Processes of Socio-spatial Differentiation in Post-communist Prague

This paper analyses processes which transform the socio-spatial pattern of post-communist Prague and describes major changes in the city's social geography. It begins with a brief introduction about the socio-spatial pattern of a socialist city and a discussion of methods and concepts of investigation of processes of socio-spatial change in contemporary Prague. Growing income inequalities and transformations in the housing system are examined as the main underlying causes of growing socio-spatial disparities. In the section concerning the mechanism of socio-spatial differentiation, attention is focused on the role of social mobility, migration, housing renovation and new housing construction. The conclusions summarise major changes in the social geography of post-communist Prague and discuss implications of central and local government policies for the growth in socio-spatial disparities.     

Public engagement under authoritarian entrepreneurialism: the Belgrade Waterfront project

ABSTRACT

Urban megaprojects as a spatial manifestation of neoliberalism are in transitional societies considered a tool for extra-profit for private developers and a source of great corruption among the high-level public authorities. Consequently, such a relationship has negative effects on socio-spatial reality. The paper illustrates how a large-scale unitary project – the Belgrade Waterfront project – jeopardizes the public participation through: the misuse of legal procedures and spatial planning instruments, neglect of private property rights, and simulation of public debate. The conditions enabling democratic social, political and professional environment as a backbone for citizen involvement in public issues are briefly indicated in conclusion.     

Spatiality of street vendors and sociospatial disputes over public space: The case of Valparaíso,Chile

In recent years street vending or street trading has become a focal point of political agendas throughout cities of the Global South. The literature of street vending tends to develop within two fields of analysis: 1- socio-spatial regulation, 2- socio-spatial appropriation. This research is centred on socio spatial appropriation analysis of street vendors in the city of Valparaíso, Chile, revealing social and spatial disputes over the use of public space.Through a quantitative and qualitative analysis, we present an in-depth view of social and spatial conflict identified by street vendors themselves, revealing how socio-spatial appropriation by street vendors is an expression of the social and spatial dispute over the use of public space. This study makes an original contribution by associating spatial conflicts of street vending with the socio-spatial appropriation of public space.Results show the need to include the socio-spatial logic and dynamics of street vending in the design and management of public spaces in cities faced with this growing phenomenon.     

Design strategy and informal transformations in urban housing

Dweller-initiated transformations are mostly chided for their apparent locational spontaneity that is often at variance with functional and aesthetic objectives in formal housing design. This presumes speculator-driven motives as sole reasons for the phenomenon, and yet others, including the social and physical functional objectives also underlie the processes. The paper uses empirical findings from Nairobi housing estates—Buru-Buru; a middle-income estate and Kaloleni; a Council rental estate—to illustrate physical qualities in informal transformations of formal housing. Using measurements and illustrative material, the results show a (sub)-conscious rationale that generates tenements while also retaining the desired socio-spatial qualities of the middle-income neighbourhood. It is posited that a design strategy that is responsive to the varied objectives of economy, social and physical spatial demands of housing should inform concepts in housing design. This is aimed at enhancing environmental qualities of formal housing that emerge when faced with unilateral transformations.     

Interior Design Dilemmas in a Shared Room of Silence

Abstract

This text sheds light on the delicate practice of including different religious as well as nonreligious expressions in a shared room. The effects of design decisions in a “room of silence” at a Swedish hospital are studied over a transitional period of renovation of the space. We observe the impact of materiality in the room’s establishment, renovation, and usage, and show how the room’s interior design, its decor and objects, are conditioned by ritual acts as well by practical and spontaneous place-making processes. By following how the negotiations of the interior space relate to presupposed separations of aesthetic and religious ideals, we see how the design of a room of silence can allow several religious groups to comfortably use one common room; but also how design can cause clashes between different interests and how materiality is forced in the end to advice a clear spatial distinction between different types of usage in the room.     

Between normative product-oriented and alternative process-oriented urban planning praxis: how can these jointly impact on the rapid development of metropolitan Maputo,Mozambique?

ABSTRACT

This paper explores recent urban planning praxis in the metropolitan area of Maputo, capital of Mozambique – occurring in a context of high socio-spatial imbalance and rapid expansion. This involves different agents besides government institutions, at different stages. Based on relevant critical literature, the authors identify both a normative praxis, usually regulatory and product-oriented, and an alternative one, usually process-oriented, in urban development. In Maputo, the former is predominantly that which is regarded as ‘official’ and is linked to land titling, whereas the latter is closer to what actually happens ‘on the ground’ and often involves ‘unofficial’ land allocation. In reality both forms of praxis interact in complex ways. The paper draws on recent research and aims to better understand how these forms of urban planning praxis can both be developed to better address existing socio-spatial imbalances in a context of rapid urbanization – and hence has wider relevance for Sub-Saharan Africa.     

Korean apartment complexes and social relationships of the residents

Abstract

Korean apartment housing, where more than half of the population lives, has drawn attention with its spatial, historical, and cultural uniqueness. Among many questions on Korean apartments, this article explains how the socio-spatial characteristics of apartment housing have impacts on the social relationships among the residents. This article first analyses the historical, socio-cultural, and spatial characteristics of Korean apartments, and then synthesizes up-to-date empirical study results to examine how the diverse characteristics can be associated with the residents’ social relations. The empirical evidence clarifies the effects of Korean apartments’ characteristics on residents’ social relations—the exclusive complex design, spatial configurations, shared spaces including community facilities, heights of the units, public/private housing types, social homogeneity, and community programs are all associated with social relations of the residents. Key methodological problems in current studies as well as implications for future apartment planning are highlighted.     

Socio-spatial stocks and antistocks; the logistic map in real space

In this paper, the behavior of the simple logistic map, May (1976), in the real space (R) is analyzed. Interest in the global behavior of the map, and in particular when the environmental parameter and the state variable obtain negative values, is warranted because actual, relative and negative stock sizes have particular meaning in socio-spatial dynamics. It is shown that a continuous as well as a non-symmetric correspondence of behavior exists, from the positive to the negative domain inR.The authors wish to acknowledge helpful comments from two anonymous reviewers, while they retain full responsibility for any remaining errors.     

The Problem and Politics of Temporary Housing

There has been wide acknowledgement of the relationship between inadequate housing and poor health; however, temporary housing has largely escaped attention. This paper takes a socio-spatial perspective of camping ground residence, reflecting on competing narratives of the meaning of these places. The temporary nature of this housing leaves residents vulnerable to eviction and inadequate housing standards, and particularly at-risk of further homelessness. Legislation, regulation and public discourse undermine camping ground residence as a legitimate housing option. This paper examines camping grounds as sites of politics of place, where many camping ground residents live in a politically and socially unsecured space. The conception of camping grounds as housing is a complex and contested issue, regardless of any economic and social functions that camping grounds fulfil. This research is an example of the consequences of social exclusion in housing, and findings reinforce the need to take into account socio-spatial structuring of housing within policy settings.     

Domesticating Buddha: Making a Place for Japanese Buddhist Altars (Butsudan) in Western Homes

Abstract

This paper explores how white, Western followers of Japanese Buddhist schools (primarily Sōka Gakkai) practice Buddhism through acts of purchasing, decorating, and positioning altars (butsudan) in the space of their homes. Drawing on a pilot ethnographic study of altar practice, I detail the oft-overlooked dimension of becoming and being Buddhist that is material consumption. Western consumption of Buddhist popular culture is often critiqued as aesthetically driven and Orientalist. However, aesthetics, “Japanese-ness,” and ease of use are often not the only or primary concerns when crafting an altar. Rather, altar-making can be a continuous process involving significant deliberation, DIY, and compromise. By directing attention to the domestic religious sphere and the concrete artifacts via which Buddhism has crossed oceans, I show how making a place in the home for butsudan is tied up in the process of making Buddhism “at home.”     

Managing change: Seattle’s 21st century urban renaissance

ABSTRACT

Evolution of the urban planning and historic preservation disciplines has resulted in an “uneasy alliance” in practice, one further complicated by the back-to-the-city movement and increased development pressure in older urban neighbourhoods. In Seattle, as in other U.S. cities, the pace, intensity and scale of redevelopment has caused dramatic spatial and social transformations. Although research has shown that older built fabric provides economic and social benefit for cities, neither regulations created by planners for guiding redevelopment nor strategies created by preservationists for retaining urban heritage have been successful in reconciling these different, yet interconnected, sets of values. We engage three Seattle neighbourhood case studies to clarify and evaluate policies, programs and strategies used by planners and preservationists for reimagining neighbourhood transformations. This work suggests a need for more creative, integrative collaboration between the two fields to simultaneously engage – and reconcile – social and economic tensions caused by urban redevelopment.     

Mapping neighbourhood outdoor activities: space,time, gender and age

This paper investigates spatial, temporal, age and gender patterns of outdoor social activities in urban neighbourhoods and their correlation with properties of urban form. Informed by theories and mapping techniques in urban sociology, urban design and behavioural research, the paper develops a methodology for mapping outdoor social activities and applies it to four case studies in London and Berlin. Findings demonstrate how different types of activities are spatially distributed, reflecting socio-spatial characteristics of the given neighbourhood. The paper elaborates the contribution of the research to ongoing debates such as gendered space and age-friendly communities and suggests methodological improvements for future research.     

A Broader Context for Land Use and Travel Behavior,and a Research Agenda

Problem: Planning studies of land use and travel behavior focus on regression analysis of travel as a function of traveler demographics and land use near study subjects’ residences. Methodological debates have tended to focus almost exclusively on the possibility that persons choose their residence based on how they wish to travel. This longer view steps back from the confines of the regression-based literature to explain the historical roots, methods, and results of the literature, and to assess how the land use–travel literature must be transformed to be more relevant to planning.

Purpose: There are many summaries and meta-analyses of the impact of land use on travel. The goal here is not to understand how we might better specify a regression or summarize the results of past studies, but rather to explain how a literature that has become fundamental to planning scholarship is failing to be sufficiently planning focused. At the same time, this longer view describes how the literature can be transformed to address the planning challenges of today and tomorrow.

Methods: This longer view summarizes over 100 articles, covering transportation methods from the dawn of the interstate highway era to topics that include program evaluation, land development, and cognitive aspects of travel behavior. The primary focus is on the land use and travel literature, but the review and analysis is broad ranging and places the literature and its challenges within the broader context of recent developments in the social sciences, planning, policy, and electronic data collection.

Results and conclusions: This longer view elucidates three research frontiers that will be necessary to move the land use–travel literature forward. First, behavioral models of land use and travel must expand to consider how land is developed, how places are planned, and how cities are built. Second, the land use–travel literature should build a robust retrospective program evaluation tradition, which is currently almost completely absent in a scholarly field dominated by cross-sectional hypothesis tests and forecasting models. Third, economic social welfare analysis must be carefully researched, including questions of preferences for neighborhood types and whether such preferences are fixed or malleable.

Takeaway for practice: Planning is about city building, and the literature and practice on land use and travel behavior should adapt to better support city building. This requires both a serious commitment to social science research and planning's characteristically broad view of context, problem, and place. In an era of climate change, and amidst debates about sustainability, the land use–travel literature must more aggressively examine the process of plans and place making, evaluate the increasingly innovative transportation policies being implemented at the local level, and develop methods that allow more informed discussion about the costs and benefits of transportation policies.

Research support: None.     

Unimaginable Change

Problem: Planning aspires to intervene and make positive change. However, our ideas about how to create institutional reform need to be revisited because they do not fully account for the changes we have witnessed.

Purpose: This article assesses the state of our knowledge about institutions and of how we construct and change them. It identifies the major deficiencies in new institutionalism in planning theory and searches for ideas about how to influence positive institutional change.

Methods: I analyzed over 90 publications in the planning literature and other social sciences that discussed “institutions,” and identified the varying definitions and underlying epistemologies and philosophies that are at odds with each other. I then examined empirical studies of successful economic development cases in order to critically appraise the efficacy of different theories to account for the observed changes.

Results and conclusions: Disparate new institutionalism theories in the social sciences have been starting to converge by focusing on social cognition. The unimaginable, fundamental changes that have occurred in our lifetimes have not been the result of rational state planning, manipulation by political elites, or activist organizations. A society-wide process of tacit learning from peers and exemplars built new paradigms and practices, ultimately normalizing new realities.

Takeaway for practice: Planning practice that aims toward large institutional changes rather than incremental ones should incorporate the empirical lessons of contemporary history and the latest findings in cognitive science. Knowing more about the social cognition process can help planners to more effectively engage in fundamental change. Furthermore, if it retains its strengths in empirical research and multiscalar, interdisciplinary analysis, planning practice and research can make policy-relevant contributions to our understanding of social cognition change.

Research support: None.     

Barriers and Openings for Transforming Swedish Planning Practice – Examples of Landscape and Health Policy Integration

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how key actors think and act in everyday planning practice when new policies are introduced. Drawing on frame theory, an analytical lens is developed for explaining mechanisms that restrain and promote policy-driven transformation in practice. The analysis focuses on current practice and Swedish planning practitioners’ experience of the integration of recently introduced policies on landscape and health. A key finding is that well-established perceptions of responsibility can hamper policy integration – even in cases where practitioners see benefits to planning outcomes of acting differently. Another key finding is that policies reframing landscape and health as holistic and relational can make individual practitioners question current practice, thereby opening the way for transformation.     

Planning for the Disposal of the Dead

Problem: Concurrent with the dramatic increase in the nation's elderly population expected in coming decades will be a need to dispose of larger numbers of our dead. This issue has religious, cultural, and economic salience, but is not typically considered a planning problem. Although cremation rates are rising, burial is projected to remain the preferred alternative for the majority of the U.S. population, and urban space for cemeteries is limited in many communities.

Purpose: We outline issues related to cemeteries and burial, describe a number of alternatives to traditional cemeteries, and explain how planners might usefully contribute.

Methods: This work is based on a literature review.

Results and conclusions: Alternatives to the cemetery are emerging, but remain limited. Some require changes to laws or public perceptions. Planning practice could be advanced by case studies showing how to integrate burial grounds into existing communities and how to alter public policy to permit alternatives to burial.

Takeaway for practice: As population demographics change, environmental concerns intensify, and demand for urban space grows, future land use decisions will have to balance a diverse set of social, cultural, and environmental expectations, including taking into account burial practices. There are only a handful of alternatives to traditional burial in a cemetery: burial in a multiple-use cemetery; natural burial; entombment in a mausoleum; cremation, with the ashes preserved in a columbarium or scattered elsewhere; and burial in a grave that will be reused in the future. This article provides planners with information about each of these alternatives, examples of how the planning process can address disposal of the dead, suggestions for avoiding environmental externalities, and ideas for better integrating the landscapes of death into community life.

Research support: None     

The logic of design: its role in understanding the antecedents of urban informality

ABSTRACT

The everyday life of a city can generate informality in urban space, particularly in emerging economies. Using the grounded theory approach, this paper looks at how urban space in a market precinct is negotiated through tactics of street vendors and strategies of the government. It draws upon Herbert Simon’s work on decision making to show how a vendor moves from an existing situation to a preferred situation and terms this as situation satisfaction. It suggests a theoretical framework to understand the relation between the logic, decision and action of stakeholders to resolve the conflict between planning criteria and ground reality.     

Assembling an innovative social housing project in Melbourne: mapping the potential for social innovation

Abstract

In Australia, echoing trends in the UK, US and Canada, provision of social housing has transitioned from government-led mechanisms to an increasing focus on partnerships between private developers, government and the not-for-profit sector. In this context, social housing is often achieved via the ‘cobbling together’ of necessary resources over time. This article focuses on an innovative social housing project in the inner west of Melbourne, Australia, that involves the modular construction of 57 transportable dwellings located on government-owned land. I apply a theoretical framework that combines insights from social innovation literature and assemblage to understand the process of assembling a pilot project and to chart how the project may be scaled up or scaled out to challenge the system in which homelessness occurs. The research highlights the role of community housing providers as ‘pivot points’ in the social housing sector and acknowledges the importance of credibility, funding, legislative change and construction innovation in scaling housing social innovations.     

Unpacking and Challenging Habitus: An Approach to Temporary Urbanism as a Socially Engaged Practice

Temporary urbanism is attracting worldwide attention and has been praised for its capacity to transform socio-political and physical spaces, while at the same time it has been criticized for its tacit instrumentality as vehicle for the progressive gentrification of the urban environment. A closer look at temporary urbanism reveals a myriad of practices, initiated by a great variety of actors with diverse ways of operating and taking place in a wide range of environments. Rooted in assemblage theory, we situate our design practice in the specificity of an underused space surrounding social housing blocks in Gateshead, explore manifestations of habitus and the capacity of temporary urbanism to reveal and engage with socio-spatial struggles.