparison allows us to draw conclusions about the degree of similarity between the preferences of Foursquare users and what was obtained through the fieldwork in the city.     

Community and Nostalgia in Urban Revitalisation: a critique of urban village and creative class strategies as remedies for social ‘problems’

We examine how normative constructions of ‘the creative city’ have entered into Australian planning discourses. Although welcoming a place-based approach, critical consideration is given to how the misappropriation of ‘place making’ in creative city revitalisation plans may enhance rather than address processes of social marginalisation. A Foucauldian framework is employed, exploring the notion of the social production of power through discourse. We draw on a case study of Wentworth Street, a key urban space in Port Kembla, the industrialised district of Wollongong, New South Wales. The study focuses on various ideas of a common place-making theme of the ‘urban village’ evoked by planners, the media and a targeted local resident group (here elderly Macedonians) for a street positioned in ‘crisis’ because of declining infrastructure, services and its association with crime, drugs and prostitution. The case study demonstrates that marginalisation and exclusions are products of creative city strategies and wider, more oppressive urban discourses. But we also demonstrate that despite becoming normative in the texts of planning policies, discourses of place and identity always remain multiple, negotiated, and contradictory.     

Quantifying the sustainability of urban growth and form through time: An algorithmic analysis of a city's development

Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, households and cities have changed dramatically. Dense urban developments have given way to lower density suburbanization, while the changing face of the typical family has led to different household makeups. Analyzing how changing urban form influences the sustainability of cities is important for planning future ways in which society aggregates itself. Using current data layers, such as urban boundaries and building footprints, along with past aerial photographs of the city and census data, a detailed reconstruction of the city of Pocatello, Idaho was possible for 1941 for both urban form and population. Using these data sources an algorithmic analysis of various aspects of the city, clustering, compactness, connectivity, and density, was performed on a decadal basis. Results showed an overwhelming trend toward less sustainable development for the city, larger blocks, measured by intersection density, larger distances between houses, fewer people utilizing more space, a more irregularly shaped urban form, an average greater distance from the city center for development, and decreased connectivity, as measured by intersection density. Because the data sources used for this study are readily available to most planning municipalities, the same analysis could be performed on various cities and metros across the United States.     

Redevelopment and the urban forest: A study of tree removal and retention during demolition activities

Though relationships between urbanization and tree cover are generally well studied, the effect of redevelopment on urban trees, at the scale of the individual property, is not well understood. Developing knowledge in this area is important in order to limit tree loss during redevelopment and thus, ensure sustained ecosystem services. Here, we explore the removal or retention of trees adjacent to building demolition in Christchurch, New Zealand. We mapped the presence or absence of individual trees on 123 properties prior to, and following, building demolition. Using a classification tree (CT) analysis, the presence or absence of 1209 trees was modelled as a function of: tree-related variables, property-related variables, and economic variables. The CT model estimated tree presence/absence with overall accuracy of 80.4%. Results show that 21.6% of all trees were removed as a consequence of building demolition, resulting in a tree canopy cover reduction of 19.7% across all 123 properties. The CT showed that tree crown area was the most important variable for predicting the presence/absence of trees, whereby trees with small crown areas (<7.9 m²) were most frequently removed, especially if they were within 0.7 m of a demolished building. Land value was also an important determinant of tree presence/absence, such that tree removal was more prevalent on properties with higher land value ($/m²). The results provide important new insights into some of the reasons for tree removal or retention during redevelopment at the scale of the individual property where most tree-related decisions are made.