key readings

Question 1

louis worth urbanism as a way of life

Answer 1

• size, density, heterogeneity
• urban as social, spatial, cultural and institutional
• weakening of traditional bonds
• substituting ties and decline of neighbourhood/kinship
• proximity without familiarity

Question 2

hans gerbert the community

Answer 2

• tight knit communities still exist in urban settings especially among ethnic groups
• urban villagers eg italian americans in boston maintain dense social ties and mutual aid
• demonstrates adapting and resisting urban change like displacement and redevelopment

Question 3

helen traill community as a practice

Answer 3

• community is something we do requiring emotional labour and negotiation
• tensions between idealised notions of community and messy reality
• uses urban growing projects like community gardens as example of inclusion, resistance and hope for community practices

Question 4

carolyn thompson atlantic yards

Answer 4

• example of how meaning of community is mobilised by different actors strategically for different means
• competing definitions from activists, residents and developers etc. either support or resist the project
• shows how community is contested and shaped by power struggled, identity, belonging and justice in urban politics

Question 5

don mitchell public space

Answer 5

• increasing regulation and privatisation undermines democratic engagement and inclusivity of public spaces
• analysing the transformation of public space into controlled environments under neoliberal urba politics
• stresses the need to preserve public spaces for dissent and marginalised groups

Question 6

elijah anderson cosmopolitan canopy

Answer 6

• urban spaces like markets and parks are where diverse groups interact civilly
• places of diversity and difference are exceptions in cities marked by racial and social divisions
• offers a model for everyday multicultural and coexistence, challenging negative portrayals of urban diversity

Question 7

lorena munoz recovering public space and race

Answer 7

• afro colombian street vendors in bogotá reclaiming public spaces amidst racial discrimination and economic marginalisation
• asserting identities and rights through everyday practices in contested urban spaces
• demonstrates importance of space as a tool of resistance and identity making

Question 8

ash amin ethnicity and the multicultural city

Answer 8

• critiques notion that multiculturalism naturally leads to social cohesion
• challenges liberal assumptions about top down multiculturalism and looks oval examples of ethnic difference
• emphasise need for institutional support and everyday interaction to foster genuine intercultural understanding

Question 9

les beck and shamser sinha multicultural conviviality in the midst of racisms ruins

Answer 9

• explores how individuals navigate and create convivial multicultural relations despite systemic racism and inequality
• highlights resilience and creativity in everyday multicultural interactions
• offers a counter narrative towards racial pessimism in our an contexts, highlights hope and solidarity j embracing social difference

Question 10

emma jackson valuing the bowling alley

Answer 10

• looks social value of a london bowling alley as a spade of everyday multiculture
• discusses how such spaces are threatened by urban redevelopment and gentrification
• emphasises the need to preserve mundane, shared spaces under threat

Question 11

teresa caldeira fortified enclaves

Answer 11

• analyses the rise of gated communities as a response to perceived urban insecurity (fear of violence)
• sao paolo brazil example where fear is used as a justification for development, shaping built environments and reinforces inequality
• fortified enclaves exacerbate social and spatial segregation and undermines public life under the pretence of safety

Question 12

david garbin gareth millington territorial stigma and politics of resistance in a paris banlieu

Answer 12

• studies how residents in paris combat negative stereotypes associated with their neighbourhood
• high,ignts how forms of resistance and identity reclamation in stigmatised urban areas
• adds nuance by focusing on agency in discussions of marginalisation and spatial justice

Question 13

rowland atkinson london necrotecutre

Answer 13

• critiques the luxury developments in london which remain uninhabited
• discusses social and economic implications of housing as investment rather than shelter
• sparking debate on global capital and the ethics of housing investment

Question 14

marc fried grieving for a lost home

Answer 14

• explores the emotional and psychological impact of displacement due to urban renewal in boston’s west end
• victims of displacement experience profound grief and loss of community ties which has a deep emotional toll
• revolutionary for humanising urban planning, influencing layer critiques of top down redevelopment projects

Question 15

loretta lees hannah white social cleansing of london council estates

Answer 15

• examines how estate regents projects in london lead to the displacement of low income working class residents
• argues that these processes lead to accumulative dispossession and social cleansing
• strengthens arguments against gentrification by making visible lived experiences of displacement in neoliberal urban policy

Question 16

jeff garmany matthew richmond hygienisation, gentrification and urban displacement in brazil

Answer 16

• discusses how urban policies in brazil displace marginalised communities under the guise of hygiene and clean up policies
  connects public health discourse to spatial injustice, relevant to global south urbanism and respectability discourse
• connecting to broader processes of gentrification and social exclusion showing that state projects drive displacement, not natural processes

Question 17

susan leigh star ethnography of infrastructure

Answer 17

• advocates for studying infrastructure as a key component of social life
• infrastructural violence is when design or maintenance excludes particular groups highlighting how infrastructure shapes everyday experiences and social relations despite often being invisible
• shifting how we think about power, invisibility and everyday urban life

Question 18

romit chowdhury masculinities in transport infrastructure

Answer 18

• analyses how transport infrastructures in kolkata are gendered spaces, exploring how make rickshaw driver reinforce masculine identities through their work
• shows how social reality is reinforced through systems of infrastructure; adding an intersectional lens

Question 19

deborah cowen infrastructures of empire

Answer 19

• investigates how infrastructure was a tool of settler colonialism and imperial control
• calls for methodologies to study the political dimensions of urban infrastructures
• decolonisjng infrastructure research and linking urban geography and urban studies to broader political histories
• looking at racialised labour, profits from slavery etc

Question 20

ananya roy urban informality

Answer 20

• argues that informality is a mode of urbanisation shaped by state power not just survival strategy
• highlights the prevalence of informality in cities, it is not just a peripheral phenomenon but central to urban development
• transforming traditional understandings of informal settlements and planning g
• challenges the simplistic view of informal settlements as illegal or chaotic, they are produced by both formal laws and informal arrangements

Question 21

melanie lombard constructing ordinary places

Answer 21

• studying the place making practices in informal settlements in mexico and how residents create meaningful places through everyday practices
• emphasises agency of residents in shaping their environments despite limited resources, encompassing material constructions and symbolic constructions
• goes against deficit models of informality, focusing in bottom up urbanism and how people shape cities beyond or all planning

Question 22

mariana schiller mike raco postcolonial narratives and governance of informal housing in london (beds in sheds)

Answer 22

• studying informal housing practices in london to challenge the idea that informality is only a problem in the global south (disrupts north/south divide)
• informal housing in london is regulated through racialised, post colonial logics
• critiquing london’s moralising discourse around informality which is often racialised and aimed at migrant populations (disorderly and dangerous)
• blaming marmarginalized groups for overcrowding and degradation of neighbourhoods reproduces racial stereotypes and ignored structural causes of informality
• governing informality through blame and racialised fear reflects colonial legacies
• distracts from real urban crisis and structural failure eg housing shortages and affordability

Question 23

erik swyngedouw maria kaika the environment of the city/ urbanisation of nature

Answer 23

• discusses how urbanisation processes transform and commodify nature
• argues that urbanisation is a socio natural process
• argues how environmental issues are deeply intertwined with urban politics economies
• integrates environmental policies into urban studies

Question 24

javier auyero deborah swistun social production of Toxic Uncertainty

Answer 24

• investigating how residents in a polluted Argentine shantytown perceive and cope with environmental risks
• highlights uncertainty and misinformation in environmental injustice, there is widespread confusion about the source and effects of pollution
• shows that environmental injustice is maintained by misinformation, not just exposure

Question 25

malini ranganathan caste, radicalisation and making environmental unfreedoms in urban india

Answer 25

- exploring how caste and racial dynamics shape environmental injustices in Indian cities - argues for need to consider social hierarchies in environmental policies and activism - calling for intersectional approaches to urban environmentalism and expanding the scope of environmental injustice

Question 26

walter nicholls urban question revisited

Answer 26

- reassessing the role of cities in social movements, emphasising cities as strategic places for collective action and political change - urban spaces provide unique opportunities and are not just backdrops but active engines for mobilisation - challenges early sociology views arguing the state/workplace are not the only proper places for politics - urban spaces foster political bench because of density, diversity and spatial proximity. they are spaces of encounter - relational view of urban space offered

Question 27

saskia sassen the global street

Answer 27

- distinguishing formal political spaces like parliament or council chambers need informal spaces like streets and plazas where dissent is enacted - disempowered groups can reclaim political voices and visibility in the global street - it is a trans local concept, the global street as a form exists across global cities - argues that urban public spaces are for collective political agency - the potential of street level politics can help us understand why states try to limit this potential

Question 28

fabiola consejero michael janoschka transforming democracy through social movements

Answer 28

- case study of municipalism where cities become front lines for democratising governance - shows how urban social movements can transition from protests to policy making eg agora madrid coalition - empirical evidence of grassroots movements shaping formal institutions and challenging elite dominated urban planning - empowering local communities and emphasising the municipal scale over national governments to improve inclusivity, participation and transparency in decision making