Humanist Cities and Post-Feminist Urban Social Geographies: Public Spaces and Plural Cultural Urbanism of Just Renewal

Abstract

This conceptual and exploratory research paper brings multiple yet interconnected ideas about the contemporary discussions on the form and content our cities should take, especially on the public spaces as the critical spatial and social nodes. One is the idea of plural urbanisms where by incorporating the City's plural elements — 'those many elements imagined for more than a single design or by a single designer, which is more powerful and wide-ranging, more influential and beneficial, even as it becomes more democratic, participatory, open-ended, and infinite.' This is coupled with cultural Urbanism, which promotes and celebrates the everyday, temporal, occasional, and timeless. From a methodological point of view, the article is based on the multilayered desk research method. Secondary analysis of relevant documents allowed us to examine previous research findings on the issue at hand and the successful way to reduce it through sampling a coding of relevant material. The approach is a qualitative one, focused on a light motive case study. Last not but not least, the paper draws attention and leitmotif focus to the feminist approach in looking at cities, especially places undergoing new (urban) renewal that was preceded by decades of physical and social decay, such as Detroit in the US. Such an approach works towards ethnographies of belonging and increases diversity in city renewal, where we improve our fundamentally heterogeneous, intersectional, and constantly evolving urban environments for the better. Using a critical approach without conclusive arguments, this exploratory paper analyzes the aforementioned positions further and explores its application to various urban phenomena; as a focus on a policy-oriented paper, it ends with some crucial policy recommendations regarding feminist urban planning.