Urban Restructuring Research Articles

On uncertain ground: being at home in the context of public housing redevelopment

The recent global financial crisis increased the volatility of housing markets and furthered the ongoing disinvestment in public sector housing. This disinvestment has been manifest in urban restructuring programmes involving both the privatisation and the wholesale demolition of public/social housing. For example, programmes like HOPE VI in the USA have radically altered the landscape of public housing through the demolition of tens of thousands of housing units nationwide. However, what of the people who occupied this housing, and what of the lives they had built there? In such a context, deliberating on the notion of being at home becomes a pressing task, necessitating serious consideration of the lived experience of place and place attachments among those who have been displaced by such programmes. While research has studied outcomes such as the quality of the new neighbourhood and household economic stability, it does not adequately address the lived experience of place and the disruptions that forced relocation can cause. This paper brings the literature on place attachment into the discussion of urban restructuring programmes and discusses the findings of several empirical studies on place attachment to provide a more complete picture of the impacts of such programmes on poor people. It demonstrates how place attachments in the context of public housing are complicated by poverty, power dynamics, ambivalence, and stigma, underscoring how attachments are formed through the interplay of policy and programme rhetoric, and the active processes of meaning making among residents. Policy implications of considering place attachments in public housing redevelopment efforts are also addressed.

Gentrification and revanchist urbanism in Taipei?

As policy and theory travel, comparative urbanism becomes important to address questions concerning if and how gentrification and revanchist urbanism have ‘gone South’, or ‘gone East’. In recent decades, Taipei has experienced a shift in economic base, massive urban renewal, neoliberal reforms and associated social polarisation. In this paper we ask to what extent gentrification and revanchist urbanism are relevant concepts for understanding processes of urban restructuring in this East Asian developmental state capital city. The analysis relates national and urban politics to gentrification of the Yongkang, Qingtian, Wenzhou and Huaguang neighbourhoods in Daan District, Taipei. We investigate manifestations of Atkinson’s four analytical strands of revanchist urbanism in Taipei. We conclude that revanchist urbanism has, to a considerable extent, formed urban development in Taipei during the last quarter century, and that unless democratising forces tame the power of finance and property capital, effectively claiming the right to the city, urban improvements by progressive movements will be valorised by the architects of revanchist urbanism: finance and property capital.

Imaging Caste: Photography, the Housing Question and the Making of Sociology in Colonial Bombay, 1900–1939

This paper studies photographs of Bombay's built environment, especially Dalit and working-class houses, taken by two social scientists in the 1920s and 1930s. The photographs are situated at the intersection of four discursive temporalities: (a) social reforms initiated by Indian nationalists of the late nineteenth to twentieth centuries; (b) sanitary reforms and urban restructuring undertaken by city administrators and the colonial state, which reappeared vigorously after the plague epidemic of 1896; (c) colonial knowledge production, including census, labour and housing reports that informed academic social–scientific knowledge; and (d) Dalit and working-class social movements that aspired to transgressing the limits of reform in order to re-define self and the collective, and demand the redistribution of material resources.

Conceded informality. Scopes of informal urban restructuring in the Pearl River Delta

This paper analyses the variety of informal urban development and restructuring in the Chinese Pearl River Delta (PRD) in the field of urbanized village (UV) redevelopment and how the Chinese party-state takes up a stance over them. By introducing the notion of “conceded informality”, which describes the situation in this respect in a fragmented authoritarian party-state, the scholarly debate on informality in urban planning shall be widened. After an introduction of the political environment in which conceded informality can be found, an emphasis will be put on restructuring processes of the two megacities of the Pearl River Delta – Guangzhou and Shenzhen – and the scopes of conceded informality will be illustrated by case study examples. The redevelopment and integration of urbanized villages into the urban fabric poses one of the most difficult challenges urban planners are facing today. Conceding informality can be seen as a coping strategy the Chinese governments are using as an experimental mode of governance in order to deal with new phenomena of urbanization and critical situations in times of permanent change and legal uncertainty.

Amenity value in post-industrial Chinese cities: the case of Nanjing

Many Chinese cities are in a transition from industrial to post-industrial urban economies. In this process of urban restructuring, land use becomes polycentric and fragmented. More sophisticated models are needed to estimate the amenity effects of this complex residential environment. This article assesses the relative housing price effects of neighborhood characteristics and accessibility in Nanjing, China. This is achieved with a hedonic price model that incorporates detailed spatial measures, geographical contingency, and a modified version of Alonso’s (1964) general theory of land rent. A crucial finding is that the effect of job accessibility on house price varies depending upon the specific sector of employment. Accessibility to jobs in the public and private service sectors has strong positive effects. However, housing proximity to heavy industries has a spatially nonlinear effect: negative in close proximity, but positive at a larger distance. Second, when we control for job accessibility, access to public transport has an added positive effect. Finally, neighborhood “quality” (defined in terms of nearby amenities) is also relevant, but far less than access to service employment. This research shows that Nanjing’s housing prices are affected by different residential characteristics than those with dominant price effects in Western cities.

Chinese strategies of experimental governance. The underlying forces influencing urban restructuring in the Pearl River Delta

Pragmatic Chinese ideological slogans like “groping for stones crossing the river”, “no matter if it’s a black cat or a white cat, as long as it catches mice it’s a good cat” became guiding principles for a multitude of experimental approaches to new developments in the realms of Chinese economic, political, socio-cultural, and physical urban transformation since the beginning of reform and opening up in the late 1970s. Today, these concepts find their daily expression in so-called conceded informality. This paper illuminates the characteristics of nowadays typical, Chinese decision- and policy-making processes in the field of urban restructuring, with a focus on the informal and experimental aspects of flexible conceptual frameworks.

Urban Restructuring, Homelessness, and Collective Action in Toronto, 1980–2003

This article explores the links between urban restructuring, homelessness, and collective action in Toronto in the 1980s and 1990s. In Toronto, as elsewhere, urban restructuring at this time comprised a series of interconnected political-economic and spatial shifts, including economic and occupation change, gentrification, neo-liberal welfare state reform, and urban entrepreneurialism. Jointly, these political-economic shifts were implicated in the production and consolidation of new forms of socio-spatial polarization and segregation that dramatically changed the landscape of urban poverty. One of the most visible manifestations of the uneven effects of restructuring was the emergence and consolidation of mass homelessness. This changing landscape of poverty, in turn, produced a new landscape of political activism. It is this contested landscape that I explore in this article through a focus on homelessness as a primary mobilizing issue in opposition to restructuring during this key period in Toronto’s transition into a second-tier world city. I argue that urban restructuring, homelessness, and the dynamics of collective action were linked in two important ways. First, collective advocates and activists defined the crisis of homelessness as a direct effect of urban restructuring; in this way collective action mobilized to defend the interests of homeless people was simultaneously a collective struggle to contest urban restructuring. Second, the politics of restructuring directly informed the dynamics of collective action over time, influencing their organizational, strategic, and tactical dimensions.

Gentrification in Latin America: Overview and Critical Analysis

This paper offers a critical review and interpretation of gentrification in Latin American cities. Applying a flexible methodology, it examines enabling conditions associated with societal regime change and local contingencies to determine its presence, nature, extent, and possibilities. Questioning the uncritical transfer of constructs such as gentrification from the Global North to the Global South, the paper advocates analyses of mediating structures and local conditions to determine their applicability and possible variations. Overall, the review questions the feasibility of self-sustained, large scale gentrification in central areas of the region’s cities today tying it to each city’s level of incorporation into global circuits and the role of local governments. Rather than an orthodox hypothesis testing, this is an exercise in interpretation that calls for nuanced approaches to the study of urban restructuring in cities of the global South.

Victims or Victors? the Effects of Forced Relocations on Housing Satisfaction in Dutch Cities

ABSTRACT:Urban restructuring is changing the face of many Western European cities. Old, relatively cheap dwellings are being demolished and replaced by new, more expensive ones. The spatial effects of this process have been extensively studied, but little is known about the residents who are forced to relocate so that their dwellings can be demolished or updated. We therefore studied how satisfied forced movers are with their current housing situation, and what factors contribute to this. Using data from four Dutch cities, we found that most displaced residents were quite satisfied with their new dwellings and neighborhoods. However, those with low incomes and those from ethnic minority groups were less satisfied with their homes and neighborhoods. We can explain their lower level of neighborhood satisfaction by the fact that they move to less desirable neighborhoods—for example, neighborhoods with higher concentrations of ethnic minorities.

The Resilience of South African Cities a Decade after Local Democracy

South Africa emerged from a cataclysm two decades ago to experience a stable democratic transition during which the local government system was transformed. The creation of large metropolitan municipalities was intended to accelerate socioeconomic development and urban restructuring in order to overcome the legacy of segregation and exclusion. This paper assesses their achievements, ten years on, using the concept of resilience as the analytical frame. Resilience helps to examine cities as interconnected systems open to external influences but with some capacity for self-organisation and learning. It is useful for exploring the coexistence of urban continuity and change. Evidence shows that the responses of South Africa city authorities to globalisation, urbanisation, and democracy have been circumscribed. Continuity and incremental change have been more evident than transformation and development. Hesitant progress exposes cities to the risk of greater social instability. Insights from resilience theory support the idea that enhanced municipal capabilities could facilitate a more enduring outcome.

Governing Urban Restructuring with City-Building Nonprofits

Urban restructuring efforts aimed at redeveloping inner-city neighborhoods are common across the US. They typically involve coalitions of public and private actors that play complementary roles in promoting investments in locales that have been sites of disinvestment, rendering these geographies ripe for economic development and profitmaking (ie, gentrification). Nonprofits are not generally regarded as central players in these initiatives, although they often serve community-development functions for low-income populations living in impoverished city spaces. In this paper we draw on the concept of the shadow state and Foucault's theory of governmentality to examine a city-building nonprofit created by a public–private growth coalition to execute the redevelopment of urban space and, as an integral part, manage neighborhood resident participation in these efforts. As residents began to see themselves as agents of neighborhood change, they came into conflict with the revitalization objectives of the nonprofit's funders. And, while many residents actively challenged the direction that the neighborhood initiative took in focusing on housing redevelopment for more affluent populations, a core group maintained their commitment to a community building approach toward neighborhood redevelopment. Between 1998 and 2014, during CIC's initiative, over half of the original residents were displaced or left as neighborhood housing values dramatically increased, rendering the area inaccessible for low-income populations.

China's pre-reform urban transformation: the case of Hangzhou during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)

This paper examines the socio-spatial transformation of China during Mao's Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Through the lens of political rationales, government programmes, strategies and expertise and knowledge, this study explores Hangzhou's socio-spatial transformation and the dynamics between the societal and spatial dimensions during the Cultural Revolution. It investigates urban restructuring and population changes, public spaces, signature and special structures, residential buildings, parks and gardens in the city. The research attempts to interpret the perplexing relations between socio-political programmes and spatial projects on the ground. The paper argues that urban development continued under a heroic and revolutionary political agenda, even when urban planning as a discipline was removed during the societal disorder. Urban transformation was characterised by the duality of utopian and revolutionary ideals as well as pragmatic and economised approaches in practice. Utopian communist aspirati...

Regeneración urbana, planificación estratégica y gestión del conflicto en destinos turísticos. El caso de Calpe

Territorial and environmental aspects are crucial in promoting the competitiveness of tourist destinations. Urban regeneration is a basic tool to restructure mature destinations. However, several conflicts are generated by the size and strategic nature of such projects and discomforts are caused to businesses and residents of affected areas. In this context, strategic planning and conflict management are key elements for the success of projects. This paper presents the Calpe's urban restructuring experience, through a project carried out between 2008 and 2012 and co - financed by European Funds. The paper explains, from the Direction point of view, the main achievements and challenges involved.

Class Monopoly Rent and the Contemporary Neoliberal City

AbstractThe objective of this essay is to rejuvenate interest in Marxian rent theory in urban political economy by identifying and deepening discussion of an important aspect of the contemporary neoliberal city: class monopoly rent. First introduced by David Harvey, the concept of class monopoly rent has curiously evaded in‐depth scholarly inquiry and has never been substantively elaborated or examined. But the conditions through which class monopoly rents are extracted from property have since evolved. Yet, we know little about the relation between this standard institutional practice and contemporary urban landscapes, modes of governance, and processes of urban restructuring. The essay first reviews and identifies the concept of class monopoly rent as an important aspect of the urban process and discusses its limited scholarly engagement over the past four decades. It then discusses the implications of class monopoly rent in the context of current urban redevelopment policies and practices in Chicago, Illinois. It is suggested that a deeper examination of this concept could build a more robust and intricate understanding of the contemporary neoliberal city, particularly in the context of the post‐2007 economic recession.

Architecture, Economic Imaginaries and Urban Politics: The Office Tower as Socially Classifying Device

AbstractIn recent studies on the role of architecture in urban restructuring, city marketing and the related struggles for meaning, there has been a focus on high‐profile architects and iconic architecture. In this article I wish to examine architecture and building types as ‘socially signifying devices’, in order to take more everyday buildings and their images into account as well. Using Vienna as a case study, I explore how the commercial office tower is utilized to represent the internationalization of the local economy and render new urban political‐economic strategies socially meaningful. This is done by examining recent shifts in urban policy, and the means, channels and practices of discursive and visual representation of the local office architecture. Connecting the concept of economic imaginaries from cultural political economy (CPE) with a sociological approach to building types, I argue that economic imaginaries gain in plausibility if they are discursively and visually anchored in urban space. However, it is also shown that this kind of spatialization of new economic imaginaries is constructed on a selective visual representation of buildings: the assignment of international economic activities to local office towers is revealed to be only partially true in the case of Vienna.

The Inheritance of the Soviet Period: should It be Evaluated?

Each historical period leaves its marks of evolution – towns, villages, churches, manors, parks and other objects, which reflect social, economical, political, cultural, esthetical, architectural environment of that period. So there appear historically developed types of landscape of different periods – “prior-valak”, “valak”, “individual farm”, “collective farm” and nowadays landscape which is under development. These all landscapes form a part of cultural heritage of the country. “Prior-valak”, “valak”, “individual farm” landscape types are already researched in certain scale, but the “landscape of collective farms”, its character, influence to the identity of the country, to the experience of urban planning of settlements and environmental management are not researched and evaluated sufficiently. It can be said, that during the Soviet period a number of expansion and reconstruction projects of towns and rural settlements were created. In addition, several new towns and smaller settlements were established. Within this period, the urban planning works formed a new country’s accommodation system, as well as changed the landscape. Nowadays, most of the previously realized urban structures in many cases are being transformed, re-planned, their overall image is being changed. Facing such urban restructuring there is a need to evaluate current legacy: to evaluate its advantages, disadvantages, what could be appropriate to be transformed as well as what should be saved as planning heritage of the residential areas. This article aims to draw attention to the towns and rural settlements, which were formed during the Soviet period, as spatial structures of that time, that create an important and distinctive urban part of the country‘s heritage. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sace.4.5.4823

Conflict and Commensuration: Contested Market Making inIndia's Private Real Estate Development Sector

AbstractNewly constructed high‐rise housing and malls, soaring land prices and violent confrontations over land testify to the massive urban transformations underway inIndia today. Having secured an expanded role in urban development from the state, the private sector helps to shape urban restructuring; however, few scholars have studied private real estate development inIndia or revealed the factions that underlie an analytically unitary ‘private sector’. This article sheds light on private sector real estate industry members' efforts to develop an internationally familiar real estate market inIndia. Foreign investors and consultants have been collaborating withIndian real estate developers, who are now active intermediaries in the flow of capital intoIndia. Drawing on participant observation and data from interviews, this article finds, however, that foreign financiers andIndian developers struggle to form partnerships on account of differences on issues like land valuation. The outcome of such conflicts will define the contours ofIndian real estate development and its integration with international markets in the future.

From Financialization to Sociospatial Polarization of the City? Evidence from Canada

Financialization is a key attribute of globalized neoliberal capitalism. Among other things, it is associated with rising household indebtedness, which has certainly been true in Canada. Another widely recognized trait of neoliberal capitalism is growing social inequality and polarization. However, despite growing awareness and understanding of the relationships between debt and inequality at the household, national, and international scales, it remains unclear what role household debt may have in fashioning patterns of income segregation within the metropolis and how it may be related to processes of urban economic restructuring. This article seeks to fill this gap through an empirical analysis of the spatial distribution of household debt and its relationship to prevailing patterns of neighborhood income inequality within Canadian metropolitan areas. The effects of household debt in either ameliorating or exacerbating prevailing levels of income segregation are analyzed, after which the metropolitan-level factors that are associated with regressive neighborhood distributions of debt are examined. The implications of the results for understanding the relationship between financialization and predominant patterns of urban economic restructuring are then discussed.

Globalization and urban restructuring in Changchun, China

Globalization and urban restructuring in Changchun, China

Planning Thinking of the Transformation from a Resource-Based City to Ecological Civilization City: A Case Study of Pucheng Eco-City Planning

The issue of climate change triggered a reflection on the traditional industry patterns of resource-based cities and thinking of traditional planning, the concept of ecological civilization city arises at the historic moment. This paper discusses the inevitability of the transformation from resource-based city to ecological civilization cities on the base of using modern one planning means which includes urban spatial organization, urban industrial restructuring and urban construction implementation these three strategies, then thoughts on Pucheng Eco-city planning and construction are proposed and be hoped to provide reference to other similar urban planning practice.