Large Metropolis Research Articles

MIGRATION PROCESSES TO RURAL AREAS IN POLISH METROPOLISES

The research problem addressed in this paper includes the progress of suburbanization in selected Polish metropolises. The following core question was formulated: when did today’s suburbanization processes start, and what are the migration trends and targets of the population living at the dividing line between urban and suburban limits in Polish metropolises. Defined as such, the study field enabled formulating the objective of this research, which is to present the formation of new suburbanization processes in the largest metropolises in Poland. Considering the research problem and the defined objective, the authors analyzed the differences in demographic changes across the territory, and put these findings in the context of suburbanization and its stages. This allowed to determine the dynamics and targets of migration in the metropolises surveyed. Also, the changes were compared between the units covered, providing a basis for further considerations on suburbanization and for concluding whether these processes are cyclical in nature. The analyses relied on descriptive statistics methods and on graphical data presentation methods. The selected metropolises were delimited using QGIS Desktop 2.4.0 and adequate geometry (centroid) and geoprocessing (buffer) tools. This paper relies on source data in the form of shapefile vector layers presenting the boundaries of the administrative units considered (http://www.gugik.gov.pl/pzgik). Source materials included public statistical data and program documents developed at regional and sub-regional level. The study period is 1995-2018. In geographic terms, the study focuses on the selected metropolises of Poznań, Warsaw, Łódź, Wrocław, Krakow, Gdansk and Szczecin.

Liveability Dimensions in New Town Developments: An Overview of Senri New Town and Purbachal New Town

Since the 1960s, new town developments within large metropolises have been widely adopted to decongest the city centres, especially in Asian cities. This paper provides a brief account of the liveability dimensions of two new townships developed in large metropolitan areas: Senri New Town in Osaka and Purbachal New Town in Dhaka. The study primarily draws on master plans of the two developments to identify how the components of the plans reflect the physical, social, functional and safety dimensions of a proposed liveability framework. The methodology combines a review of masters plans with scholarly and grey literature on the two new town developments. The findings show while the social and functional dimensions are integrated with Senri New Town; Purbachal New Town, though more recent, appears to have missed opportunities for diversifying density, social mix and mass transit. The paper concludes that the comparative case, Senri-New Town provides insights on how public-private people participation can leverage citizen-centred design for more liveable residential living environments in developing cities.

The networks of circulation of local policy elites in large metropolises

ABSTRACT The government of large metropolises has become increasingly complex during what many authors have characterized as a transition from government to governance. This paper tackles an unexplored facet of this complexity, namely the circulation of local policy elites within government structures through time in different institutional and political contexts. We analyse the networks created within the state by the circulation of individuals between the top positions of local governmental agencies in three large cities: Sao Paulo, Paris and Milan. The cases demonstrate dense networks in each city connecting policy sectors, administrations and government levels. Contrary to accounts maintaining that governance has reduced government structures, all cities showed constant increases in network size and connectivity, mirroring the expansion and specialization of local bureaucracies. The cases also indicate the resilient salience of the politics of political parties, policy fields and – especially in Paris – different government levels. This suggests that governance involves a reorganization of government functions and increased policy specialization, but this is not done by reducing the role of politics or the state itself. Lastly, in all three cities we find a greater centrality of the same kind of agencies more strongly associated with urban infrastructure and planning.

THE ROLE OF PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS IN THE FORMATION OF ETHNIC AND CIVIL IDENTITY AMONG REPRESENTATIVES OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THE ALTAI REPUBLIC (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE ACTIVITIES OF THE NGO «CCN «TUULU ALTAI»)

In contemporary Russia, in the conditions of polyethnicity and multiculturalism, it becomes necessary to form civil and ethnic identities of its citizens. This problem is becoming one of the main directions of the state social policy of the Russian Federation, as there is an active migration within the country, which causes the relocation of Russian citizens from their native region. This circumstance prompted the authors of the article to turn to this topic. In the article, the authors reveal the importance of preserving the identity of the indigenous peoples of Altai (Altaians, Telengites, Tubalars, Kumandins and Chelkans) in the conditions of a large metropolis. They also present the historical facts of preserving their ethnic identity, emphasizing the importance for these peoples of obtaining a new status for their ancestral territory of residence in the 90s and being allocated to the national republic as part of the Russian Federation. They reveal the role of ethnic public organizations in the preservation and development of the culture, traditions and language of the Altai peoples, using the example of the activities of the NROO "TSKN "Tuulu Altai", as well as the formation of ethnic and civil identity in a multicultural society. The purpose of the article is a historical description (way of life, places of traditional residence, etc.) of the indigenous peoples of the Republic of Altai and a description of the role and activities of the non-profit public organization "Tuulu Altai Cultural Heritage Center "for the formation of ethnic and civil identity among the representatives of the indigenous peoples of the Republic of Armenia. The scientific novelty of the provisions proposed in the article is to identify the features of the formation of ethnic and civil identity of representatives of the indigenous peoples of the Altai Republic living in Novosibirsk. The practical significance lies in the possibility of using the materials of the article in organizing the activities of non-profit public organizations for the formation of ethnic and civic identity among young people.

Urban expansion quantification from remote sensing data for sustainable land-use planning in Mangaluru, India

Urban growth is indispensable in developing countries, particularly in the context of rapid economic development and growing urban population. The idea of managing urban growth is often restricted exclusively to large metropolis; ignoring small and emerging cities from the requirement of having sustainable urban growth strategies. India, experiencing a rapid pace of urban growth is expected to host its future urban population in its small and medium-sized cities. In this context, the dynamics of urban growth in numerous small and medium-sized cities must be studied and urban policies must be reoriented to ensure sustainable urbanisation in future. However, the nonavailability of geospatial data for generating information database and models to support decision making processes on a local scale pose challenges in developing countries. The remote sensing technology offers cost-effective, timely, and efficient technology to collect urban spatial data, to generate urban physical and socioeconomic information using various GIS and statistical models. In this study, the spatial pattern, dynamics and goodness of urban growth in Mangaluru city were studied in the context of its implications for future sustainable development using the techniques of remote sensing, GIS and statistical models. The urban land is delineated from the Landsat series of satellites then, the statistical models were applied to study the trend of urban growth. The built-up land in Mangaluru has increased significantly by more than 400 % during 1972–2018. Further, subtleties of urban growth were studied by extracting land-use expansion modes, UEI Index, UED Index, Pearson's Chi-square and Shannon's entropy. Finally, the goodness of urban growth was measured to identify the sustainability of urban growth. The findings suggest that the urban expansion mode was dominated by leapfrogging and edge expansion at the peri-urban area during initial periods which eventually gave way to infilling and edge-expansion. Also, a rapid expansion in urban land was expected in the southern and south-eastern part of the city. The study confirms the prevalence of the highly unsustainable nature of urban growth in the study area and therefore advocates participatory urban planning in managing and for achieving a sustainable urban growth.

Business-promoted city-regionalism? New Industrial City projects by China Fortune Land Development

ABSTRACT Drawing upon the New Industrial City (NIC) projects by China Fortune Land Development (CFLD), a Shanghai stock-listed top 10 real estate enterprise, this article accounts for the emergence of business-promoted city-regionalism as a novel mechanism for industrial zone development in small cities near large metropolises. Lacking sufficient capital and professional personnel, local governments of these small cities made long-term contracts with CFLD, a private company, to build and develop industrial zones under the brand CFLD NIC. This novel phenomenon demonstrates the state orchestration of business-promoted city-regionalism, namely, a variegated form of state entrepreneurialism prevalent in China.

Epidemiological, ecological and clinico-laboratory characteristics of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in Saint-Petersburg and suburb

The goal is to identify the epidemiological, territorial-epidemiological, environmental, clinical and features of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in order to improve epidemiological surveillance in a large metropolis of the Northwestern Federal District.Materials and methods. An epidemiological analysis of cases of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in St. Petersburg for 2005–2019 was carried out and the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of 135 patients hospitalized in the S.P. Botkin Clinical Infectious Disease Hospital were studied. 70 patients identified combined HFRS diseases associated with other pathogens of viral and bacterial nature. An epidemiological analysis of cases of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in St. Petersburg for 2005–2018 and long-term monitoring of the zoological, epizootological state of small mammals in several districts of St. Petersburg and its suburbs were carried out. The clinical and epidemiological characteristics of 135 patients were studied, of which 70 patients identified combined hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome diseases associated with other pathogens of a viral and bacterial nature. To assess the epizootological situation, trapped rodents were examined for the presence of viral antigen and antibodies using the method of indirect immunofluorescence with the Xantagnost diagnosticum and enzymelinked immunosorbent assay.Results. The long-term dynamics of the incidence rate in St. Petersburg had a fluctuant rising character with two peaks. The proportion of diseases during the first rise was 11,5%, the second – 44,2% of the long-term incidence. Men prevailed in the age groups of 20-49 years without changes in periods. The proportion of women 20–49 years old was 20,7%, increased to 52,8 % in age groups over 50 years old. When distributed by month in a period of high incidence, the seasonal rise began in September with a peak in October. Infection with hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome patients – residents of the city occurred mainly (with 35.5%), in the nearby territories of the Northwestern Federal District with 8.9% - in remote areas and with 5,9% in the countries of near and far abroad. The epidemiological situation in places of temporary residence and infection of people was characterized by an increase in the number of small mammals (redbacked voles) and, in particular, infection from 2,9 to 4,4%. Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome diseases occurred in the form of moderate severity in 94,4% cases. Severe forms were found in only 5,6% of cases. In the structure of combined infection in 25,9–22,3%, there was a combination of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome with gastroenterocolitis and influenza, serologically confirmed. In 17,6% of cases, hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome was combined with other zoonoses (Lyme disease, tick-borne encephalitis, pseudotuberculosis, leptospirosis, tularemia), in 17,6% with of various etiologies. The presence of combinations of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome with other infections complicates the clinical diagnosis.

Exact algorithms for incremental deployment of hydrogen refuelling stations

Given the large investments required to establish hydrogen refuelling stations (HRSs) and the difficulty in forecasting the sales of fuel cell electric vehicles, incremental HRS deployment offers an efficient method of establishing hydrogen infrastructure with a sufficient load factor and low financial risk. Considering that some HRSs are already in use, this study assumed that the optimal location of a new HRS maximises its distance from existing HRSs and minimises its distance from customer demand points. Accordingly, a multi-objective location model and efficient exact solution methods were proposed to determine the optimal location of one or two new HRSs. As a case study, the solution methods were applied to supply hydrogen to an increasing captive fleet of taxis in a large metropolis such as Paris with fixed demand points. The methods can be widely applied to effectively install one or two HRSs incrementally.

Dispersal and Development: Two Key Moments in the Growth of Thane City

This paper attempts to understand the development of Thane, a suburban city of Mumbai, by focusing on two moments, nearly a century apart, that contributed to its identity in formative ways. The first is the introduction of the first railway passenger train service in India between Bombay and Thane in 1853, and the second is the setting up of the first industrial estate in the state of Maharashtra in Thane in 1961. Despite spanning different periods and actors, the two moments share the same theme: dispersal from Bombay, of people in the first case and industries in the second, which resulted in Thane acquiring the status of first a suburb, and then an industrial city. These identities involve a certain degree of functionality in terms of Thane’s relationship with the larger metropolis of Mumbai, but simultaneously also give a distinct character to Thane’s trajectory of development.

Changes in children's lung function over two decades in relation to socioeconomic, parental and household factors in Wuhan, China.

BackgroundIt is important to identify risk and beneficial factors for children’s lung function. This study aims to ascertain potential changes in children’s lung function in relation to changes in socioeconomic, parental and household factors, based on a comparison between two periods spanning 25 years in Wuhan, the largest metropolis in central China.MethodsIn two cross-sectional studies, lung function measurements and questionnaire surveys were conducted on school-age children in 1993–1996 (Period I) and in 2018 (Period II). Children of 6–12 years old from elementary schools were selected by a multistage sampling method. Demographic information, socioeconomic status, feeding methods, parental illness and behavior patterns, as well as household characteristics, were collected through a questionnaire survey. Spirometric lung function was measured, including forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1), forced expiratory flow at 25% and 75% of the pulmonary volume (FEF25–75), and peak expiratory flow (PEF). Wilcoxon analysis of variances was used to assess the differences in lung function indexes between Period I and Period II. Multiple linear regression models were used to estimate the association of lung function with regard to socioeconomic, parental and household factors, respectively.ResultsSignificant prevalence reductions were observed for household coal use, paternal smoking and maternal asthma, while the prevalence increased significantly for children sleeping in their own rooms or own beds and breastfeeding, ventilation use during cooking, and parental education level from Period I to Period II. When adjusted for age, height, weight, sex and other factors assessed in the study, children had significant lower values of FVC, FEV1, and PEF in Period II than in Period I. Enclosed kitchen was significantly associated with lower lung function in children in Period I. Urban living condition and higher maternal education level were each associated with a higher FVC, while father having no fixed income was associated with a lower FVC and a lower FEV1, respectively, in Period II. In comparison with Period I, the beneficial impact of urban living and that of breastfeeding were enhanced and the detrimental effect of poor household condition was weakened in Period II.ConclusionsLung function was lower in 2018 than in 1993–1996 in school-age children living in Wuhan. Although improvements in urban living and household environmental conditions as well as increased breastfeeding in Period II could have contributed to increased lung function, other unmeasured risk factors may have played a more dominant role in leading to a net decrease in lung function from Period I to Period II. Future studies are needed to identify these risk factors.

Implementation of an Integrated Traffic System in Metropolitan Areas: A Case Study of Tehran, Iran

Each natural and human element plays an essential role in the formation the morphological structure of cities, through which transportation systems are the most important factor among human factors. An integrated transportation strategy is a sustainable transportation strategy aiming to reduce inconsistencies and divisions in the transportation service management system. As the largest metropolis in the country and the Middle East, Tehran is facing serious problems with its transportation system. However, sufficient studies have not been conducted to comprehensively identify structural barriers in the urban management system of the Tehran metropolis to implement an integrated transportation management system. The paper aims to identify structural barriers in the urban management system of Tehran and provide an overview of measures that can be taken to implement this approach in this metropolis. The used research method is the survey-analytical method and a questionnaire was employed to collect data. The identified factors have been classified through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methods and research hypotheses have been tested by a regression method. The results show that there are no codified executive rules for the realization of urban transportation integrated management system in Tehran. Additionally, findings indicate that the necessary financial credits are not available to the municipality and there is no coordination between decision makers on the issue of handing over the management of the transportation system to the municipality. Based on results, Tehran municipality has the necessary potential to accept the responsibility of managing this system.

Privileging Electric Vehicles as an Element of Promoting Sustainable Urban Mobility—Effects on the Local Transport System in a Large Metropolis in Poland

The main purpose of this article was to determine the impact on the equilibrium of the local transport system from privileging EVs by permitting them to use bus lanes. The study used two sets of data: information on infrastructure and traffic management; and information on the recorded road network loads and traffic volumes generated by a given shopping centre—the E. Leclerc shopping centre (an important traffic generator within the city of Łódź, Poland). These sets were then used to develop a microsimulation traffic model for the shopping centre and the associated effects on the localised transport system. The model was constructed by means of the PTV Vissim software tool. An initial simulation was conducted that formed a basis for subsequent scenarios (in total, 17 simulations were performed). On the basis of the conducted analyses, it was established that—for the researched part of the transport system—privileging the still rather uncommon battery electric vehicles (BEVs) engendered a marginal deterioration of traffic conditions. At the same time, allowing BEVs to use bus lanes within the chosen research area had no negative impact on bus journey times.

Differentiated agrarian vulnerabilities and generalized national responses to COVID-19 in the Upper West Region of Ghana.

The experiences of COVID‐19 differ at both micro and macro levels. This emphasizes the need for differentiated responses that account for the varying vulnerabilities of diverse groups regarding the pandemic. In Ghana, much of the attention on COVID‐19 has been on urban centres, particularly the country's two largest metropolises in southern Ghana. This has created a gap between national level policy and the experiences of COVID‐19 among rural dwellers in Ghana. This is despite evidence that the world's poorest populations will bear the brunt of COVID‐19 effects, and that globally, four out of five people living below the poverty line reside in rural areas. Using the Upper West Region as a case study, we discuss the differentiated vulnerabilities that agrarian communities in Ghana face regarding the pandemic. We situate our discussions within the theories of vulnerability and feminist political economy to highlight how interlocking vulnerabilities regarding historical, environmental, geopolitical, socio‐economic, health, and gendered inequalities affect the disposition of agrarian communities to cope with and recover from the COVID‐19 pandemic. We call for more nuanced COVID‐19 responses that account for the needs and experiences of agrarian communities in Ghana.

Desde vistas densamente llenas hasta la ciudad vacía de Piazzas. Imágenes que interpretan los dinamismos oscilantes de la realidad urbana

Cities have been inspirational for the creators of visual art works long since, first as mere secondary, additional motifs to indicate the “urban” environment of the main scene, then as subject-matters in their own right. Those images could depict both imaginary and actual cities of the past and of the future, including mythological and Biblical locations, documenting distant lands and fantasizing on the appearance of utopian cities. In some of these aspects, the history of city representations shares significant similarities with the history of landscape depictions. In the present paper, however, I aim to focus on a curious and particular detail in this pictorial tradition. Following and further investigating a brief reflection by Michel Makarius from his 2004 book on Ruins, I would like to compare the visuality and aesthetic effects of dense and empty cityscapes, of which two classical examples could be the capriccios – imaginary views of cities completely filled with aesthetically pleasing elements, including magnificent remnants of the Antique heritage – and representations of cities in which their emptiness is highlighted to such extent that the observer tends to assume that the real subject-matter of the image is not the city, its buildings, forms and physical components but exactly its being “empty”. These “extremities” on the broad range of cityscapes, i.e., the densely-filled and the extremely depopulated are, however, not merely historical sub-genres of long-gone centuries. These typologies have survived to this day, in various versions and with diverse accents; what’s more, they seem to be more relevant than ever in understanding not only the nature of these artistic representations and their aesthetic references, but also in learning more of our contemporary reality itself. It is enough to think of the numerous ways in which artists approach the convoluted issues and challenges of urban life today, with the classical references and visual vocabulary in mind, either unconsciously creating occasional parallels or using them as explicit forerunners to their own works. The density of the global megapolises are represented in artistically novel ways often with socially critical overtones, while the images of empty cities – not long ago, for example, during the recent pandemics and lockdowns – are again resulting in aesthetically inspiring and insightful works incentivizing us to reflect on the oscillating dynamisms of our present urban realities. Therefore, it is particularly beneficial to observe such renderings of our cities and hence to raise more our awareness of the multiple global issues that are often very strongly manifested in the everyday life in large metropolises. Pieces of art thematising the extreme forms of city life can become very efficient ways of constantly reminding us of our duties of taking care of both our cities and our life.

Language Ideologies and Transnational Migration: A Study of Cape Verdeans in Galicia

Changes to the global infrastructure have contributed to the growing (linguistic) diversity of large metropolises. However, there have been calls from scholars to explore “emerging superdiversity” (DePalma and Pérez-Caramés 2018) in peripheral regions in order to fully understand the complexities and nuances of the sociolinguistics of globalisation (Wang et al. 2014; Pietikäinen et al. 2016). This article, therefore, explores language ideologies among a purposive sample of five young adults of Cape Verdean origin living in the peripheral region of Galicia, Spain, and draws on interview data to examine the ways in which multilingual migrants engage with the language varieties in their linguistic repertoire. In studying immigration from a former African colony to a bilingual European context, we can see how language ideologies from the migrant community are reflected in local ones. The sociolinguistic dynamics of Cape Verde and Galicia share many similarities: both contexts are officially bilingual (Galician and Spanish in Galicia, Kriolu and Portuguese in Cape Verde), and questions regarding the hierarchisation of languages remain pertinent in both cases. The ideologies about the value and prestige of (minority) languages that Cape Verdean migrants arrive with are thus accommodated by local linguistic ideologies in Galicia, a region which has a history of linguistic minoritisation. This has important implications for the ways in which language, as a symbolic resource, is mobilised by migrants in contexts of transnational migration. The findings of this study show how migrants are key actors in (re)shaping the linguistic dynamics of their host society and how, through their practices and discourses, they challenge long-standing assumptions about language, identity and linguistic legitimacy, and call into question ethno-linguistic boundaries.

Hazardous industries and distributive environmental injustice in Ahmedabad, India

ABSTRACT Urbanization in India has been characterized by declining environmental quality and increasing class and caste segregations. These trends suggest the need to analyze distributive injustices that situate environmental hazards within urban scale inequalities. Our article seeks to address this need by linking the distribution of industrial facilities classified as Major Accident Hazard (MAH) units with the distribution of socially disadvantaged groups in Ahmedabad, a large metropolis in western India with a long history of industrial development. Using bivariate statistical comparisons and multivariable generalized estimating equations, this study examines whether socially disadvantaged groups are overrepresented in neighborhoods with the highest density of MAH units. Our statistical findings suggest a pattern of distributive environmental injustice based on significantly higher proportions of young children, Scheduled Castes and Tribes, and households without assets and amenities in areas with the highest concentrations of MAH units. Overall, this article shows how India's cities pose greater environmental hazards for socially disadvantaged communities, thereby raising concerns about the future of its urbanization.

Analysis of Built-Up Areas of Small Polish Cities with the Use of Deep Learning and Geographically Weighted Regression

Small cities are an important part of the settlement system, a link between rural areas and large cities. Although they perform important functions, research focuses on large cities and metropolises while marginalizing small cities, the study of which is of great importance to progress in social sciences, geography, and urban planning. The main goal of this paper was to verify the impact of selected socio-economic factors on the share of built-up areas in 665 small Polish cities in 2019. Data from the Database of Topographic Objects (BDOT), Sentinel-2 satellite imagery from 2015 and 2019, and Local Data Bank by Statistics Poland form 2019 were used in the research. A machine learning segmentation procedure was used to obtain the data on the occurrence of built-up areas. Hot Spot (Getis-Ord Gi*) analysis and geographically weighted regression (GWR) was applied to explain spatially varying impact of factors related to population, spatial and economic development, and living standards on the share of built-up areas in the area of small cities. Significant association was found between the population density and the share of built-up areas in the area of the cities studied. The influence of the other socio-economic factors examined, related to the spatial and economic development of the cities and the quality of life of the inhabitants, showed great regional variation. The results also indicated that the share of built-up areas in the area of the cities under study is a result of the conditions under which they were established and developed throughout their existence, and not only of the socio-economic factors affecting them at present.

Heterotopías y heterocronías: los desafíos de la etnografía de la duración en las ciudades brasileñas (diálogos con Michel Foucault).

The article talks about the “heterotopias” and “heterochronias” based on studies of ethnography of duration (Eckert & Rocha, 2013b) in the context of large Brazilian metropolises. We propose a reflection especially in relation to the work Des espaces autres (1967) by Michel Foucault (1984) in which the author criticizes the cumulative conception of time for the understanding of the contemporary world. According to the author, the current epoch is more related to space than to the accumulation of time, because the experiences of juxtaposition and simultaneity are opposed to the experiences of linear and progressive time proposed by the modern epistème. In opposition to the use of heterotopias as a way of neglecting the importance of “heterochronias”, this writing proposes a critical incorporation of Foucault's heterotopology into the studies of the ethnography of duration in contemporary urban spaces.

Dynamics of the geographical distribution of private physicians in Algeria

In Algeria, private physicians settle much more in the northern regions of the country and preferably in the large metropolises than in the rest of regions. The purpose of this article is, first, to analyze the inequity in — and the evolution of — the geographical distribution of Algerian private physicians and, secondly, to estimate the main determinants of doctors’ density in 1998 and 2017. The inequalities in distribution is measured using the Gini index and the coefficient of variation. The econometric models (static and dynamic) were estimated by the ordinary least squares. Our results show that overall disparities increased slightly between 1998-2017. The same well-endowed wilayas (departments) still continue to attract new physicians. The econometric estimate suggests that the population density and per capita social security expenditure are the main determinants of physicians’ geographic location in both the static and dynamic models. Ultimately, the increase in the number of trained physicians does not automatically solve the problem of their geographical distribution, particularly in a context characterized by the absence of any government policy towards the private healthcare.

Women in the City: Identifying the Gynocentric Zone in Melbourne and Sydney, 1880s to 1920s

Feminist analyses have shown how from the mid-nineteenth century women shaped the cities in which they lived. This article argues for the existence of an urban gynocentric zone, the site of a cluster of women-owned businesses charged with handling the unwanted products of women’s bodies. Shaped by shame, it constituted a female space within a larger metropolis, invisible, unacknowledged, yet well enough known to be a place of ready resort for women who needed its services. The article analyses the network of services businesswomen developed to do the dirty work necessary to cleanse the city of moral impurity, and the ways in which they negotiated the taint that such transgressive work necessarily involved. In so doing it promises to inform wider debates about the history of abortion, midwifery, baby farming and adoption.