Comparative Urban Research Research Articles

Between the “Structural” and the “Everyday”: Bridging Macro and Micro Perspectives in Comparative Urban Research

The discussion around placing cities within a larger network of cities and the criteria by which they are assessed has recently gained new momentum. Consideration of Southern, disadvantaged, or “peripheral” geographies previously neglected in comparative approaches are now being considered and have opened up new perspectives on the wider urban context. This thematic issue, thereby, explores the practical challenges of how comparative urbanism across a broadening range of dissimilar places across the globe is handled. The collection of empirical studies presented will lay out the challenges and insights gained into applying comparative methodologies to the real-world context, thereby contributing to the advancement of empirical tools for complex and multi-scalar research environments.

Taking critical junctures seriously: theory and method for causal analysis of rapid institutional change

ABSTRACT Social, political, and economic change sometimes occurs during relatively brief periods in which previously relatively stable institutions are transformed and new approaches established. Historical institutionalists refer to these as critical junctures. Processes of incremental revision and evolution are also important, but if critical junctures sometimes produce enduring legacies, then these processes of rapid institutional change are an important topic for research and theory development. Planning history offers many examples of such relatively short periods of significant change that produced lasting and distinct outcomes in different jurisdictions. The study of critical junctures has been a major theme of comparative historical analysis and historical institutionalism for three decades. This has contributed to the development of robust conceptual frameworks detailing the structure and mechanisms of such change processes and associated research methods that are valuable for planning history and comparative urban research. This paper reviews this research, develops a conceptual framework relevant to planning history and urban governance, and points to processes of rapid institutional change characteristic of cities, suggesting that planning and urban institutions are particularly prone to critical junctures because of multi-level governance contexts, urban complexity, the impacts of urban disasters, and the challenges presented by urbanization and technological and social change.

A more global urban studies, besides empirical variation

An expanded set of sites, a more differentiated set of references and linguistic diversification have been discussed as needed changes in urban studies. The critiques of the limitations of urban studies, in terms of both the scholarship and the scholars, offer important and concrete responses to expanding the scope of the field. Yet this tremendous special issue on ‘Comparative Methods for Global Urban Studies’ with 10 papers cutting across a range of sites and topics is decidedly not only about empirical variation; this is an important distinction worth drawing more attention to. The creativity expressed in these papers comes at an auspicious time in urban studies where new routes for doing urban theory are needed to move past debates about singular versus plural epistemologies of the urban. As a kind of research that demands more translation, exchange and collaboration, perhaps comparative urban research as a mode of theory-building can help to humble the chest-pounding, posturing, privilege of thinking and speaking the language of theory. The theoretical ambitions of these very different papers show how urban theory need not only be about better understanding urbanisation within the epistemological confines of late capitalism. Rather than reifying a shared grammar of urbanisation as a necessity to understand each other, they may entice scholars everywhere to develop a broader vocabulary and perhaps even learn another language.

The Hungarian Atlas of Historic Towns

This article surveys the work carried out in the past two decades on the Hungarian Atlas of Historic Towns in a Central European context. With its more than 550 atlases published in nineteen European countries in the last fifty years, the European Atlas of Historic Towns is one of the most comprehensive collaborative projects in the field of humanities. The countries of East Central Europe could join the project only after the fall of the Iron Curtain, and Hungary published its first atlas as late as 2010. In four subsequent project phases, the Hungarian atlas team has been working on nineteen atlases of eighteen towns, out of which eight have been published so far. The editors follow the standards set by the International Commission for the History of Towns and have adopted best practices represented by the Austrian, Polish and Irish atlas series. In addition to describing the source basis and the main methodological concerns, the article highlights examples of comparative urban research for which the atlases offer an unparalleled potential. The article also advocates a more extensive use of this exceptional resource.

Socialist worldmaking: The political economy of urban comparison in the Global Cold War

This article revisits comparative urban studies produced during the Cold War in the framework of ‘socialist worldmaking’, or multiple, evolving and sometimes antagonistic practices of cooperation between socialist countries in Eastern Europe and decolonising countries in Africa and Asia. Much like the recent ‘new comparative urbanism’, these studies extended the candidates, terms and positionalities of comparison beyond the Global North. This article focuses on operative concepts employed by Soviet, Eastern European, African and Asian scholars and professionals in economic and spatial planning across diverse locations, and shows how they were produced by means of ‘adaptive’ and ‘appropriative’ comparison. While adaptive comparison was instrumental in the application of Soviet concepts in countries embarking on the socialist development path, appropriative comparison juxtaposed concepts from various contexts – whether the ‘West’ or the ‘East’ – in order to select those best suitable for the means and needs on the ground. This article argues that this conceptual production was conditioned by the political economy of socialist worldmaking and shows how these experiences are useful for a more critical advancement of comparative urban research today.

Relational Multiscalar Analysis: A Comparative Approach to Migrants within City-Making Processes

ABSTRACT To contribute to the growing literature on comparative urban research, this article speaks to the theoretical and methodological challenges that underlie recent calls for comparative relational approaches to city-making. The relational comparative analysis we develop highlights the multiscalar transformations of relations of power across time and space, which reconstitute urban life within changing historical conjunctures. The article offers a working vocabulary for a relational comparative approach, together with methodological illustrations drawn from our research on three seemingly very different disempowered cities located in Germany, the United States, and Turkey. This methodology includes identification of comparative parameters. These parameters enabled exploration of the similar and different dynamics and paradoxes of interrelated key processes in the three cities. Such comparative dimensions might prove useful in future work on disempowered cities. Our multiscalar approach enabled us to explore the ways in which migrants and non-migrants can be understood as actors reconstituting the city within the conjunctural transformations brought about by neoliberal urban regeneration.

Do COVID-19 Policies Affect Mobility Behaviour? Evidence from 75 Canadian and American Cities.

We construct a new measure of the aggressiveness of COVID-19 policies in 75 Canadian and American cities and estimate the effect of these policies on mobility patterns in each city. Using a new dataset of five municipal COVID-19 policy indicators for each of our 75 cities, combined with 11 provincial/state policy indicators, we estimate a daily measure of the “aggressiveness” of the provincial/state and municipal COVID-19 policy mix in each city. We then estimate the effects of these policies on subsequent mobility behaviour using dynamic time series models. We find strong evidence of policy effects on subsequent mobility behaviour, but few overall differences between Canadian and American cities. We discuss the significance of our findings both for COVID-19 policy research and for other comparative urban policy research in multilevel policy environments.

Doing comparative case study research in urban and regional studies: what can be learnt from practice?

ABSTRACT Recent years have seen a vivid debate on the epistemological foundations of comparative urban research. Remarkably, comparative case study research practice has remained unaffected by these wider debates and empirical research processes often stay a ‘black box’. Thus, we identify an unmet need for a critical and transparent reflection of conceptual foundations and empirical processes. Based on a review of EU-funded projects in the field of territorial cohesion, we discuss minimum standards of comparative case study research. These standards encompass the theoretical framework of the study, the objective of comparison, questions regarding the ambition to generalize, the case study selection strategy, and potential trade-offs. We conclude that researchers should be more explicit in their way of carrying out comparative research. Eventually, this transparency supports both a fruitful debate on comparative case study designs and the soundness of academic and policy conclusions.

Climate riskscapes in world port cities: situating urban‐cosmopolitan risk communities via Ulrich Beck's comparative tactics

AbstractBuilding on empirical research into translocal connections among world port cities in addressing shared challenges of climate risk mitigation and adaptation, in this article I review two widespread tendencies in urban studies – methodological city‐ism and methodological globalism respectively – as a springboard for articulating a methodologically cosmopolitan alternative. This alternative, I argue, involves epistemological issues of how to interrogate ‘the urban’ as assemblages that constitutively draw together the near and the faraway, as well as more practical issues of mobile, multisited, and comparative urban research methods. Empirically, I compare the ways in which urban actors stage global climate risks on the waterfronts of four world cities – Hong Kong, Rotterdam, Yokohama and Copenhagen – to argue that such a comparative tactic of variable ‘riskscapes’ helps situate Ulrich Beck's notion of urban cosmopolitan risk communities more thoroughly into urban studies. In such ways, I suggest, Beck's methodological cosmopolitanism is germane to studying ongoing and far ranging transformation in world political geography, in which transurban networks, communities, and governance arrangements come to complement nation‐state centred institutions. Such conclusions must be tempered, however, by the deployment of Beck's equally strong impetus towards comparative attention to the varieties of second modernity; and doing so, I conclude, aligns well with ongoing transformations in urban studies itself.

Doing mobile ethnography: Grounded, situated and comparative

This paper explores and discusses the experimental, critical and self-reflective use of differing methods in urban studies. In the context of frequent calls to investigate urban processes in a planetary and comparative perspective, the empirical groundedness of research is among the particularly complex challenges urban scholars are confronted with. The key question is: how can qualitative-empirical methods, such as ethnography or qualitative mapping, be adapted to explore contemporary urban conditions? This paper seeks to contribute to current debates by introducing a specific methodological design of a mobile ethnography that enables an analysis of large and heterogeneous urban territories, in three main ways: first, by offering a theoretically informed and empirically grounded transductive research design; second, by proposing a complementary set of cartographic, historiographic and comparative methods of which mobile ethnography is a part; and third, by suggesting post- and decolonial methodological perspectives, both conceptually by engaging with Latin American urbanisms, as well as empirically by furthering collaborative ways of knowledge production. To conclude, the paper stresses the need to continually develop new inventive methods for comparative urban research, for two main reasons: (1) to enable scholars to question established geographical representations and parochial imaginaries of urban space, and (2) to problematise methodological and theoretical dogmas with situated knowledge. By suggesting different representations of the urban, the paper thus emphasises how important it is to transductively entangle empirical and theoretical conceptualisations to further decentre and pluralize urban knowledge production.

Mega Cities or Slumdog Cities?

The aim of this article is to contribute to the recent debate on the role and terminology of urban research in a time of ongoing global transformations. With the declaration of a (new) urban age, the evolution toward an almost global urban society, and the confrontation with dramatic urban transformations and developments, calls for a more cosmopolitan, planetary, and/or multipolar urban theory have become increasingly pronounced. New approaches have evolved that question whether concepts such as the global or neoliberal city are remnants of an old urban debate no longer suitable for conceptualizing cities. Have the “old” concepts of a global or mega city become obsolete? How can the critique be channeled into improving research on cities? This article tries to give some answers to these questions by structuring the debate into three arguments concerning the significance of a Southern perspective on urban studies, the difficulties of provincializing urban theory, and the implications for developing a new epistemology of the urban. It then offers insights into the need for and complexity of (doing) comparative urban research by applying a process-based view on space, place, and uneven development in order to deal with the aforementioned challenges.

Generative urbanization in Africa? A sociotechnical systems view of Tanzania’s urban transition

ABSTRACTAfrica’s recent growth successes are raising hopes that its cities can generate the positive externalities needed to sustain long-term development. This paper examines the prospects for such a transformation in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. A sociotechnical systems framework is elaborated: one which conceptualizes urbanization pathways as determined by the practices, modes of governance, couplings, and multiscalar relations that constitute production, consumption, and infrastructure regimes in cities. The framework is deployed to assess whether Dar es Salaam’s industries, markets, public services, and built environments are generating distributive development outcomes. The analysis shows that the city is experiencing socioeconomically and spatially uneven development driven by processes of extraversion, intraversion, and splintering. Urban regimes are thus serving a more “parasitic” role by channeling capital offshore, bringing imports onshore, and creating highly uneven distributions of basic services. The paper highlights points of intervention and the value of the conceptual approach for comparative urban research.

Seeing Political Settlements through the City: A Framework for Comparative Analysis of Urban Transformation

ABSTRACTThis article presents a new analytical framework for studying cities in the developing world based on the ‘political settlements’ approach. This has a dual purpose: to enrich comparative urban research by bringing new theoretical ideas to bear on this field, but also to use capital cities as a lens to better understand national political settlements. The central argument is that urban built environments and their transformations in situations of late development reflect the workings of different varieties of clientelism, and by analysing the former we can better understand the latter. Specifically, issues such as the nature of urban land use and land allocation, the pace and form of construction, the effectiveness of environmental regulation and the provision of housing for different income groups are all revealing of political settlements and their broader development implications. The potential of this approach is explored through three narrative ‘sketches’ of contemporary urban development in Eastern Africa: the ‘city as marketplace’ (Kampala), the ‘city as expo’ (Kigali) and the ‘city as construction site’ (Addis Ababa). In presenting this framework, the article seeks to advance debate on epistemological and analytical approaches to the study of both power relations and differential patterns of urban development.

Comparing Rural and Urban Cervical and Breast Cancer Screening Rates in a Privately Insured Population

ABSTRACTLow preventive screening varies by region and contributes to poor outcomes for breast and cervical cancer. Previous comparative urban and rural research on preventive screening has focused on government programs. This study quantified and compared rural and urban preventive cancer screening rates for women who were privately insured. National Quality Forum measures were used to calculate rates for women within rural and urban parts of the same Hospital Referral Region (HRR) using claims data. Mammography screening rates for women age 24 to 69 years were 77.1% in 2011 and 76.1% in 2008. Compared to urban women, mammography screening rates for women visiting rural physicians were lower in 42%, higher in 2% and identical in 56% of HRRs. Cervical cancer screening rates for women age 21 to 64 years were 82.9% in 2011 and 83.5% in 2008. Cervical cancer screening rates among women who saw rural physicians were lower in 55%, higher in 4%, and identical in 42% of HRRs. HRRs where rural areas underperformed urban areas increased between 2008 and 2011 for both screenings. Moderate but notable differences in women’s preventive screening rates between rural and urban physicians highlight the need for practical solutions that increase use of screening services and reduce barriers to services in rural areas.

The shrinking city awakens: perceptions and strategies on the way to revitalisation?

The shrinking city phenomenon is a multidimensional process, comprising cities, parts of cities or metropolitan areas that have experienced dramatic decline in their economic and social base. Shrinking cities can be defined as 'urban areas that have experienced population loss, economic downturn, employment decline and social problems as symptoms of a structural crisis' (Martinez-Fernandez et al., 2012, 213). Urban decline and the loss of employment opportunities are closely linked in a downwards spiral, leading to an out-migration of population (Pallagst, 2008).The existing body of literature on shrinking cities has shown that the loss of urban population is not entirely a new phenomenon (ARL, 1995; Gob, 1977; Hausermann and Siebel, 1987; Oswalt, 2004). What is new, however, is the extent to which shrinkage occurs on a global scale, and the complexity of its causes (Pallagst et al., 2013). Meanwhile, shrinking cities have become a worldwide, multidimensional phenomenon appearing in many post-industrialised societies., For many years this phenomenon has been widely under-represented in international comparative urban and regional research, thus from the year 2005 on, 'shrinking cities' were labelled an emerging topic in spatial planning. This special issue extends the debate by adding a typology of phases of shrinkage, which are based on the authors' observations of policy responses in shrinking cities. These phases are labelled expansive strategy; maintenance strategy; and planning for decline, as outlined in more detail in the paper by Pallagst et al in this thematic issue. The articles reflect on these different phases by showcasing responses at municipal level to the challenges of shrinkage.While the industrialisation era of the nineteenth century was characterised by urban growth, many of these cities started to shrink in the following century. According to Oswalt and Rieniets (2006, 6), since 1950 more than 350 large cities worldwide have lost a significant proportion of their population. Furthermore, shrinkage often reinforces itself, labelled as a 'downward spiral' or 'vicious circle', where characteristic features are out-migration, rising unemployment, a decrease of purchasing power and shortfall in public revenues. The decline of population and jobs is accentuated by reductions in economic investment and public infrastructure (Fritsche et al., 2007). The complexity of factors enhances the need to embed policies that address shrinkage into local planning instruments and regulations (Cunningham-Sabot et al., 2013; Martinez-Fernandez et al., 2016).Moreover, the notion of shrinkage is sometimes considered as 'conceptually incoherent' as there is still no consensus among scholars, planners, politicians or the public about what shrinkage actually is and how shrinkage should be addressed (Hollander et al., 2009; Olsen, 2013; Bernt, 2015). Hollander et al. (2009, 232) argue that 'if there were more, better, and especially cross-national research on shrinkage, the on-the-ground truth might turn out to be more complex and interesting', expanding beyond the common growth paradigm in planning.Applying the 'right' strategies when it comes to the future development of a shrinking city seems to be crucial. However, there is little clarity on these strategies' effectiveness. Hollander et al. (2009, 232) claim that 'shaving the edges off Youngstown, or Detroit or Dresden, will no longer suffice'. According to Martinez et al. (2016), policy responses need to consider both the global forces behind shrinkage and the particular characteristics of the local context.This thematic issue addresses a wide range of approaches to these questions, and produces evidence from both quantitative and qualitative empirical research. Are shrinking cities still perceived as a taboo in some countries? Can shrinking cities, in a context of limited financial resources, be considered as opportunities with multiple modes of expression such as an improved environmental quality, or as testing grounds for new innovative economic prospects, or new modes of governance? …

Accountability and ecological sustainability challenges under NPM-based public sector-led urban development: four international comparative cases

ABSTRACTThis paper compares four different public sector-led urban development institutional arrangements within New Public Management (NPM)’s framework. The cases come from three European countries – Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands – and the Australian state of Victoria. These four jurisdictions, though distant, share much in terms of urban development processes and actors’ responsibilities within these processes, as well as legislation concerning urban development. In the comparison, emphasis is placed on addressing public accountability and ecological sustainability. Ecological sustainability is important to the public sector and urban development has a significant role in achieving more ecologically sustainable built environments. It was found out that steering the development projects is relevant to sustainability issues. Accountability needs to be addressed when forming single-purpose organizational arrangements, but the paper concludes that the examined organizations have no flaws in accountability. In examining these cases, it is assumed that all four operate in governance environments dictated by NPM’s methods, and their success is thus evaluated in that framework. There is little evidence so far of international comparative urban development research combining values and results achieved; or comparing cases from different jurisdictions.

Michael Peter Smith and L. Owen Kirkpatrick (eds.) 2015: Reinventing Detroit: The Politics of Possibility. Comparative Urban and Community Research Series, Volume 11. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers

Michael Peter Smith and L. Owen Kirkpatrick (eds.) 2015: <i>Reinventing Detroit: The Politics of Possibility</i>. Comparative Urban and Community Research Series, Volume 11. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers

Neither Here Nor There

Over the last four decades, comparative urbanism has flourished, triggered by a desire to identify, compare, contrast, or juxtapose parallel phenomena that happen in multiple sociospatial contexts and likely influence one another. Starting in the 1970s, a number of scholars began touting the need for comparative urban research that opens the eyes to broader urban phenomena that can be compared across municipal boundaries and national borders. Underlying comparative approaches carry the notion that urban imaginaries are “sites of encounters with other cities” mediated through travel, migration and the circulation of images, goods, and ideas. In more recent years, a transnational perspective has gained favor in urban studies, arising in response to criticism that comparative urbanism suffers from a static perception of the urban. Transnational approaches focus on interdependencies, movements, and flows across borders in regions and subregions, the goal being to understand urban settings and experiences, as composed by multiple regional, ethnic or institutional identities and forces. In other words, transnational urban studies wish to take down arbitrary divisions between entities so that both their interconnections as well as collisions become more apparent. There are three interrelated ways that urban humanities go beyond conventional comparative urban studies and contribute to our understanding of the urban. In this essay, the matter is fleshed out through a comparative study of Los Angeles and Mexico City.

Ciudades en un mundo de ciudades: el gesto comparativo

Las ciudades existen en un mundo de ciudades y estoregularmente invita a un gesto comparativo en la teorizaciónurbana. Sin embargo, desde hace algunas décadas los estudios urbanos han dividido analíticamente el mundo de las ciudades, por ejemplo, en ricas y pobres, capitalistas y socialistas, o en diferentes grupos regionales de ciudades, con poca investigación comparativa entre estas divisiones. El interés en realizar comparaciones entre diferentes ciudades se ha incrementado en la era de la “globalización”, en el ámbito de las actividades económicas y sociales, así como en las estructuras de gobierno que vinculan las ciudades con los flujos espacialmente extensivos de varios tipos y las redes intensas de comunicación. Sin embargo, los estudiosos de los temas urbanos han sido relativamente reacios a practicar el potencial de la investigación comparativa internacional, que se sitúa en el corazón de este campo. Cuando el interés en la globalización ha impulsado a los autores a explicitar ejercicios comparativos, tanto los recursos metodológicos como el prevaleciente paisaje intelectual y teórico han tendido a limitar e incluso a socavar estas iniciativas. Este artículo pretende, en primer lugar, entender por qué, en un campo intrínsecamente comparativo y con una urgente necesidad contemporánea de pensar mediante diferentes experiencias urbanas, ha habido poca investigación comparativa, especialmente las comparaciones que se extienden en la división norte-sur global o en contextos entre ciudades ricas y pobres. En segundo lugar, por medio de una revisión de las estrategias existentes para la comparación de ciudades, el artículo considera el potencial de las metodologías comparativas para superar sus limitaciones y para satisfacer las crecientes demandas de los estudios urbanos internacionales, y propiamente los estudios urbanos poscoloniales. Finalmente, se propone una nueva fase de investigación urbana comparativa, que es experimental, pero con bases rigurosamente teóricas.

A Comprehensive View on Urban Spatial Structure: Urban Density Patterns of German City Regions

Urban density must be considered a key concept in the description of a city’s urban spatial structure. Countless studies have provided evidence of a close relationship between built density and activity densities, on the one hand, and urban environmental conditions or social practices, on the other hand. However, despite the concept’s common use in urban research, urban density is a rather fuzzy and highly complex concept that is accompanied by a confusing variety of indicators and measurement approaches. To date, an internationally-accepted standard for the implementation of density indicators that permits a robust comparison of different countries, regions or cities is widely missing. This paper discusses the analytical opportunities that recent remote sensing data offer in regard to an objective and transparent measurement of built density patterns of city regions. It furthermore clarifies the interrelations between built and activity densities. We apply our approach to four German city regions to demonstrate the analytical capacity of spatially-refined density indicators for the purposes of comparative urban research at a regional scale. In so doing, we contribute to a more encompassing and robust understanding of the urban density concept when analyzing regional morphology.