Nineteenth-century urbanization as sacred process: insights from German Strasbourg

This article examines a crucial site for modernity’s encounter with religion during the long nineteenth century, albeit one largely ignored both by religious and urban historians: the modern big city. Drawing on evidence from Strasbourg, which joined the ranks of Germany’s big cities soon after the Franco-Prussian War, it points out first, that urbanization had a significant urban dimension. It altered the absolute and relative size of the city’s faith communities, affected the confessional composition of urban neighborhoods, and prompted faith communities to mark additional parts of the urban landscape as sacred. Second, while urban growth—both demographic and physical—frequently challenged traditional understandings of religious community, it also facilitated the construction of new understandings of piety and community, especially via voluntary organizations and the religious media. Thereby, urbanization emerged as a key force behind sacralization in city and countryside as the nineteenth century ended and the twentieth began.

Comparative approaches to measuring food access in urban areas: the case of Portland, Oregon

GIS methods are used to construct measures of food access for neighbourhoods in the Portland, Oregon, US metropolitan area and the sensitivity of such measures to methodological variation is examined. The level of aggregation of data inputs is varied and the effect of using both Euclidean and street network distances is tested. It is found that, regardless of the level of geographical disaggregation, distance-based measures generate approximately the same conclusions about the distribution of food access in the area. It is also found that, while the relationship between street network and Euclidean distances varies with population density, measures computed with either construct generate the same relative patterns of food access. These findings suggest that results from food access studies employing disparate methodologies can often be compared.

"Near and far": social distancing in domiciled characterisations of homeless people

For domiciled individuals, homeless people provide a disturbing reminder that all is not right with the world. Reactions to seeing homeless people frequently encompass repulsion, discomfort, sympathy and sometimes futility. This paper considers domiciled constructions of homeless people drawn from interviews with 16 participants recruited in the central business district of a New Zealand city. It documents how, when trying to make sense of this complex social problem, domiciled people draw on shared characterizations of homeless people. The concept of "social distance" is used to interrogate the shifting and sometimes incongruous reactions evident in participant accounts. "Social distancing" is conceptualised as a dynamic communal practice existing in interactions between human beings and reflected in the ways that domiciled people talk about their experiences with homeless individuals.

Reclaiming respectability? The class-cultural dynamics of crime, community and governance in inner-city Dublin

This paper critically examines developments in Irish urban governance through an ethnographic account of one community's historical memory and contemporary structure. During an era of rapid economic growth, the Irish state has courted previously excluded communities, offering them greater "inclusion" as "partners" in responding to urban decay and crime. The micro-governance structures this creates, however, become sites of contest between competing community factions and class-cultural imperatives. Tensions emerge between aspirational community leaders championing the aesthetics (if not the values) of "respectability" and residual residents who are presented as "rough". The paper demonstrates that nuances of class-cultural identity dictate the character of partnership governance at the community level with particular implications for local regeneration and crime control agendas.

"The very model of modern urban decay": outsiders' narratives of industry and urban decline in Gary, Indiana

In the eyes of many, the steel city of Gary, Indiana, entered a period of decline in the middle of the twentieth century. The once great city was seemingly racked by job loss, crime, racial division, or moral decay. Which of these caused the decline of the city depended upon the perspective of the story's teller. Each narrative of decline contained a different moment where the city went wrong and it began to decay. For some it was the moral decay of the 1950s, for others it was the rise of black power and politics in the 1960s, for still others it was the white backlash against civil rights in the 1970s. Some saw a microcosm of America, some saw a dangerous cauldron of race and ethnicity. The source of decline and the origins of the urban crisis were largely in the eye of the beholder. The stories people chose to tell about Gary mattered because for much of the twentieth century, Gary was at the center of American narratives about industrialism. These were outsider narratives of decline read onto the Indiana steel city because Gary represented larger debates. People read onto Gary their changing expectations and anxieties about industry and industrial spaces. This article traces the changing attitudes outsiders held toward Gary from the middle of the twentieth century through the period of deindustrialization at the end of the century and examines American narratives about deindustrialization and urban decline.

Sexing Berlin?

Berlin has always been a literary space of extremely diverse political and cultural projections. This essay investigates why after the unification of East and West Berlin the city has been imagined as a play zone of sexual self-fulfilment by authors such as Inka Parei, Tanja Dückers, Kathrin Röggla, Judith Hermann and Julia Franck. Have such erotic adventures replaced political vision in our post-utopian decade? What is the purpose of the laboured allegorisation of the fall of the wall in Durs Grünbein's essays or in the novels of Katja Lange-Müller and Thomas Hettche? The sexification of historical and political processes recalls similar stereotypes in the East German literature of the 1980s: the metropolis as a whore in works by Heiner Müller or Wolf Biermann, but also by younger authors of the independent literary scene in Berlin like Uwe Kolbe or Frank-Wolf Matthies.

Do we still need cities? Evidence on rates of innovation from count data models of metropolitan statistical area patents

Evidence of the importance of urban agglomeration and the offsetting effects of congestion are provided in a number of studies of productivity and wages. Little attention has been paid to this evidence in the economic growth literature, where the recent focus is on technological change. We extend the idea of agglomeration and congestion effects to the area of innovation by empirically looking for a nonlinear link between population density and patent activity. A panel data set consisting of observations on 302 USA metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) over a 10-year period from 1990 to 1999 is utilized. Following the patent and R&D literature, models that account for the discreet nature of the dependent variable are employed. Strong evidence is found that agglomeration and congestion are important in explaining the vast differences in patent rates across US cities. The most important reason cities continue to exist, given the dramatic drop in transportation costs for physical goods over the last century, is probably related to the forces of agglomeration as they apply to knowledge spillovers. Therefore, the empirical investigation proposed here is an important part of understanding the viability of urban areas in the future.

From source to sink: "official" and "improved" water in Delhi, 1868–1956

This article examines the making of a modern colonial city through the rhetoric of ‘improvement’ and ‘progress’ in relation to water. The reference is to the history of water in the city of Delhi and what may be called ‘the first science of environment’ in a colonial urban context, with a focus not so much on the ‘extent’ of water supply and drainage, and its (in)adequacy in the colonial city, as on concerns around the ‘(im)purity’ of water, narratives of pollution, technologies of purity and the transformations they effected in a colonial context. In doing so it hopes to build upon a rich tradition of writings on urban water, its modernisation as also its location within a colonial regime, being suggestive of a framework in which we may consider water both as infrastructure and as environment, as much a network of pipes and drains as matters of pollution and well-being, as much a story of the search for and protection of the source as of the fate of the sink into which it ultimately flows.

Ghettos and enclaves in the cross-place realm: mapping socially bounded spaces across cities

Since the early Chicago School, urban researchers have used residential proximity to assess contacts within and between racial and ethnic groups. This approach is increasingly limited. Diverse groups use email, social networking sites, instant messaging and mobile phones to communicate across urban zones and distant cities. These practices enable mutual support among far-flung family members and co-ethnics as they engage with an array of institutions throughout their day. Through interviews and observations that include women and men of diverse occupations, races and national origins, the author explores how and why cross-place enclosures of sociality and resources develop. Rather than framing the residential area as the locus of racial/ethnic concentration, the author focuses on cross-place concentrations in the technologically mediated workspace. This study enhances theorization of the structural negotiations, interpersonal pressures and group preferences that produce separate lifeworlds in globalizing cities.

The potential reuse of biodegradable municipal solid wastes (MSW) as feedstocks in vermicomposting

There is an urgent need globally to find alternative sustainable steps to treat municipal solid wastes (MSW) originated from mismanagement of urban wastes with increasing disposal cost. Furthermore, a conglomeration of ever-increasing population and consumerist lifestyle is contributing towards the generation of more MSW. In this context, vermicomposting offers excellent potential to promote safe, hygienic and sustainable management of biodegradable MSW. It has been demonstrated that, through vermicomposting, MSW such as city garbage, household and kitchen wastes, vegetable wastes, paper wastes, human faeces and others could be sustainably transformed into organic fertiliser or vermicompost that provides great benefits to agricultural soil and plants. Generally, earthworms are sensitive to their environment and require temperature, moisture content, pH and sometimes ventilation at proper levels for the optimum vermicomposting process. Apart from setting the optimum operational conditions for the vermicomposting process, other approaches such as pre-composting, inoculating micro-organisms into MSW and redesigning the conventional vermireactor could be introduced to further enhance the vermicomposting of MSW. Thus the present mini-review discusses the potential of introducing vermicomposting in MSW management, the benefits of vermicomposted MSW to plants, suggestions on how to enhance the vermicomposting of MSW as well as risk management in the vermicomposting of MSW.

Comprehensive evaluation of municipal garbage disposal in Changchun City by the strategic environmental assessment

PURPOSE

The environmental issues caused by the municipal solid waste disposal are becoming a worldwide concern.

METHODS

We studied the situations both domestically and abroad by the strategic environmental assessment (SEA) approach and also conducted comprehensive evaluations of garbage disposal in Changchun City.

RESULTS

On the basis of this study, we found that SEA is of great importance in the municipal solid waste disposal. Moreover, with the rapid socioeconomic development of Changchun City, municipal solid waste production increases on an annual basis, and thus, good waste management planning is of great significance.

CONCLUSIONS

Considering the situation of the economic development of Changchun City, garbage disposal was handled mainly in the major sanitary landfills with appropriate use of incineration technology. This plan is environmentally friendly at a relatively high degree and has met the requirements of minimum investment. It also takes into account the requirements of the development of incineration technology. Regarding environmental pollution in terms of groundwater pollution and atmospheric pollution, this plan is a feasible one by meeting various requirements with low environmental impact among the three plans discussed in this study.

Application of catastrophe loss modelling to promote property insurance in developing countries

Many mega cities in developing countries are exposed to the sources of natural catastrophes, particularly seismic activity. A high level of seismic hazard in some of these places, coupled with a relatively high degree of vulnerability within the built environment, can result in dire human and economic consequences. This paper contains examples of such potentially disruptive factors in relation to Tehran, Iran. It presents preliminary seismic loss estimates for residential buildings in a pilot area of northern Tehran. The paper briefly investigates the effectiveness of risk management measures and loss compensation mechanisms before assessing the feasibility of an insurance-based risk transfer instrument for managing potential seismic losses among residential buildings in Tehran. It goes on to suggest how probabilistic catastrophe loss modelling can help local insurers to manage their portfolios and facilitate risk sharing among insurance companies and households. Finally, the paper addresses the question of how catastrophe loss modelling can help to strengthen the penetration of property insurance in developing countries.

Disparities in neighborhood food environments: implications of measurement strategies

Public health researchers have begun to map the neighborhood “food environment” and examine its association with the risk of overweight and obesity. Some argue that “food deserts”—areas with little or no provision of fresh produce and other healthy food—may contribute to disparities in obesity, diabetes, and related health problems. While research on neighborhood food environments has taken advantage of more technically sophisticated ways to assess distance and density, in general, it has not considered how individual or neighborhood conditions might modify physical distance and thereby affect patterns of spatial accessibility. This study carried out a series of sensitivity analyses to illustrate the effects on the measurement of disparities in food environments of adjusting for cross-neighborhood variation in vehicle ownership rates, public transit access, and impediments to pedestrian travel, such as crime and poor traffic safety. The analysis used geographic information systems data for New York City supermarkets, fruit and vegetable markets, and farmers' markets and employed both kernel density and distance measures. We found that adjusting for vehicle ownership and crime tended to increase measured disparities in access to supermarkets by neighborhood race/ethnicity and income, while adjusting for public transit and traffic safety tended to narrow these disparities. Further, considering fruit and vegetable markets and farmers' markets, as well as supermarkets, increased the density of healthy food outlets, especially in neighborhoods with high concentrations of Hispanics, Asians, and foreign-born residents and in high-poverty neighborhoods.

Constructing a sense of community in rapidly growing European cities in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries

The rapid growth of cities from the eleventh to the thirteenth century raises the question of how a sense of community was created among inhabitants who were migrants from disparate backgrounds. Before urban institutions and legislation emerged, informal social structures based on trust networks appear to have fostered socialization and an adaptation to new ways of life. Travelling merchants created various kinds of associations which were at the origins of the sworn communes. The merchants' guilds also strove to protect citizens on their travels. The growth of the cities led to the need to institutionalize these functions.

Cities and peripheries

This article addresses a methodological problem of urban history faced with the current environmental crisis that urges us to think of humans as ‘geological’ agents. It suggests that the concept of the uncanny that pushes our understanding of spatio-temporality may be a useful device for approaching the methodological need to reconcile what we can and cannot experience/visualize. Viewing the mapping projects around Calcutta in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries through the lens of the uncanny offers us the possibility of such a reconciliation. It enables us to see the landscape as a product of multiple spatio-temporal modes, and loosens the grip of the current urban vocabulary on our imagination of cities.

Density zoning and class segregation in U.S. metropolitan areas

Socioeconomic segregation rose substantially in U.S. cities during the final decades of the 20th century, and we argue that zoning regulations are an important cause of this increase.Methods. We measure neighborhood economic segregation using the Gini coefficient for neighborhood income inequality and the poor-affluent exposure index. These outcomes are regressed on an index of density zoning developed from the work of Pendall for 50 U.S. metropolitan areas, while controlling for other metropolitan characteristics likely to affect urban housing markets and class segregation.Results. For both 2000 and changes from 1990 to 2000, OLS estimates reveal a strong relationship between density zoning and income segregation, and replication using 2SLS suggests that the relationship is causal. We also show that zoning is associated with higher interjurisdictional inequality.Conclusions. Metropolitan areas with suburbs that restrict the density of residential construction are more segregated on the basis of income than those with more permissive density zoning regimes. This arrangement perpetuates and exacerbates racial and class inequality in the United States.

Sculpted landscapes: art & place in Cleveland's Cultural Gardens, 1916-2006

Perhaps the world's first peace garden, the Cleveland Cultural Gardens embody the history of twentieth-century America and reveal the complex interrelations between art and place. This essay uses the Cleveland Cultural Gardens as a lens through which to explore how art and place have intersected over time. It explores how communities have negotiated questions of national, ethnic, and American identity and embedded those identities into the vernacular landscape. It considers how the particulars of place were embedded into a public garden and asks whether it is possible for public art to transcend its place—both in terms of geography and history. In some sense, the Gardens have transcended their place, but in others respects, their fortunes were bound inextricably to that place, to the economic, demographic, and cultural contours that shaped and reshaped Northern Ohio. As works of art, the Cleveland Cultural Gardens both have reflected the history of Cleveland and American industrial cities during the 20th century and revealed something of the dynamics that underscored the changing character of public art and gardens in American cities.

Microcosms of democracy: imagining the city neighborhood in World War II-era America

This essay sketches the rise of a Popular Front-inflected vision of the U.S. city neighborhood's meaning and worth, a communitarian ideal that reached its zenith during World War II before receding in the face of cold-war anxieties, postwar suburbanization, and trepidation over creeping blight. During the war years, numerous progressives interpreted the ethnic-accented urban neighborhood as place where national values became most concrete, casting it as a uniquely American rebuff to the fascist drive for purity. Elaborations appeared in the popular press's celebratory cadences, in writings by educators and social scientists such as Rachel DuBois and Louis Wirth, and in novels, plays, and musicals by Sholem Asch, Louis Hazam, Kurt Weill, Langston Hughes, and others. Each offered new ways for making sense of urban space, yet their works reveal contradictions and uncertainties, particularly in an inability to meld competing impulses toward assimilation and particularism. Building on the volume's theme "The Arts in Place," this essay examines these texts as a collective form of imaginative "placemaking." It explores the conflicted mode of liberal nationalism that took the polyglot city neighborhood as emblem. And it outlines the fissures embedded in that vision, which emerged more fully as the provisional wartime consensus dissolved.

Freud in Trieste: journey to an ambiguous city

This article provides an insightful exploration of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and the city of Trieste. Through an analysis of the correspondence between Freud and his friend Eduard Silberstein, Gandolfi follows those places visited by the future father of psychoanalysis and analyses their link to Freud's life. The journey to Trieste is considered as an experience that played a fundamental role in his future decisions as well as in the development of some of his psychoanalytic theories. The article eventually relates the ambiguous nature of the city - a peculiar space in with North and South, East and West converge - to Freud's own Triestine experience, that not only remits to his initial scientific researches, but also symbolizes a first significant contact with the world of sexuality.

The regulation of prostitution in Beyoğlu (1875-1915)

This study examines the development and nature of the regulation of prostitution in Beyoğlu during the late Ottoman Empire with special emphasis on the way the regulationist regime reinforced existing patterns of class and gender domination. The regulation of prostitution became a matter of urgency in the last decades of the nineteenth century in Istanbul, particularly in Beyoğlu, the cosmopolitan centre of the city. Through this process, the protests of the local residents of the area objecting to the proliferation of prostitution in their neighbourhoods played a crucial role in prompting the governmental authorities to tighten the regulations.

Race, urban governance, and crime control: creating model cities

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the city of Seattle received federal Department of Housing and Urban Development “Model cities” funds to address issues of racial disenfranchisement in the city. Premised under the “Great Society” ethos, Model cities sought to remedy the strained relationship between local governments and disenfranchised urban communities. Though police-community relations were not initially slated as an area of concern in the city's grant application, residents of the designated “model neighborhood” pressed for the formation of a law and justice task force to address the issue. This article examines the process and outcome of the two law-and-justice projects proposed by residents of the designated “model neighborhood”: the Consumer Protection program and the Community Service Officer project. Drawing on the work of legal geographies scholars, I argue that the failure of each of these efforts to achieve residents' intentions stems from the geographical imagination of urban problems. Like law-and-order projects today, the geographical imagination of the model neighborhood produced a discourse of exceptionality that subjected residents to extraordinary state interventions. The Model cities project thus provides an example of a “history of the present” of mass incarceration in which the geographical imagination of crime helps facilitate the re-creation of a racialized power structure.

Back to the garden: communes, the environment, and antiurban pastoralism at the end of the sixties

This essay examines the complicated relationship among hippie communes, the environmental movement, and New Left and Black Power militants in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In those relationships lie the roots of the divide that separated environmental issues on one hand and urban issues on the other during the 1970s and beyond. This essay examines how the fight between militants and back-to-the-land communards and environmentalists, between what we might call urban progressives and antiurban progressives, was staged as a fight between those who cared about the issues of the city and those who turned their backs on them. In this way, this essay locates the city more centrally in politics of the era.

Tales of deviance and control: on space, rules, and law in squatter settlements

In Latin American cities, around a third of the urban population lives in tenure situations that can be designated as informal, yet variation in the ways and extent to which these arrangements do not comply with law is extensive. Furthermore, informal dwellers often employ a variety of strategies to legitimize and ultimately legalize their tenure, implying a dynamic rather than a static relationship between illegality and legality. Conceiving of land tenure in dichotomous terms, as simply being either legal or illegal, therefore, fails to reflect this diversity, nor does it capture the evolving nature of the relationship between informal settlements and the state system. Drawing from the development of squatter settlements in Buenos Aires, this article proposes an alternative perspective and shows how settlements alternate strategies of noncompliance with adaptation to the state legal system to gradually increase their legality.