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
One - Introduction: Cities and public 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
[To reveal the production of space] we should have to look at history itself in a new light. We should have to study not only the history of space, but also the history of representations along with that of their relationships – with each other, with practice, and with ideology. History would have to take in not only the genesis of these spaces but also, and especially, their interconnections, distortions, displacements, mutual interconnections, and their links with the spatial practice of the particular society… (Lefebvre 1991: 42)
The slums are also crowded to overflowing with immigrant colonies – the Ghetto, Little Sicily, Greektown, Chinatown – fascinatingly combining old world heritages and American adaptations. Wedging out from here is the Black Belt, with its free and disorderly life. The area of deterioration while essentially one of decay, of stationary or declining population, is also one of regeneration, as witness the mission, the settlement, the artists’ colony, radical centers – all obsessed with the vision of a new and better world. (Park 1984: 56)
Cities are the height of human achievement. Cities are fraught with ambivalence. We adore city life; it stimulates, entertains and excites. Conversely, urban experiences are scary, disorientating and may be physically and mentally deleterious. Cities are crucibles of democracy, yet remain cauldrons of inequality and injustice. Cities are open and tolerant, but perversely elitist and exclusionary. City streets present positive, unexpected encounters which can enrich our lives, but negative ones can disturb deeply. Ambivalence regarding the nascent modern industrial city was captured quintessentially in the visceral eloquence of Alexis de Tocqueville's disturbingly ambivalent assertion, that 1840s Manchester was a vile, filthy cesspit from which flowed pure gold, thereby allowing the attainment of civilisation while converting men of all ranks into desperate savages. Above all, it is in the public spaces of cities – streets, squares, piazzas, plazas and parks – that some of the best and the worst characteristics of urban life and society are created, observed and reproduced. These sites are the geographical focus of this book and are interrogated drawing on the spatial triad ideas promulgated by the French, Marxist, sociologist-philosopher Henri Lefebvre. Looking at history in a new light in this book means exploring the histories of shifting representations of space and ascertaining the implications for the production of space and what Lefebvre called differential space.
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- Exploring the Production of Urban SpaceDifferential Space in Three Post-Industrial Cities, pp. 1 - 40Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2016