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14/01/Lecture 1: Introduction: Key Themes in Urban Futures Research and Blog Writing Workshop 1 (Part 1)Outline  Introduction: the urban world  Introduction to the module  Key issue: urban public space  Blog writing workshop 1The Urban World  2008: first 50/50 year for urban/rural population  ...

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GEO2132

Global Urban Futures 14/01/20

Lecture 1: Introduction: Key Themes in Urban Futures Research and Blog Writing Workshop 1 (Part 1) Outline  Introduction: the urban world  Introduction to the module  Key issue: urban public space  Blog writing workshop 1 The Urban World  2008: first 50/50 year for urban/rural population  Since 2008, the balance has been positive for urbanisation, negative for ruralisation  2010: 70-80% of EU and NA’s population is urban  2050: 70% of the world’s population will be urban  …but statistics on urbanization are notoriously uncertain (see Brenner and Schmid (2014) for a critique of notions of the ‘Urban Age’) Uneven geographies of urbanisation  2015: 800m people live in informal settlements in Asia, Latin America and Africa  By 2030, the number of informal settlement dwellers is expected to decrease or flatline in Latin America and Asia, but to increase from 200 to 250 million in sub-Saharan Africa (World Bank 2015)  61.7% of sub-Saharan African population lived in informal settlements in 2013 (UN-Habitat 2013)  Even in relatively wealthy developing countries, informality is an important reality: in South Africa, 20% of households live in informal settlements (Statistics South Africa 2013)

Urban growth by hour, selected cities (Urban Age, 2008) But it is not all about megacities… ‘Megacities are notable for their size and concentration of economic activity, but are home to only about one in eight of the world’s urban dwellers. In 1990 there were 10 cities with more than 10 million inhabitants (figure 8), and these so-called “megacities” were home to 153 million people, representing less than 7 per cent of the global urban population. Today, the number of megacities has nearly tripled to 28, the population they contain has grown to 453 million, and these agglomerations now account for 12 per cent of the world’s urban dwellers’ (UN 2014: 13).

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Cities: mirrors of society ‘Contemporary cities are marked by the power of the market over the polis and the temple, private affluence (of a minority) alongside public squalor and the valuing of individual rights above civic obligations. It will be interesting to note the changing balance of this urban equation in the future. The city will remain centre-stage in this evolving, contested social order’ (Short 2006: 14). - This comes out of society through mass cultural-ness as cities where one lives. Cities: in a time of crisis?  Many of the world’s current ‘crises’ are deeply urban:  Hyper-urbanization (esp. in the Global South)  Inequalities and discontent (e.g. Occupy movement)  Climate change  Peak Oil  Security, biosecurity, terrorism  Are cities centre stage in the post-1990s ‘Age of Crisis’ (Caprotti 2015)? Change and Transition  How to think about cities in a time of rapid urbanization and crisis?  What should the city of the future look like? How should it be governed? How to improve on today’s inequalities?  Is it enough to send in the army and squash protestors? Is this a solution to long-term sustainable approaches?  Some places are facing de-urbanisation giving rise to the urban prairie (knocking down buildings so that cities begin to look rural) Assessment  50% coursework, 50% exam  Coursework: 1,500 word blog (more about this during the workshop later in this lecture, but also see the guides on the module page on ELE)  SEEN EXAM: answer 2 questions in 120 minutes (2 hours)  For full details, see ELE, where you will find: o The module handbook o A list of readings for each week o Other information relevant to the module, including a Story Map tutorial and FAQs The main aim for the coursework is to use theory with empirical examples – for example - a blog on public space and protest Structure of the module Part 1: Theorising the urban future Setting the scene Part 2: Emergent urban issues Key themes and topics when considering the urban future Part III: Wrapping up: putting urban futures into context Linking specific themes and topics to broader urban and societal debates, concerns, theories and politics Part 1 - Research-informed teaching:  Barnett C (2017) The Priority of Injustice: Locating Democracy in Critical Theory. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Part 2 – Research-informed teaching:  Federico Caprotti’s Smart Eco-Cities research project, funded by UK, Dutch, French, German and Chinese research agencies  Background image: the research team at a smart city control room demonstration centre, Ningbo, China  Project website: http://www.smart-eco-cities.org

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Part 3 – Research-informed teaching:  Federico Caprotti’s Urban Energy Transformations research project (funded by UK and South African research agencies)  Background image: Enkanini informal settlement, near Stellenbosch, South Africa  See the project website: http://www.urbanenergytransformations.co.za Key issue: Urban Public Space  Public space o How are spaces interrupted through the processes below?  Inclusion / exclusion / interdiction Public Space  What is public space? (my interpretation) o Free to all e.g. green spaces, shops, restaurants o Responsible for your own actions o An aspect of self-reform in these spaces  Key questions for urban futures o What do you think public space is? Or what should it be? o Should / can public space be regulated? And by whom? o What inequalities does the regulation of public space lead to? o What interests are represented, and which ones are silenced, in urban public space? o Does the way urban public space is treated / regulated / controlled represent a metaphor for the way society works more broadly?  Key implications for urban futures o The way urban public space is organized is central to the functioning of the cities of the future o Increasingly, the role of technology and the private sector are shaping the experience of urban public space o It is key to critically examine challenges to urban public space o …and in order to do so, an appropriate theorization of urban public space is important  The city reveals a sense of group national-ness or a group conscious established in public spaces Urban public space under attack?  In your own time, see the video here by the Open Society Foundations  ‘Space marked by free interaction and the absence of coercion by powerful institutions…it tolerates the risks of disorder…as central to its functioning’ (Mitchell 1995: 115). o There is a risk of disorder in public space o If this can be tolerated, then the space is free Tensions in public space today 1: ‘democratic’ public space or ‘recreational’ space?  ‘Open space for recreation and entertainment, subject to usage by an appropriate public that is allowed in. Public space thus constituted a controlled and orderly retreat where a properly behaved public might experience the spectacle of the city’ (Mitchell 1995: 114). o The tension between democratic / free for all public space or recreational / controlled spaces o E.g. shopping malls  ‘Users of this space must be made to feel comfortable, and they should not be driven away by unsightly homeless people or unsolicited political activity’ (Mitchell 1995: 114) Tensions in public space today 2: ‘democratic’ public space or spaces of exclusion?  Public space is produced by planners, politicians, laws, media, the public etc. o All these interactions produce space in particular ways, but simultaneously they can create a sense of exclusion  It can be subject to restricting practices: it then becomes exclusionary space  E.g. Toon’s (2000) analysis of CCTV and the manner in which it affects public urban space; or Chiu’s (2009) critique of skateboarding in NYC 2019 protests in HK: public space?

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Look at the following recent article on the 2019 Hong Kong protests: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/1diisEsIvY/hong-kong-protests o Good example of a story map How is urban public space represented in the article? How are issues of democracy, inclusion and exclusion represented? The article format is very similar to the Story Maps format we will use for the module’s first piece of assessment. What works, and what doesn’t, in this article? What could you learn from the way this article is organised and written?

Exclusionary practices exist at the micro scale, and highly visible: e.g. CCTV, ‘no skating’ signs, private security firms… Or they can be produced from systemic networks at the macro scale:  Networks of knowledge and power vested in institutions  Public spaces are produced by urban planners and architects for specific clients and audiences  So, power is exerted in the city’s public spaces through institutions (e.g. city planning, the political system) and nodal points (e.g. police stations, jails, asylums) (Foucault 1975). Tensions in urban public space today 3: spaces of interdiction? ‘It seems that in the present urban context, places invariably become nicer for some because others who might (or did) share those places are subordinated or worse. In Los Angeles, this has come to mean tactically engineering spaces from whence the bulk of the city’s populations can be kept out of mind or, at the very least, well in line. The proliferation of interdictory space in LA is thus demonstrably a matter of those with the resources to control space excluding not crime, but the insecurity attendant upon unpredictable and potentially unsettling social encounters with difference’ (Flusty 2001: 663-4). Minimising ‘difference’ in public space: a recipe for insecurity? ‘Big cities, [Jacobs] says, are full of strangers. Citizens and strangers alike must enjoy security on city streets. This security, she insists, will never come just from a vigilant police force. It requires an intricate social system, which automatically achieves this effect. You get it from "public actors," from habitual street watchers, such as storekeepers, doormen and interested neighbors, and from more or less constant use at different hours, which is possible only if there is a rich mixture of activities in buildings of varying age and character.’ Lloyd Rodwin (1997) on The Death and Life of Great American Cities in the New York Times Review of Books To sum things up…  Public space is a contested concept, open to ideological interpretation  How public space is conceptualised leads to the construction of material, lived spaces  In Lefebvre’s (1975) words: o Spaces of representation (lived space) o Representations of space (controlled, ordered)  Public spaces are central to the functioning of democratic societies and politics  If we understand urban public space as relational and performed by socio-spatial practices…  …then we can start to investigate the strategies and measures of control and of the exertion of power that occur in urban public spaces….  Some of the practices are physical and highly visible (e.g. architectural measures); some are networked and less visible but no less intrusive (e.g. CCTV); some are invisible and unspoken but affectively felt (e.g. ‘eyes on the street’, social conformism, etc.)  …leading straight back to the question: what/who is urban public space for? Blog writing workshop schedule  Workshop 1: the scope of the blog, and Story Map tutorial o The blog is a way for you to write reflectively on a topic or theme covered by one of the lectures in this module o There is no set question, and no set topic – but it must be on an issue, case study, urban theory, or representation: you are free to write the blog as you wish – as long as it is reflective o It is also a chance for you to draw in non-academic material into your discussion

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Your blog will use the Story Map platform: you can be as creative as you wish with audiovisual material o A well-crafted blog takes time, background reading and research, planning and editing Workshop 2 (week 4): planning the blog Workshop 3 (week 8): crafting the blog, and preparing for submission o

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From the Module Handbook: Topics: there is a wide range of topics that can be used for a blog post for this type of assessment. Must originate from some idea mentioned in the module – there is no set question… Must take a bloggers approach – different to the style of an essay Potential topics could range from posts focused on: issues (such as international urban policy agendas with a Global South or urban health focus, or experimental urbanism through building eco-cities or smart cities, and more); critical discussion of specific cases (such as selecting a building, an urban development project, or an urban event such as a protest or natural disaster) and their significance; elements of urban theory ; or a discussion of representations of the urban future (from films, to viral video, to other forms of representations); or a mixture of the above. Please bear in mind that while we expect you to focus primarily on issues, cases, urban theory or representations, this does not mean that you cannot use elements from all of these categories in your blog. For example, a blog post on a specific urban issue may draw on one of more case studies to illustrate that issue. Key Questions  What is a blog post? How is it different from an essay? o Broad audience rather than purely academic  What kind of writing style would you want to adopt in a blog post? o Write in a style that is accessible o Understandable to all people reading the blog o Not too wordy  How much time will you give yourself to see other blogs, and other Story Maps, on urban topics – for inspiration and ideas?  How many references would you want to include to non-academic literature? o No set number  How many references would you want to include to other blogs on similar topics, written by researchers, think tanks, NGOs, international organisations? ArcGIS Story Maps  Story Maps is an online technology that lets you combine maps, texts, images and multimedia to develop a narrative or a story  You have the ability to integrate most forms of textual and audiovisual material you may want to use  Example: https://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2017/oral-histories/index.html Gallery of other ‘cascade’ examples: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/en/gallery/#s=0&md=storymapsapps:cascade Some research blog examples (not in Story Map layout)  Prof. Clive Barnett’s Pop Theory blog: https://poptheory.org  Dr. Robert Cowley’s research blog (current Exeter project coordinator): https://robertcowley.wordpress.com  See the UGEC Viewpoints urban research blog here: https://ugecviewpoints.wordpress.com  …and see Federico Caprotti’s blogs on UGEC Viewpoints here and here. Additional reading cited in this lecture and not in the reading list  Bergamaschi M, Castrignanò M and de Rubertis P (2014) The homeless and public space: urban policy and exclusion in Bologna Papers in Political Economy 51 Online: http://journals.openedition.org/interventionseconomiques/2441  Caprotti F (2015) Eco-Cities and the Transition to Low Carbon Economies London, Palgrave Macmillan.

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Caprotti F (2014) Critical research on eco-cities? A walk through the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City, China, Cities 36: 10-17. Flusty S (2001) The banality of interdiction: surveillance, control and the displacement of diversity, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 25(3): 658-664 Foucault M (1975) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison New York, Random House Lefebvre H (1991) The Production of Space Oxford, Basil Blackwell (Introduction and chapter 1). Statistics South Africa (2016) GHS Series Volume II: housing from a human settlement perspective. Press release, 20 April 2016. Pretoria, Statistics South Africa. UN-HABITAT (2013) State of the World’s Cities Report. New York, UN. UN (2014) World Urbanization Prospects: Highlights. New York: UN. Available here. World Bank (2015) Stocktaking of the Housing Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa: Summary Report. Washington, DC: IBRD / World Bank.

Lecture 2: Doing things with urban theory (Part 1) Understanding Metrophilia  Leverhulme Trust o The Urbanization of Responsibility  British Academy/Newton Fund o Genealogies of South African Urban Studies  University of Exeter o It all comes together in… Cranbrook? Barnett, C. (2012). Changing Cities. In Butcher, M., Clark, N., Smith, J., and Tyszczuk, R. (eds). Atlas: Geography, Architecture and Change in an Interdependent World. London, UK: Black Dog Publishing, pp. 72-79. Barnett, C. (2014). What do cities have to do with democracy? International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 38(1), 1625-1643. Rodgers, S., Barnett, C., and Cochrane, A. (2014). Media practices and urban politics: conceptualizing the powers of the media-urban nexus. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32(6), 1054-1070. Barnett, C. and Bridge, G. (2017). The situations of urban inquiry: thinking problematically about the city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 40:6, 1186-1204. See: https://poptheory.org/research/urban-things/ Changing Cities 1. Cities are Changing - Urban Age, Future Cities, etc. 2. How to Change Cities? - Challenges and Opportunities Potential ideas for my story map? Where does urban theory come from? What is urban theory anyway?  Different ways that the urban has been thought as  Geography, Urban Sociology, Planning Studies, Regional Science, Anthropology, Political Science o All these ideas revolve around classical urban theory  Architecture, Design, Humanities  Engineering, Data Science, Medical Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Demography  ‘New Urban Science’ Geographies of Urban Thought  Cases and examples – allowing for an elaboration of urban thought through cities  Certain cities are the sources of people’s ideas  Chicago, Paris, Los Angeles

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o Chicago School of Sociologists – using new modern social forms that appear to belong to the city o 19th Century Paris and Los Angeles School – these cities became the image of the future Vancouver (housing in Vancouver), Baltimore, Atlanta (serves as a place for a model of urban politics), Columbus OH Generalisation of urban ideas – integral to debates about urban theory Universality & Particularity – contemporary debates o Ordinary Cities (Jenny Robinson) o ‘Planetary Urbanization’ (Neil Brenner et al) o ‘Geographies of Theory’ (Ananya Roy) o ‘Southern Urbanisms’ (AbdouMaliq Simone, Sophie Oldfield, Sue Parnell, Edgar Pieterse) o Comparative Urbanism (Robinson, Garth Myers)

Thinking Processually  “What is a city?” OR ‘What do cities do?’  Form/Process o Urban Process o Urban Practices  ‘What is the urban?... Urban Theory / Urban Process 1. Explanatory Theories a. Explaining Urbanization b. Causal Powers 2. Understanding Urban Processes a. Social Life b. Public Life 3. Theories of Change a. Urban Politics b. Governance and Planning

1. Cities as causes of problems/ sources of solutions 2. Figures of Community/Sociality/Publicness

3. Cities as Agents of Change

Aspects of Urban Life 1. Thinking causally 2. Understanding cities 3. Cities as political agents Thinking Causally 1 – the first set of urban thought  Urbanization and Agglomeration Economies o Agglomeration – the name for a process and an outcome  Economic Geography/Regional Science o Costs of Production o Trade & Exchange o Location & Interaction o Markets o Firms o Rational Choice/Institutional Economics  cf. Richard Florida  cf. Ed Glaeser  Economies of Agglomeration  Cities/Regions as Agglomerations  “All cities can be understood in terms of a theoretical framework that combines two main processes, namely, the dynamics of agglomeration/polarization, and the unfolding of an associated nexus of locations, land uses and human interactions.” (Allen Scott and Michael Storper, 2014) Thinking Causally 2  Robert Sampson, Great American City

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Neighbourhood Effects o Social Contexts as ...