The Urbanism of Exception


Book Description

This book argues that understanding global urbanism in the twenty-first century requires us to cast our gaze upon vast city-regions without an urban core.




The Urbanism of Exception


Book Description

This book challenges the conventional (modernist-inspired) understanding of urbanization as a universal process tied to the ideal-typical model of the modern metropolis with its origins in the grand Western experience of city-building. At the start of the twenty-first century, the familiar idea of the 'city' - or 'urbanism' as we know it - has experienced such profound mutations in both structure and form that the customary epistemological categories and prevailing conceptual frameworks that predominate in conventional urban theory are no longer capable of explaining the evolving patterns of city-making. Global urbanism has increasingly taken shape as vast, distended city-regions, where urbanizing landscapes are increasingly fragmented into discontinuous assemblages of enclosed enclaves characterized by global connectivity and concentrated wealth, on the one side, and distressed zones of neglect and impoverishment, on the other. These emergent patterns of what might be called enclave urbanism have gone hand-in-hand with the new modes of urban governance, where the crystallization of privatized regulatory regimes has effectively shielded wealthy enclaves from public oversight and interference.




DIY City


Book Description

Some utopian plans have shaped our cities —from England’s New Towns and Garden Cities to the Haussmann plan for Paris and the L’Enfant plan for Washington, DC. But these grand plans are the exception, and seldom turn out as envisioned by the utopian planner. Inviting city neighborhoods are more often works of improvisation on a small scale. This type of bottom-up development gives cities both their character and the ability to respond to sudden change. Hank Dittmar, urban planner, friend of artists and creatives, sometime rancher, “high priest of town planning” to the Prince of Wales, believed in letting small things happen. Dittmar concluded that big plans were often the problem. Looking at the global cities of the world, he saw a crisis of success, with gentrification and global capital driving up home prices in some cities, while others decayed for lack of investment. In DIY City, Dittmar explains why individual initiative, small-scale business, and small development matter, using lively stories from his own experience and examples from recent history, such as the revival of Camden Lock in London and the nascent rebirth of Detroit. DIY City, Dittmar’s last original work, captures the lessons he learned throughout the course of his varied career—from transit-oriented development to Lean Urbanism—that can be replicated to create cities where people can flourish. DIY City is a timely response to the challenges many cities face today, with a short supply of affordable housing, continued gentrification, and offshore investment. Dittmar’s answer to this crisis is to make Do-It-Yourself the norm rather than the exception by removing the barriers to small-scale building and local business. The message of DIY City can offer hope to anyone who cares about cities.




The Culture of Exception


Book Description

We live in an ever-fragmenting society, in which distinctions between culture and nature, biology and politics, law and transgression, mobility and immobility, reality and representation, seem to be disappearing. This book demonstrates the hidden logic beneath this process, which is also the logic of 'the camp'. Social theory has traditionally interpreted the camp as an anomaly, as an exceptional site situated on the margins of society, aiming to neutralize its 'failed citizens' and 'enemies'. However, in contemporary society, 'the camp' has now become the rule and consequently a new interrogation of its logic is necessary. In this exceptional volume, the authors explore the paradox of the camp, as representing both an old fear of enclosure and a new dream of belonging. They illustrate their arguments by drawing on contemporary sites of exemption - such as refugee camps, rape camps and favelas - as well as sites of self-exemption including gated communities, party tourism and celebrity cultures.




Urban Sociology


Book Description

Concise overview of the political and economic development of the world's cities, with a cultural perspective and case studies throughout, including support materials.




Securing Urbanism


Book Description

This book is concerned with developing an in-depth understanding of contemporary political and spatial analyses of cities. In the three-part development of the book’s overall argument or premise, the reader is taken in Part I through a range of contemporary critical and political understandings of urban securitizing. This is followed by an historical urban landscape of emerging liberalism and neo-liberalism, in nineteenth-century Britain and twentieth-century United States, respectively. These case-study historical chapters enable the introduction of key political issues that are more critically assayed in Parts II and III. With Part II, the reader is introduced in depth to a series of spatial analyses undertaken by Michel Foucault that have been crucial for especially late-twentieth and twenty-first century urban theory and political geography. With Part III the full ramifications of a paradigmatic shift are explored at the level of rethinking territory, population and design. This book is timely and useful for readers who want to develop a stronger understanding of what the book’s researchers term a new political paradigm in urban planning, one ultimately governed by global economic forces that define the end of probability.




Developmentalist Cities? Interrogating Urban Developmentalism in East Asia


Book Description

Developmentalist Cities addresses the missing urban story in research on East Asian developmentalism and the missing developmentalist story in studies of East Asian urbanization. It does so by promoting inter-disciplinary research into the subject of urban developmentalism: a term that editors Jamie Doucette and Bae-Gyoon Park use to highlight the particular nature of the urban as a site of and for developmentalist intervention. The contributors to this volume deepen this concept by examining the legacy of how Cold War and post-Cold War geopolitical economy, spaces of exception (from special zones to industrial districts), and diverse forms of expertise have helped produce urban space in East Asia. Contributors: Carolyn Cartier, Christina Kim Chilcote, Young Jin Choi, Jamie Doucette, Eli Friedman, Jim Glassman, Heidi Gottfried, Laam Hae, Jinn-yuh Hsu, Iam Chong Ip, Jin-Bum Jang, Soo-Hyun Kim, Jana M. Kleibert, Kah Wee Lee, Seung-Ook Lee, Christina Moon, Bae-Gyoon Park, Hyun Bang Shin.










Transect Urbanism


Book Description

Transect Urbanism: Readings in Human Ecology is the definitive reference on the Rural-to-Urban Transect, a compilation of the most important essays, diagrams, and images on the subject. It provides historical, practical, and theoretical insights into one of the most effective urban planning methodologies developed in the 20th Century. The Transect is a unifying theory, serving as a framework for the various fields of urban design. The editors selected the most important previously published essays and commissioned preeminent academics and professionals to write on the use of the Transect in their areas of expertise, including retail, zoning, thoroughfare design, environmental sustainability, and philosophy. As diagrams and drawings are essential to the understanding and use of the Transect, this book also contains the most complete collection of Transect images ever published. Transect Urbanism will serve as a primary reference source for academics, students, and practitioners interested in creating great places. Andrés Duany is the author of numerous essays and articles and co-author of several books, including Suburban Nation: the Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, The Smart Growth Manual, Garden Cities: Agricultural Urbanism, and The New Civic Art. His work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Richard H. Driehaus Prize, the Jefferson Medal, The Vincent Scully Prize and several honorary doctorates. He is a co-founder of DPZ CoDesign, which has been a leader in planning, urban design, and architecture for more than 30 years, as well as a co-founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism. The nonprofit Center for Applied Transect Studies supports interdisciplinary research, publication, tools, and training for the design, coding, building and documentation of resilient Transect-based communities. It has supported the publication of numerous essays, papers, and books, including The Architecture of Community, The Smart Growth Manual, the Sprawl Repair Manual, The Language of Towns and Cities, Visions of Seaside, and The New Pioneers.