Hobson’s choice? Constraints on accessing spaces of creative production

Successful creative production is often documented to occur in urban areas that are more likely to be diverse, a source of human capital and the site of dense interactions. These accounts chart how, historically, creative industries have clustered in areas where space was once cheap in the city centre fringe and inner city areas, often leading to the development of a creative milieu, and thereby stimulating further creative production. Historical accounts of the development of creative areas demonstrate the crucial role of accessible low-cost business premises. This article reports on the findings of a case study that investigated the location decisions of firms in selected creative industry sectors in Greater Manchester. The study found that, while creative activity remains highly concentrated in the city centre, creative space there is being squeezed and some creative production is decentralizing in order to access cheaper premises. The article argues that the location choices of creative industry firms are being constrained by the extensive city centre regeneration, with the most vulnerable firms, notably the smallest and youngest, facing a Hobson’s choice of being able to access low-cost premises only in the periphery. This disrupts the delicate balance needed to sustain production and begs the broader question as to how the creative economy fits into the existing urban fabric, alongside the competing demands placed on space within a transforming industrial conurbation

Moving beyond Marcuse: gentrification, displacement and the violence of un-homing

Displacement has become one of the most prominent themes in contemporary geographical debates, used to describe processes of dispossession and forced eviction at a diverse range of scales. Given its frequent deployment in studies describing the consequences of gentrification, this paper seeks to better define and conceptualise displacement as a process of un-homing, noting that while gentrification can prompt processes of eviction, expulsion and exclusion operating at different scales and speeds, it always ruptures the connection between people and place. On this basis – and recognising displacement as a form of violence – this paper concludes that the diverse scales and temporalities of displacement need to be better elucidated so that their negative emotional, psychosocial and material impacts can be more fully documented, and resisted

Postmetropolis : die Stadt als Sphinx

Seit den ausgehenden 1980er Jahren sieht sich die Stadtforschung mit einem Trendbruch in der Raumentwicklung konfrontiert. Die Modelle, die die Agglomeralionslogiken der industriellen Stadt noch präzise fassten, können die neuen Konturen postindustrieller Urbanisierung nicht mehr durchgreifend erklären. Die Postmetropolis erscheint uns als Sphinx, weil sie Widersprüchliches in sich vereint. Mittels des Konzepts der Ökonomie der Zeichen und einer empirischen Fallstudie in München wird gezeigt, dass der Aufschwung postindustrieller Räume auf der gestiegenen Relevanz eines neuen Standortfaktors basiert: den Ansprüchen der Wissensökonomie an die Qualität von Standorten als Denkräumen

Ungleichheit, Intersektionalität und Alter(n) – für eine räumliche Methodologie in der Ungleichheitsforschung

This article explores the interplay of inequality, space and age(ing) from an intersectional perspective. It argues, that a spatial research methodology is most fruitful in order to include age(ing) in debates on intersectionality and inequality. Drawing on geographical gerontology and inequality research, we scrutinize the research gap at the intersection of these fields: While age is a neglected factor in intersectional debates on inequality, questions of power are hardly addressed by geographical gerontology. To bridge this research gap, we propose space as methodological perspective. By showing how the negotiation of age(ing) varies in different spatial settings, the article emphasises the value of spatial approaches to analyse the two faces of age(ing) – age as a marker of difference and ageing as a process. On a larger scale, the article points to the potential of a spatial methodology to approach the complexity of intersectionality.</p

The housing careers of younger adults and intergenerational support in Germany’s ‘society of renters’

Through narrative interviews with younger adults and their parents, this paper explores how the housing transitions of younger adults, both within the rental sector and into homeownership, are shaped through intergenerational intra-family support in Germany’s society of renters. Our findings highlight the profound qualitative differences between regular transfers for establishing and retaining residential independence in the rental sector and inter vivos gifts for house purchase. Where the former support type is given and taken unconditionally, transfers for house purchase follow a different logic and carry different meanings. Being a necessary condition for property acquisition at young age, they have the power to completely rebalance family relations and undermine younger adults’ autonomy accordingly. In an aggregate perspective, our study further suggests increasing socio-spatial inequalities within the younger generation which run along both class and spatial origin, sharply dividing the housing market opportunities of ‘original Berliners’ and those who have moved to the city from more affluent regions in Germany