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
Six - Manchester: (Re)presenting urban space
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
Amid the various doubts and uncertainties with which ignorance and inattention have clouded the Roman geography of our island, no uncertainty has ever arisen and no doubt has ever been stated concerning the wellknown claim of Manchester to the character of a Roman Station … A Roman station has been acknowledged by all the antiquarians to have been constructed upon the bank of the Medlock and within the circuit of the Castle-field. And the station is considered by all of them to have been the denominated Mancunium of the Roman Itinerary. (The Rev John Whitaker 1771: 1–2)
The more carefully one examines space, considering it not only with the eyes, not only with intellect, but also with all the senses, with the total body, the more clearly one becomes aware of the conflicts at work within it … Spatial practice is neither determined by an existing system, be it urban or ecological, nor adapted to a system, be it economic or political. On the contrary, thanks to the potential energies of a variety of groups capable of diverting homogenized space to their own purposes, theatricalized dramatized space is liable to arise. (Lefebvre 1991: 391)
Introduction
George Orwell nominated Manchester the belly and guts of the nation in his seminal text The Road to Wigan Pier, perhaps to echo the similar claim by Emile Zola for Les Halles market in his 1873 novel The Belly of Paris. With its slaughter houses and produce markets, Castlefield for a time was certainly the belly and guts of Manchester. In contrast, one of the world's first modern industrial city tourist guide books by James Ogden, A Description of Manchester (1783), urged visitors to begin in Castlefield, something which had become unthinkable by the 1950s, when the eminent historian A. J. P. Taylor (1977) condemned Castlefield unflatteringly as the bottom of Deansgate. Two intriguing issues partially provided the springboard for the empirical research presented in this chapter. First, Manchester City Council's (MCC) official description of the Castlefield Conservation Area makes the interesting though apparently innocuous claim that ‘The railway complex at Liverpool Road was sold to a conservation group for L1’ (MCC 2008).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Exploring the Production of Urban SpaceDifferential Space in Three Post-Industrial Cities, pp. 185 - 224Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2016