Closing and disclosing public space in the Latin American city

Este artículo ofrece una mirada sobre las contradicciones que se suscitan entre los propósitos artístico-representacionales (muchas veces idealizados) que guían la renovación de una plaza urbana, y su base política y económica. Echar luz sobre estas contradicciones contribuye a desmitificar y visibilizar el carácter ideológico (y no neutral) del diseño urbano público, tanto en lo que respecta a su estilo artístico como a su propósito político. Asimismo, al identificar los objetivos políticos y económicos del espacio público diseñado, su planificación, construcción o renovación adquieren un nuevo sentido. Un espacio público que es ostensiblemente valorado como lugar para sentarse, leer y reunirse, se convierte en una estrategia de revitalización de un centro en decadencia, en un centro turístico y en un medio para la atracción de nuevas inversiones y de capital extranjero.This analysis provides a glimpse of the contradictions between the artistic and often idealized representational purposes of the urban plaza, and its political and economic base. Bringing these contradictions to light helps to demystify and highlight the ways in which public urban design is deeply ideological (rather than neutral) both in artistic style and political purpose. Further, by identifying the political and economic objectives of designed public space, its planning, design, construction, or refurbishing takes on new meaning. A public space that is valued ostensibly as a place for people to sit, read, and gather, becomes a strategy for revitalizing a declining city center, a tourist center, and a means of attracting new investments and foreign capital

Shoestring Democracy: Gated Condominiums and Market Rate Co-operatives in New York [pre-print]

This article develops the concept of shoestring democracy as a way to characterize the resulting social relations of private governance structures embedded in two types of collective housing schemes found in New York City and the adjoining suburbs: gated condominium communities (gated condominiums) and market-rate cooperative apartment complexes (co-ops). Drawing from ethnographies of gated condominiums and co-ops in New York City and neighboring Nassau County, New York, we compare these two forms of collective home ownership regarding the impact of private governance structures on residents and their sense of representation and participation in ongoing community life. “Shoestring democracy” encompasses a broad range of behaviors utilized to insulate residents from local conflicts and disagreements, and limits rather than promotes political participation. The greatest differences between the co-ops and gated condominiums were found in discussions of safety and security, in that condominium residents have developed an elaborate discourse of the fear of crime and others, especially racialized others, to explain why they moved to their secured communities. Co-op interviewees, on the other hand, generally felt a sense of safety in their buildings, often due to the gatekeeper effect of the co-op board and doormen. In gated communities, covenants, contracts, and deed restrictions (CC&Rs) guarantee that most problems are resolved before they start. While the same can be said for co-ops, interviewees find that these rules and regulations seem to mystify everyday governing practices for the average co-op resident. Moral minimalism and a lack of structural and procedural knowledge may insulate residents from local conflicts and disagreement, but also may discourage civic participation. Exploring the apathy residents expressed about participation and a lack of representation suggests that although the Rochdale principles of cooperation that are the legal and social basis for co-ops may have been important at one time, current practices of private governing boards do more to restrict participatory democratic practices than encourage them. The policy implications are outlined with suggestions of how to make homeowners associations and co-op boards more accountable and encourage greater adherence to the original co-op mandate

The Public Playground Paradox: "Child’s Joy" or Heterotopia of Fear?

Literature depicts children of the Global North withdrawing from public space to“acceptable islands”. Driven by fears both of and for children, the publicplayground – one such island – provides clear-cut distinctions between childhoodand adulthood. Extending this argument, this paper takes the original approach oftheoretically framing the playground as a heterotopia of deviance, examining –for the first time – three Greek public playground sites in relation to adjacentpublic space. Drawing on an ethnographic study in Athens, findings show fear tounderpin surveillance, control and playground boundary porosity. Normativeclassification as “children’s space” discourages adult engagement. However, in anovel and significant finding, a paradoxical phenomenon sees the playground’spresence simultaneously legitimizing playful behaviour in adjacent public spacefor children and adults. Extended playground play creates alternate orderings andnegotiates norms and hierarchies, suggesting significant wider potential toreconceptualise playground-urban design for an intergenerational public realm

Schools and skills of critical thinking for urban design

© 2017, © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This paper explores possible ways in which urban design can engage with critical thinking and critical theory. After a brief explanation of the terms, with particular attention to the Frankfurt School of thought, it provides various answers to the question as to whether urban design is critical or not. One categorization applied to planning critical theory is then used to explain the potential for employing critical theories in urban design. Critical thinking skills are then argued to be helpful for enriching the literature of urban design in order to achieve better practice. The conclusion is that urban design can benefit from critical creativity, which is an embodiment of critical thinking within the limits imposed onto creativity. In this paper, the ways in which urban design can engage with both critical theory and with critical thinking are explored in order to achieve better critical creativity in the field

Towards a theory of urban fragmentation: A cross-cultural analysis of fear, privatization, and the state

This paper employs a cross-cultural analysis to explore regional and national variations in residential gating and enclosure as a first step in developing an integrated theory of urban fragmentation. Utilizing data from the urban and suburban United States, Latin America and China, a series of dimensions are compared: 1) domestic architecture, 2) urban/suburban settlement pattern, 3) the role of the state, 4) governance, 5) citizenship, 6) cultural meaning, 7) identity, 8) provision of goods and services, 9) taxation, 10) degree of privatization, 11) cultural pattern of social sanction, and 12) fear of crime and others. This comparative analysis locates culturally meaningful and theoretically significant distinctions among the regions and provides data for the development of explanatory models in which each region varies along a dimensional continuum. At the macro-level of analysis, the impact of globalization and flexible accumulation with increased local heterogeneity, increases in inequality and changes in perceived crime rate emerge as the major underlying factors in the fear of crime and others found in all three regions. At a micro-level, differences in cultural meanings are explained by local social and political contexts, while provision of goods and services and governance depend on club realm economic explanations

Towards a theory of urban fragmentation: A cross-cultural analysis of fear, privatization, and the state

This paper employs a cross-cultural analysis to explore regional and national variations in residential gating and enclosure as a first step in developing an integrated theory of urban fragmentation. Utilizing data from the urban and suburban United States, Latin America and China, a series of dimensions are compared: 1) domestic architecture, 2) urban/suburban settlement pattern, 3) the role of the state, 4) governance, 5) citizenship, 6) cultural meaning, 7) identity, 8) provision of goods and services, 9) taxation, 10) degree of privatization, 11) cultural pattern of social sanction, and 12) fear of crime and others. This comparative analysis locates culturally meaningful and theoretically significant distinctions among the regions and provides data for the development of explanatory models in which each region varies along a dimensional continuum. At the macro-level of analysis, the impact of globalization and flexible accumulation with increased local heterogeneity, increases in inequality and changes in perceived crime rate emerge as the major underlying factors in the fear of crime and others found in all three regions. At a micro-level, differences in cultural meanings are explained by local social and political contexts, while provision of goods and services and governance depend on club realm economic explanations

Construire l'exclusion à travers les communautés fermées

Building exclusion through gated communities In the past twenty years, the need to make neighbourhoods safer has become one of the major urban phenomena in both North and South America. Protection against the new dangerous classes, too colour-skinned or too poor, is the obsession of their inhabitants. Far from reducing their fear of theft or aggression, life in these neighbourhoods seems rather to keep it alive on a daily basis, particularly when they have to go outside the protected confines.En une vingtaine d'années, la constitution de quartiers sécurisés s'est imposé comme un des phénomènes urbains majeurs en Amérique du Nord comme du Sud. Se protéger contre les nouvelles classes dangereuses, trop colorées ou trop pauvres, est la hantise de leurs habitants. Loin d'atténuer leur peur du vol ou de l'agression, la vie dans ces quartiers semble au contraire l'entretenir au quotidien, notamment lorsqu'il s'agit de sortir hors de l'enceinte protégée.Low Setha M. Construire l'exclusion à travers les communautés fermées. In: Les Annales de la recherche urbaine, N°93, 2003. Les infortunes de l’espace. pp. 149-157