City, Culture and Society最新文献

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive perspective to heritage economics, and the contribution of that field to urban conservation. Cultural economics, and in particular heritage economics, is often envisioned as a margin discipline to help conservation specialists in assessing additional outcomes and benefits to the expected cultural values from preserving heritage. This paper is built on the conservation paradigm (consistent with the urban agenda in a sustainable context) which considers economics as primary goal of conservation, on the basis that sustainable conservation projects are better legitimized when they match economic, social, and environmental objectives. The scope of this paper is tangible (built heritage) and intangible heritage. The approach is the value chain of all activities directly and indirectly related to the conservation of cultural heritage, namely: the creation of value, conservation and co-production of value, dissemination, and transmission/fruition & engagement.

In recent years the government of Brussels Capital Region has put considerable effort into leading the transition from a linear to a circular model of economy. Within the construction sector, identified as key by the local authorities, specific measures have been developed to stimulate and support this change. While some actors have embraced the challenge, placing themselves as frontrunners, a large part of the construction sector has still to fully engage in the transition.

Building on the review of the main strategies and researches, as well as on direct observations and in-depth discussion with practitioners and other construction stakeholders, this article dives into the reality of the day-to-day practice to provide feedback on the level of acceptance, understanding, development, and implementation of circular strategies and tools in Brussels’ construction sector, thus aiming at strengthening the link between research and practice.

It emerges that Circular Economy principles and strategies are not yet broadly understood and applied. To generate a deeper engagement of all the actors it seems crucial to create a shared culture around Circular Economy by addressing knowledge gaps, developing technical support, and clarifying the integration of circular practices within the other regional strategies for the sector's decarbonisation and sustainability.

This paper uses the case of Dance Days Chania, a contemporary dance festival in Chania, the second biggest city of the island of Crete, Greece to discuss a bottom-up example of cultural diplomacy in an urban framework. It discusses how a small-scale international festival acts as a cultural diplomacy actor for its hosting city, attributing an international flair to the periphery and adding to the long-established association of the country with cultural heritage, that of contemporary culture. The topography of the city and the festival, creative expression, interaction of and engagement with the people as well as the art genre itself, work as enablers of cultural diplomacy which is exercised here by means of an inclusive cultural experience rather than a simple projection of national cultural representations, with citizens actively participating and contributing throughout the process. The paper argues that cultural diplomacy can also take place outside of national political agendas and be rooted at citizen's initiatives and collective action.

How do critical artists intervene in urban space, and why? This question is explored in an interurban fieldwork study examining artistic interventions in four cities: Hanover and Hamburg in Germany, and Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Jerusalem in Israel. Grounded on a plethora of artistic interventions gathered in these cities, the article proposes a typology based on techniques, goals, sociability degrees and relations to urban space. On the one hand, urban artistic interventions vary from a compensatory improvement of social conditions to a highly political and protest-driven irritation of existing urban power structures and processes. On the other, the discourses behind the different modes of urban artistic intervention reveal similarities, bringing recurring concepts of “art in public space” to the forefront and referring to similar lines of reasoning which guide urban artists in their practice. This article extends the existing literature by offering a typology of artistic interventions in urban space, highlighting the critical agency of urban artists.

This study examines how the Reformation has affected public space in Indonesian cities. The article draws on expert interviews and systematic field observations in Surabaya and Bandung, Indonesia’s most important cities after Jakarta. The findings reveal that, with democracy and decentralisation, the public sector is more keenly aware of the socio-political functions of public space, and the planning process has become more participatory. This growing awareness has helped create more appealing and humane urban environments. Political activities, largely absent in the past, are now allowed in public space – albeit under the watchful eye of the government. At the same time, if public space was once considered as an ‘unproductive’ land-use, it has now commodified in a major way. Shopping malls have become ubiquitous, and are quite popular with local urbanites, who have traditionally equated public space with commercial space. Locals appear to be unconcerned about public space ownership – as long as it can offer novel and interesting activities.

The smart city concept has emerged as an attractive label to address pressing issues of global urbanization and combat the critical challenges to attain sustainable development. Sustainability is still often conceived through a green environmental lens, but any change in the built environment also has implications for the social environment. Social sustainability is a dynamic concept that combines design of the physical realm with design of the social world and promotes infrastructure to support social needs and concerns. While smart cities primarily aim at enhancing performance through innovative use of digital data and technology, a social sustainability perspective stresses the critical interconnections between people and place. Through a critical systematic literature review, this paper establishes a dialogue between the smart city and social sustainability. It evaluates the smart city concept through a social sustainability lens within a built environment paradigm. A multi-stage conceptual framework is advanced around notions of place, identification of core social sustainability themes and related factors, and sensitivity to broader policy and detailed implementation scales. The framework provides guidance for further studying both the social objectives and outcomes of smart city policies.