Monthly Archive for July, 2011

Open Source Urbanism

Published on July 28, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

An op-ed from Saskia Sassen at Domus, image taken from The Pop-Up City…

The author proposes that urbanizing technology can can allow people to better “talk back” to cities and implement user-driven change

Where change is perceptible, rapid change makes change itself even more visible. Velocity becomes a concrete condition, not just a measure of speed. Rapid change in cities has highly legible moments—the material reality of buildings, transport systems, re-placements of modest shops with luxury shops and of modes middle-classes with the rich professional class, a bike-path where there was none—and they can be both good and not so good. Further, when rapid transformation happens simultaneously in several cities with at least some comparable conditions, it also makes visible how diverse the spatial outcomes can be even when the underlying dynamics might be quite similar.

All of this brings to the fore the differing degrees of openness of cities. I prefer thinking of this as the incompleteness of cities, which means that they can constantly be remade, for better or for worse. It is this incompleteness that has allowed some of the world’s great old cities to outlast kingdoms, empires, nation-states and powerful firms. More…

Detroit Pushes Back With Young Muscles

Published on July 5, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From Jennifer Conlin,

The rooftop party was in full swing when midnight approached on a warm Friday evening. Kerry Doman, 29, founder of an event planning business; Justin Jacobs, 28, head of a citywide recreational sports league, and Ara Howrani, 29, a photographer who runs a commercial studio, knocked back beers, while a group of office friends from a nearby dot-com chatted about the scratch-and-sniff wallpaper in their colorful new headquarters.

In another circle, a group of real estate brokers excitedly discussed the renovation of a 1920s office tower called the Broderick into a 127-unit apartment building with a restaurant, lounge and retail stores.

“I want the penthouse,” Jeffrey Hillman, 37, said jokingly as he pointed to the building’s ornate Baroque-style top in the distance. “I’ll fight you for it,” retorted Hank Winchester, 37, a local TV reporter.

The scene might have been run of the mill in Seattle or Williamsburg, Brooklyn, or other urban enclaves that draw the young, the entrepreneurial and the hip. But this was downtown Detroit, far better known in recent years for crime, blight and economic decline.

Recent census figures show that Detroit’s overall population shrank by 25 percent in the last 10 years. But another figure tells a different and more intriguing story: During the same time period, downtown Detroit experienced a 59 percent increase in the number of college-educated residents under the age of 35, nearly 30 percent more than two-thirds of the nation’s 51 largest cities.

To Read More…

Spaces and Flows Journal recently published

Published on July 4, 2011 in Journal and Newsletter. 0 Comments

spaces_front

Recently published papers in Spaces and Flows: An International Journal of Urban and ExtraUrban Studies include:

The Transformation of Neighbourhood in the Context of Modern Urban Development in Europe by Mara Liepa-Zemesa.
Reading the 2010 World Cup: Fictions of Development in and around the Cape Town Stadium by Fraser Hawkins.
The Transformation of Society’s Perception of Urban Value: In Eastern Europe in the Period after the Breakdown of the Soviet Union by Dainis Zemess.
Metropolitan Bodies: On the Banlieusard and the Production of Space by Theresa Erin Enright.
Living on the Edge: Portsmouth’s Urban Metamorphosis through the Effect of Edges by Andrea Verenini.
The Availability of Higher Education Services to Students with Disabilities in Large City Urbanized Areas by Arthur J. Borgemenke, Martina Hinojosa, Chuck Holt, Rick Lumadue, Sam Roberson and Rusty Waller.
“The Forgotten: Transnational Migrants and Deportees of the 1920s and 1930s” by Ashley Zampogna.
The Potential Social Impact of the 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide on the Cities of Campbelltown and Mount Barker, South Australia by Jharana Bhattarai Aryal.