City, Culture and Society最新文献

The paper aims to identify and analyze the factors influencing the selection of sites and buildings for the placement of creative hubs in the urban environment of the Czech Republic, where cultural and creative industries have been mapped (model cities Prague, Brno, Ostrava, Pilsen, Olomouc, and Zlín). Methodologically, the text is anchored both in the theoretical discussion of the concept of creative hubs and especially in qualitative research in the form of a questionnaire survey, semi-structured interviews with creative hub management, and on-site observation. Our research results have confirmed the experience of advanced economies (such as Germany or Austria) that creative hubs are naturally located in large cities, where sufficient economic and socio-cultural potential is also expected. However, even in smaller cities, increasing digitalization and technological advances are increasing the pressure to fill the “gap” in the creative economy. Regardless of the basic type of creative hub (creative space, co-working, maker space), the key factors affecting site selection are financial and investment costs, i.e. primarily acquisition costs, rental price and operating costs related to the city centre or off-centre location. Other strong factors are technical and transport infrastructure, a competitive environment, the concentration of potential customers and social infrastructure (especially a young and well-educated workforce). Last but not least, the wear and tear of the interior and exterior of the building and the social status of not only the surrounding area but also the city district appear to be an important element.

Self-organized housing projects are a viable alternative to state-led or market-oriented housing. But a critical assessment of prevailing principles of ongoing efforts reveals a need for an institutional framework adaptation to target higher participation rates of low-income households. This research investigates the favela Asa Branca in Rio de Janeiro through the lens of social cohesion to find entry points to such a framework adaptation. Evaluating interviews with residents paired with empirical observations identify an array of tendencies toward or away from its spatial and social consolidation. Understanding the dynamics can explain Asa Branca's persistence despite disruptive events in its history. Seven lessons eventually derive principles for policymakers and housing groups elsewhere to enable a more diverse range of participating households in alternative types of self-organized housing.

Adaptive reuse is an increasingly important part of sustainable urban regeneration. However, up-cycling a building whose architectural features are strongly connected to its original function and new use is perceived as an innovation in cities is challenging due to stakeholders' perceived uncertainties and risks. This article explores and assesses the stakeholders' knowledge and perceptions of repurposing inner-city modern movement car parking structures for controlled environment agriculture (CEA). For this purpose, 15 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders were conducted and analysed. The methodology allowed addressing the design approaches at the initial stage of the proposed adaptive reuse through defining the planning, architectural and environmental criteria that the process should meet in order to increase the acceptance and viability of such an innovative change in cities. The results show that the planning phase should explore planning documents and analyse how the opportunities and limitations of such retrofit may influence meeting the city's objectives. In the architectural phase, a modern movement garage should be analysed through identified opportunities or limitations to define modifications required for the implementation and efficient operation of CEA installations and associated facilities. The environmental phase should investigate the possibilities and constraints of a car parking structure to reduce the use of urban resources and implement sustainable technologies that increase the retrofit's environmental viability. The findings indicate that the planning, architectural and environmental categories are interrelated. It is recommended to include the developed data in a guiding tool that would constitute a viable foundation for the proposed innovative up-cycling design management.

This paper reports on research into social activity in commercial/retail centres in Australian low-density suburbs. While low-density suburbs have been criticised for declining vitality and sociability, some commercial/retail precincts still thrive there. This study sought to determine the relationship between the physical qualities of the built environment and social activity in such thriving suburban neighbourhood centres. Three areas in Geelong, Victoria, were studied as representative of three common forms of Australian suburban commercial/retail centre. First, behavioural observations identified which of the three centres was the most vital and sociable. Next, semi-structured interviews with users of that centre who resided in its containing suburb explored perceptions of the environment to identify the physical features that contributed to its social affordances. The findings suggest that diversity of uses is key to the vibrancy of commercial centres. Walkability, perceptions of safety and physical qualities such as landscaping, good pedestrian pathways and pavement dining were also found to contribute to vitality. Importantly, it appears that in neighbourhoods with high transient populations, residents do not associate these types of socially active environments with sense of community.

This paper explores whether the dominance of leading creative centres can be explained by two-sided markets. It is proposed that two-sided networks contribute to a high level of geographic concentration. The Hollywood film industry is used as an example of how contrasting forces tend to shape the structure of the creation and the production/distribution components of creative industries. This results in two separate but symbiotic groups. The mutual attraction of these groups creates a strong incentive for producers/distributors and creative artists to co-locate. This implies that success in creative industries may require an approach appropriate to a two-sided model. Attraction and inclusion are central to this approach.

This article examines the legitimation of capital city relocation from a discursive perspective. It specifically focuses on how policymakers in developing countries often use boosters' language to legitimize the relocation of capital city functions. Drawing on critical discourse analysis as a theoretical frame and Egypt as a case, this article examines the ways in which government and property developers have succeeded in weaving the logics of the New Administrative Capital (NAC) into Greater Cairo's broader development discourse. The study highlights policy actors' legitimation strategies, locating them within the broader urban boosterism and south-south policy transfer literature. By emphasizing on policy actors' use of texts and imagery at the local level, the article demonstrates how discourse, as an instrument of power and control, is used by policy entrepreneurs to perpetuate non-participation in Global South urban policy-making.

The spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) has meant that street performers can no longer perform on the street. This has changed the landscape for the exchange for money between a street performer and their audience. The paper uses a unique data set from the online busking platform ‘The Busking Project’ (https://busk.co) to analyse whether sign up by performers to the platform and donation by individuals to street performers through the platform has changed since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic on March 11, 2020. The results show a lift both in street performers signing up to the platform and in individuals' donations to street performers after the announcement. The recovery of cities and the cultural economy from COVID-19 will not be immediate. As we move to a post COVID-19 world our results have implications for performers, for donors and for (local) governments as street performers return to the street.

As a long tradition in urban studies made clear, the production of urban space is twofold: users continuously reshape what a contentious political process produces at first. The struggle around conflictual memories invests cities increasingly by marking spots or reshaping places to reconstruct or re-signify past events.

The politics of memory deploy a combination of argumentative, emotional and ordinary arguments. The intent is neither preserving nor deleting but re-writing memories. However, places interfere with the political and argumentative strategies making room for ordinary uses that question the stability of meanings, although not providing political answers to the issues of power and domination.

The paper introduces sense-making to suggest that places reinforce the social processes that build collective memories. The relationship between memory and place is not unidirectional. Briefly, a social process infuses place and this latter ‘hits back’. This statement leads to the apparent odd conclusion that, in the long term, place-making is as essential as the reframing of memory.

A few initiatives involving institutions, human rights movements and bottom-up initiatives in Buenos Aires are investigated: a clandestine detention centre, a memorial garden, an ordinary urban square, aiming at developing an analytical framework that highlights the details of the sense-making mechanism linking memories and places.

This study interrogates and evaluates how current transformations in Temuco's neighbourhoods promote social and spatial diversity-in terms of the mix of land uses, housing types, urban activities, and socioeconomic characteristics of residents. Based on neighbourhood classification criteria by the National Institute of Statistics of Chile (INE), two neighbourhoods (Villa Llaima and Banco Estado1-Carabineros) in Temuco were selected for detailed study. Both spatial and Social Variables data were collected using land use maps and structured individual interviews with 100 households in the two communities. By measuring spatial and social diversity in the neighbourhoods based on Shannon's Diversity Index, the study showed that the transformations of Villa Llaima and Banco Estado1-Carabineros between 1990 and 2018 represent social and spatial dimensions of diverse urban spaces. However, However, the diversities generated have not been work out to improve connectedness and social cohesion in the two neighbourhoods. The lack of development control at the neighbourhood level, the lack of appropriate codes to address the land use mix, and the lack of neighbourhood review of projects were identified as factors contributing to the poor state of neighbourhood cohesion. Policy recommendations are offered for improving and leveraging existing diversity for place-making.

This paper is conceptually positions the emergence of the neoliberal city in the context of transitions to late-capitalism. The aim of this study is to understand intersections between explicit and implicit cultural policy dimensions focusing on the Rijeka2020 programme as intended and how it was restructured as a response to COVID-19. Through cultural policy analysis, this ex-ante qualitative case study of the Rijeka2020 programme illuminates overlapping explicit and implicit policy priorities of the ECoC—offering a unique insight into what could potentially be the future of the European cultural policy. Rijeka2020 can be seen as a changing point amidst different rhetoric, analysed around three themes (regeneration, legacy, and participation). Results examine how Rijeka's culture-led urban regeneration agenda was shy on creative industry oriented programming, yet reinforced through capital cultural infrastructural projects. Through attempts to avoid event-led spectacle, officials planned to engage more at the neighbourhood-scale using participatory art practices that concentrated on capacity building. Important take-away points address shifts from culture-oriented regeneration to local participatory art practices is a step towards reconstructing the cultural sector upstream (based on production) and downstream (through reception).