City, Culture and Society最新文献

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.

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.