Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Inspiration
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- List of abbreviations and acronyms
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- One Introduction: Cities and public space
- Two Vancouver: (Re)presenting urban space
- Three Vancouver: Producing urban public space and city transformation
- Four Lowell: (Re)presenting urban space
- Five Lowell: Producing urban public space and city transformation
- Six Manchester: (Re)presenting urban space
- Seven Manchester: Producing urban public space and city transformation
- Eight Venturing beyond Lefebvre: Producing differential space
- Nine Conclusions: Differential space implications
- References
- Primary data sources
- Index
Seven - Manchester: Producing urban public space and city transformation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Inspiration
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- List of abbreviations and acronyms
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- One Introduction: Cities and public space
- Two Vancouver: (Re)presenting urban space
- Three Vancouver: Producing urban public space and city transformation
- Four Lowell: (Re)presenting urban space
- Five Lowell: Producing urban public space and city transformation
- Six Manchester: (Re)presenting urban space
- Seven Manchester: Producing urban public space and city transformation
- Eight Venturing beyond Lefebvre: Producing differential space
- Nine Conclusions: Differential space implications
- References
- Primary data sources
- Index
Summary
As for spatial practice, it is observed, described and analysed on a wide range of levels: in architecture, in city planning or ‘urbanism’ (a term borrowed from official pronouncements), in the actual design of routes and localities (‘town and country planning’) in the organisation of everyday life, and, naturally, in urban reality. (Lefebvre 1991: 414)
‘And we saw Castlefield very much as a sort of potential to be an international area of international renown, with principally leisure and tourism type activities with a bit of residential thrown in … Castlefield was of real significance in terms of opening it up in terms of the canal basins and we were there to make a real difference.’ (Glester 2008)
Introduction
This chapter contributes to a critical understanding of the production of Manchester space through an exploration of notable spatial moments in the 1980s and 1990s. In overall terms it explores the production of new public space in the Castlefield area focusing mainly on the decisive interventions of the Central Manchester Development Corporation (CMDC 1988–96), a third generation urban development corporation (UDC). This is not so much a case of the revisiting CMDC, but bringing a fresh perspective and a different theoretical lens to bear on a fascinating and vital moment in the production of space. In so doing the chapter argues that archival networks allow the further revelation of key moments in production of space histories. In order to contextualise the CMDC, a brief review of the 1980s reorientation of British urban policy is presented which explores the so far unproblematised emergence of British UDCs. One consequence of CMDC's intervention, the chapter argues, was the creation of the potential for the inadvertent production of differential space. Furthermore, this chapter explains why ‘Castlefield’ needs to be interrogated ontologically rather than accepted under this or that homogenous banner, for example privatised consumption (Mellor 1997), heritage tourism (Schofield 2000) or aesthetic exclusion through public space formalisation (Degen 2008; Kazimierczak 2014).
This chapter in common with the other empirical chapters weaves together the influence of alternative representations of space on spatial practice. Some of the counter-representations of space, which moved into the mainstream of city planning and urbanism in the post-industrial transition of the 1970s, are seen in this chapter to have continuing influence.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Exploring the Production of Urban SpaceDifferential Space in Three Post-Industrial Cities, pp. 225 - 264Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2016