Save the South Bank’s Undercroft April 24, 2013
Posted by Oli in Creativity, Culture, Gentrification, Human Geography, The Undercroft.Tags: The Undercroft
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The Subversive Beauty of the Undercroft
On the 6th March this year, I tweeted about plans to redevelop the South Bank in London. The following day, the full extent of these plans were detailed. The new ‘Festival Wing‘ development includes “the under-used spaces from the undercrofts” being turned into retail outlets, and the creation of a “new riverside area for urban arts”. This translates as the reconfiguring of the iconic skateboarders ‘mecca’ (known simply as the ‘undercroft’) into a row of shops, as it is a key site of entry into the new Festival Wing. Moreover, the plan is to create a new site in which the skateboarders and graffiti artists can go, situated a few hundred metres further west, under the Hungerford Bridge (more details here).
For me, this exemplifies many of the problems associated with current urban redevelopment policies. Not only is it a case of a consumerism that is predicated upon a rarified notion of urban culture trumping a subcultural community, but the notion that the skaters (and associated activities) can be ‘rehoused’ in a designated area shows a complete lack of understanding of how such activities work, and what they can bring to a city’s cultural offerings. There are many (inter-connected) reasons why I am in such staunch opposition to this particular part of the development, but for the sake of clarity, I have delineated them into 3 key points…
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The Las Vegas Affect April 5, 2013
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Reblogged from Landscape Surgery:
There has been a great deal of scorn poured on Las Vegas from the academy. From its low creative city ranking, its over-reliance on too narrow an industry base and its crippling ecological effects, Sin City has been attacked by urban, economic and environment geographers respectively. Baudrillard (1994: 91) has been equally as disparaging stating that the ‘liquidation’ of the mediated advertising architecture, and the “reabsorption of everything into the surface (whatever signs circulate there)… plunges us into this stupefied, hyperreal euphoria that we would not exchange for anything else, and that is the empty and inescapable form of seduction”.
Will the ‘Real’ Gentrifiers please stand up? February 19, 2013
Posted by Oli in Community Engagement, Creative Class, Gentrification, Robin Hood Gardens, Urban Geography.add a comment
Having given two lectures in a week that featured a long, detailed analysis of the creative class, it was perhaps with a little bit of cosmic timing that I came across this article that same week in The New Republic, on the ‘real’ problems of gentrification. The process of gentrification (and all it’s subsequent ‘real’ problems, more on that later) is obviously mechanistically linked to the inward migration of the ‘creative class’ into any given area of the city – which is essentially any of those places that are ‘cool’ and ‘bohemian’ this week (which is, now, apparently, it would seem, the suburbs). On first reading of the New Republic article, the genuflection to Jacobs and her ideals rang true enough, the championing of street culture and the lamentation of homogenized urban development is clearly in the vein of the much lauded Jacobsian urbanism. However, while it was commendable that the article was highlighting the ‘sterility’ of contemporary urban aesthetics, this is where it’s derision toward gentrification was focused – this, the article claimed, is the ‘real’ problem of gentrification. (more…)
Some other stuff… February 12, 2013
Posted by Oli in Films, Urban Geography.Tags: Other posts
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A quick post to let you know about some other bits and pieces that I’ve been penning around the Interweb and beyond.
First, having spent all too-brief a time in Shanghai last year I felt the best way to experience it was to take my camera and just start walking (in true De Certeauian style). One of the ‘threads’ that can be extricated involved creativity (what else?), and hence that is the theme of my piece for the excellent ThisBigCity blog – Creative Shanghai. It’s available in Traditional Chinese too.
Also, given that I watch too many films as it is, I thought the best way to make it a productive exercise (sorry, what was that? Impact?) was to start reviewing them. So I asked the lovely ThatFilmGuy if he’d let me be a regular contributor, and for some reason, he said yes, with my page here. The upshot of this is the occasional film screening, which is great, as it makes me feel like a proper film critic (even though clearly, I’m not). The recent review of Flight got some attention too if anyone managed to catch the TV advert for it recently.
Then, there is the Urban Subversions paper that was published in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, co-authored with Maria Daskalaki. This has been a major oeuvre for us two, taken as it has over 4 years to get published. If you want the pdf copy, feel free to email me and I’ll hurry you a copy.
Finally, there are some book chapters coming out on Media Cities and the Cultural Dimensions to Global Cities, which have actually been more enjoyable to write than some journal papers (why is that writing enjoyment is inversely proportional to REFability?), and the Cultural Quarter work is finally working it’s way through to publication. Again, if you want any of these articles, just let me know.
Reflexive Creativity in Urban Politics? January 16, 2013
Posted by Oli in Uncategorized.Tags: Creative Class, Creativity, Urban Geography, urban policy
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Montaigne Gallery, Shanghai
Many years ago I coined the phrase Urban Subversion that began as an interest in parkour as a creative act of urban re-appropriation. It soon became apparent as I looked for additional ways in which people were interacting with the city in novel and innovate ways, there was a small, but increasing swath of people who were actively reconfiguring their urban environment for sometimes playful, sometimes anti-hegemonic, and sometimes subversive, but always in creative and innovate ways. Nearly 5 years hence, Maria Daskalaki and I have (finally) managed to get the ideas and musings we had about Urban Subversions all those years ago published. In the intervening period, I have witnessed (first hand through my travels and via the relentless march toward information-domination of Twitter and social media) the boom of these kinds of creative engagements become popularised and in some cases, accepted as legitimate and formal urban development policies. The latest piece to confirm this was the ever-excellent PopUpCity claiming that local cultural and creative urban practices have ‘gone global’ (something which I championed last year).
Seoul: A Cyborg City December 11, 2012
Posted by Oli in Creative Industries, Seoul, Urban Geography.Tags: Seoul
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Mediation Par Excellence
Gazing upon the mediated architecture, video walls and fastidiousness of the esoterically sculpted digital installations of Seoul’s Digital Media City (DMC), it is hard not to think that you’ve somehow transferred from one city into another, without taking a step. A high-tech urban fantasy seamlessly superimposed onto the existing cityscape. Indeed in this way and in many others, Seoul can be thought of as a ‘Cyborg City’. (more…)
The High Line Jumped the Shark October 26, 2012
Posted by Oli in Community Engagement, Gentrification, Human Geography, Urban Geography.Tags: The High Line
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The High Line, New York City. Photo used with CC license by Canadian Veggie
Apparently, the High Line in New York City has been quite successful. It may have passed you by as there hasn’t really been anything about it in the press or the television or all over twitter, but it seems that many people quite like it and now every city worth it’s salt is engaging in ‘blue-sky’ thinking and coming up with ever-more ‘creative’ and ‘innovate’ ideas. From ‘Lido Lines’ to ‘Low Lines’ to ‘Insert-generic-antonym-here Line’, cities are now investing in revitalising old disused infrastructures to create new public spaces that the public can engage with. ’Re-imaging our cities for the 21st century‘ is how one article put it. This really was the straw that broke the camels back for me, and now, the High Line mania, it seems has well and truly ‘jumped the shark‘. The problems with the viral-like spread of the High Line-like phenomena are multi-faceted and I would wager than different people will have their own particular issues with it. But there are two main problems that have ‘surfaced’ because of city’s scramble to enact a High Line-like policy; first, the rush to gentrify with gimmicks, and second, the diversion of scarce public funds to do so.
Tower Block Cinema September 28, 2012
Posted by Oli in 9/11, Films, Urban Geography, Visualising Cities.Tags: Tower Blocks
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Verticality, claustrophobia, lawlessness, poverty. Just some of the themes that are stereotypically associated with tower block living, particular the old post-war brutalist, Le Corbusier-inspired monoliths that litter many cities not just here in the UK, but all over the world. Their architectural designs were meant to be liveable ‘streets in the sky’ but instead ended up resulting in lonely living, but with a panoptic overview of constant voyeurism from everyone else. The dystopic qualities are depressing and oppressive in equal measure, and as such make for fascinating arenas for cinematic narratives. The recent mini-wave of films set entirely in one tower block is evidence of this. The Raid, Dredd and Tower Block have all been released in recent months, and who can forgot John McClean in Nokatomi – all very good films in their own genre. What is it about these gargantuan concrete leviathans that make for such gripping viewing? This post tries to find out… (more…)
Toronto, “the World in One Place…” August 17, 2012
Posted by Oli in Creativity, Human Geography, parkour, Toronto.Tags: Toronto
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First off, an apology as I’m hideously late with this seeing as though I got back from Toronto at the end of June. But nevertheless, I felt that I should perhaps at least try to document my brief but exhausting visit to the ‘Hollywood of the North’. Thanks to the people at the Martin Prosperity Institute, I was invited over to their annual Experiencing the Creative Economy conference, and a big part of the scheduling is designed so as we get to see and experience as much of Toronto as physically possible in 4 days (short of an urban exploration tour with crowbars and manhole cover keys). Suffice to say, it was nowhere near as much as I wanted to experience, but as with any city I visit, I try to seek out as many instances of urban subversions or subcultural urbanity as I can. What follows then is a brief story of those which I saw…
Visualising Cities Part 7: Gotham, A City Devoid of Life July 31, 2012
Posted by Oli in Films, The Dark Knight Rises, Visualising Cities.add a comment
Gotham, a city devoid of life
I finally got round to seeing The Dark Knight Rises at the weekend. Don’t worry, this is not a review; but what struck me throughout the film (and in a sense, throughout the trilogy), is the narrative surrounding the city of Gotham itself, and how the director Christopher Nolan used it, for me, incorrectly. There a number of pieces of work (notably this one) about Gotham’s role in the Batman universe – the dank, dark, overtly gothic and crime-ridden city makes for a fantastic fictional playground of urban dystopias. However, for the purposes of this post, I will be referring to the Gotham seen in Nolan’s trilogy. (more…)
