Urban Theory Flashcards
How did Murray Bookchin describe urbanisation?
Urbanisation AGAINST cities
(Bookchin 1992)
When did Henri Lefebvre publish the urban revolution?
1970
Hypotheses a “completely urbanised” society
Who has recently built on Levebvre’s ‘complete urbanisation’?
Brenner 2013
Reconsiders complete urbanisation with Castells’ (1977) urban question
What took place during the 19th century?
British society became urbanised (Williams 1973)
- Also demographic changes
Who considered changes to urban sprawl in the 20th century?
Gottmann 1961
(Also Jane Jacobs 1961)
What do all the Marxist (and adjacent) writers consider the city to be?
The city as a process, not a thing
Harvey, Bookchin, Jacobs (1961), Brenner (2013)
Why is saying “we live in an urban age” misleading?
Planetary urbanisation might suggest that we have always lived in an urban age…
Just as the Anthropocene makes it sound like environmental destruction is the exception, not the rule
In what ways might there be “discrete urban units” (Castells 1977) on economic grounds?
- Cocktails more expensive in cities (living wage differences)
How has Young 2021 imagined a fictitious future urban society? What’s the problem with it?
“Planet city”
- 10 billion people confined to one city
- Rewilding outside
- BUT what about disconnect from nature and not trying to rewild all space (link to PE of conservation)
Who first considered cities “off the map”?
Robinson 2002
- Urban theory confined to the North, not enough engagement with the South
What does Robinson 2022 suggest?
- More connection between theory and ontology (spaces) in urban theory
- “Urban parochialism” in the North
- Need to consider differences between cities as idiosyncratic entities
.
What is an important question to consider about urban space?
“who does the city belong to?”
Simone 2004
What links does Simone 2004 highlight in “The city yet to come”?
That any future plans must necessarily deal with colonialism and post-colonial realities
What is modernity?
The experience of modernisation (Berman 1982)
What is modernisation?
Processual changes of advanced capitalism
- e.g., infrastructures
What is modernism?
Cultural forms associated with modernity
What does Harvey’s “consciousness and the urban experience” (1985) contend with?
- Capitalist urbanisation
- The changes to everyday life (quite humanist of Harvey!)
- The “urbanisation of consciousness”
- A focus on 2nd empire Paris
Harvey 1985
How can theories be applied?
Specifically (to cities/ parts of cities) and generically
Who said we are living in an “urban age”?
UN Habitat 1996
What does the urban question ask us?
What, ontologically, is the urban
What did Amin + Thrift say about cities from a non-representational perspective?
“The city is everywhere and in everything”
Amin and Thrift 2002
Who has suggested that urban areas can be studied despite Castells’ urban question?
Saunders 1981
- Sociology of settlements (Gans 2009)
- Loses spatial aspects
Although planetary urbanisation could be considered synonymous with capitalism what questions does it raise?
- What is urban?
- Highlights that cities are historically materialistically constructed in rural areas
What is a problem with Brenner’s discussion of “urban effects exist within an intensely variegated landscape”?
What are “urban effects” - does not describe these (Scott and Storper 2015 critique)
Brenner (2013) asks - are there urban processes
What is the urban fabric?
Extension of urban space into the countryside (Gandy 2011)
Who has critiqued Rem Koolhaas on Lagos (2004)?
Gandy 2005
Romanticised informality and structural inequalities as the epitome of capitalism (asymptotes)
How does Ong (2006) describe cities in the South?
As “zones of exception” (Ong 2006)
What two authors have criticised Robert Moses’ approach to planning in NYC (1930s-50s)?
Jacobs 1961 - The life and death of great American cities
Boyer 1983 - Dreaming of the rational city
What art exhibition detailed the slum clearances in NYC in the 1950s?
Shapolsky et al 1971
Was too radical - closed down by trustees
What is important to consider about art exhibitions about cities of difference?
- Who curates?
- Who sees?
- Clientele
Where has Robert Moses been portrayed in the arts?
“Straight-line crazy” (2022)
- Set designed to show Moses’ God-like attitude and perspective of cities
What publication combined capital and culture in explaining gentrification?
- Smith 1978 rent gap
- Zukin 1982 ‘Loft living’
Who inspired Robert Moses?
Hausmann in 19th century 2nd empire Paris
See Harvey 1985
What happened in Detroit?
White Flight since the 1980s
What is a conceptual discord in urban theory?
Harvey vs Deusche (1996)
- Former orthodox Marxist
- Latter a feminist critique (struggles WITHIN the spaces of the home)
.
Who has provided a feminist critique of public space?
Caroline Parada
Who has discussed the control and domestication of women in the city?
Elizabeth Wilson 1991
- Faneur is gendered - men are abstracted and passive observers
Who discussed the Stonewall riot (1969) and queer identity in the city?
Castells (1983) city and the Grassroots
Who has highlighted that experience of urban space is gendered and idisyncratic?
Sarah Ahmed (2006)
Spaces are embodied and inhabited
What is the experience of the majority of people globally in cities?
“for the vast majority of people, cities are polluted, unhealthy, tiring, overwhelming, confusing, alienating”
Amin 2006
Who highlighted that identity is in flux?
Stuart Hall 1989
The “production” of culture and identity
Who has drawn attention to the spatiality of racism?
Pulido 2016
Who suggested that cities are sites of “emerging and uncontrollable nature”? What are the implications for viewing cities?
Meike Wolf (2016)
- Makes urban space sound disorderly
What did the epidemeological transition (Omran 1971) suggest about diseases?
Implied that acute infectious diseases and pandemics were no longer a problem
(Olshansky et al 1997)
What does zoonotic urbanisation highlight about disease?
- Diseases are no longer localised issues (epidemics)
- A reminder that some diseases have always been global/cosmopolitan (e.g. Malaria)
What is a zoonosis?
Animals -> Humans (spill-over; mosquito vectors debated)
Can have intermediate hosts
What paradigm is the zoonotic city part of?
- Bacteriological city (control; optimism)
- Zoonotic city (less control over nature)
Who has written about urban epidemeology/
Wolf 2016
When considering zoonotic urbanisation, what should be considered?
What is the city? Where does the city start and finish?
cf. Brenner 2013
What is curious about COVID-19 pandemic?
Ong 2006 and hypermobile class most affected TO BEGIN WITH
Are diseases the only consideration re health in cities?
Recent declines in LE in neoliberal cities symptomatic of inequality in deprived areas (Marmot et al 2020)
for zoonotic urban look at demo c/w
a
What does the “urban penalty” suggest about urban diseases?
-Urban areas relatively more unsafe
- A hive of disease (Rosen 1973)
Who has drawn attention to cities as the ‘mouths of capitalism’?
- Philo 1995 animals
- Upton Sinclair 1905
- Cronon 1991 Nature’s Metropolis
What distinguishes zoonotic vs bacteriological city?
Zoonotic
- Pessimism
- Flows of disease from rural areas
- Planetary urbanisation links
Bacteriological
- Optimism
- In Situ
- Modernisation and epidemiological transition
Both are heuristic devices
What is a good consideration re disease risk?
Techno Feudalism in the city
Safety for the rich, risk for the poor
What is an interesting consideration regarding diseases in urban areas?
Biopolitics (e.g., Lynteris 2019)
- Control disease mentality
- Also entire lockdowns
What is curious about the history of disease?
Blame race and sexuality etc
Sort of disease determinism
How did covid reconceptualise implosion-explosion (lefebvre 1970)?
Explosion outside of city
Implosion (concentration) in the city
Who has incorporated the urban question into discussions of disease?
Meike Wolf (2016)
“What exactly constitutes ‘the urban’ within the complex assemblages of disease interactions” in the city
What are the two sites of spillover according to Gandy 2022?
- “edge landscapes” with planetary urbanisation proliferations
- deforestation and habitat fragmentation - “closed ecosystems” which are predisposed for spillover events in Wet Markets etc
Who has logged the zoonosis of the Nipah virus in Singapore? What happened?
Weiss 2000
- Bats displaced by deforestation
- Went to trees above pig farms
- Pigs ate droppings
- Abattoir workers infected
.
What did Wirth (1938) imply about urban areas?
- That they were disorderly
- Rural areas better (Williams 1973)
What is the most famous criticism of Robert Moses?
Caro (1974) “the power broker”
- Moses unelected
- Racist (explicitly and systemically with his designs)
How does Nissen 2008 define urban and public space?
“Public space is - most of all - urban space”
Who discussed the development of civil space in cities?
Weber 1978
Who has discussed the demise of public space during neoliberalism?
Kohn 2004
How could planetary urbanisation (Brenner 2013) or urbanism (Robinson 2002, 2022) be extended?
To incorporate migrant camps and different flows of people between North and South
See 1B material
What is important to remember about urban theory?
There is also a “Geography of theory” itself - where it is substantively applied or devised
In what ways is the urban multiscalar?
- Localised affects
- Planetary effects (Brenner 2000)
Even if not planetary urbanisation, then cities have a affective / atmospheric influence - Raymond Williams describing the “glow” of Cambridge from a nearby town
Who has problematised the term “megacity”?
Roy 2011
Megacities are “a metonym for underdevelopment, Third Worldism, the global South”
How do Scott & Storper’s (2015) and Robinson’s (2002; 2022) approaches vary?
- Both agree that there needs to be a critical reconceptualisation of what the urban is
- S&S (2015) suggest that there are intrinsic urban processes (agglomeration)
- Robinson suggests that we should treat every city as different and compare (intrinsic features of cities)
Some opportunity to reconcile general aspects with idiosyncracies
How many people does the UN predict live in Slums?
Over 1 billion (UN 2022)
See Davis 2005
What paper has considered urban racial tensions in the global North?
Amin 2002
- Focussing on the “everyday urban” in 2001 riots in UK
- “white flight” from mixed community initiatives + nostalgia from 1970s (pre-migration) among white residents.
- Yet attitudes can change
What does Beebeejaun (2017) highlight about gender in the city?
“The feminist critique of urban theory and planning that developed in the 1970s demonstrated how urban planners have created gendered environments that are predominantly suited to the needs of men and the heteronormative family.”
Beebeejaun 2017
Who has highlighted that urban space is “animated” and temporally fluid?
Amin 2013
- In flux, shaped by present and past changes
How did de Certeau understand walking?
Walking as a political vehicle for claiming and changing space
de Certeau 1984:
Who has applied gentrification in a cultural context contra Smith 1978?
Butler & Lees 2006
“Super-gentrification” by elites in Islington
Smith (1978; 1984) suggests that his theory is universal, but based on empirical data for US cities…
Why does super-gentrification occur?
- Convenience
- A feeling of safety
(Butler & Lees 2006)
What theoretical contribution to Butler & Lees (2006) make about gentrification?
There is no “mature” asymptote for gentrification; it has no limits, as was previously thought
How did Debord (1967) suggest that the Spectacle should be resisted?
“Détournement” as the way of fighting against spectacles
- Doing things deemed “wrong”
- Going to the places that you should not visit
Who has linked planetary urbanisation to the zoonotic city?
Brenner & Ghosh 2022
Expands (Gandy 2006) Bacteriological city to the margins of the urban fabric
What does peri-urbanisation mean?
Ubiquitous urbanisation
Who has adopted a landscape Pol Ecology analysis to understand zoonotic urbanisation?
Connolly et al 2021
Why is Cronon’s Natures Metropolis so significant?
It makes us ask what happens to the rural-urban dialectic for complete urbanisation if “Urban and rural landscapes … are not two places but one”
Cronon 1991
What is important to remember about Marxist approaches (or approaches generally) for urban theory?
Don’t set about a Marxist approach from the outset - instead build up to it
