Category: Urban Geography
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City-Regions of regions of cities?
On one of my daily walks across the campus of the University of Salford, I came across something that really encapsulated some of the current thinking of the local area. It was a piece of cardboard, maybe 5 inches by 15, wedged in the grills of the heras fencing that…
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Spaces of failure
While the media gaze has been on the Olympic site in the East End of London, the new Westfield shopping centre has quietly been rising from the dirt, and today, opens it’s doors to the public. While some have questioned whether a multi-million square-footed shopping megaplex will attract the custom…
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“To City or not city”
I read an article on Urban Acupuncture that cropped up on my RSS feed not too long ago and given it’s proposal of more community focused and localised approach to urban planning, it certainly struck a chord. Eerily reminiscent of what Jane Jacobs proposed back in 1968, the Finnish architect,…
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What a silly planker…
After the death of an Australian man who was ‘planking’, I can’t help but feel that the news coverage has been a little bit too ‘hang-ringing-y’ – and there have been some calls to ban it altogether (although further examination of this story suggests that the Australian PM did not call…
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Visualising Cities: Part 6… JB Cities
Does anyone else think that it’s not a coincidence that Jack Bauer and Jason Bourne have the same initials as James Bond? It’s more than a passing homage, the two nefarious super-secret agent characters, Bauer and Bourne have more than a passing resemblance to a ‘revamped’ James Bond 2.0 type…
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Practising urban diversity
I’ve been reading Sharon Zukin’s latest book, and it is a stark reminder of the plight of current urbanism. While focused solely on New York, the sentiments hold true for a number of other cities around the world (but by no means all). In criticizing Jacobs, a bold move it…
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Conceptualising Fictional Cities
Technology is reproducing cities very rapidly. Or shall I say producing cities? Not artificial cities, but experiential cities that are pure hyper-reality, a simulacrum space par excellence (to mesh Baurdiallardian and Deleuzian language). Reproducing cities is as easy as driving a car with a camera mounted on top and putting the…
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Global Urbanist post
Another quick pointer toward Global Urbanist, for whom I have recently written an article. The post briefly discusses the Creative City concept and the problems with ranking them. This forms part of my wider writings on the city, and I will be speaking on the topic in Istanbul in November,…
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Video lectures worth taking the time to watch… Part 2
It’s been a long time since I posted the first set of video lectures, but I’ve been accruing a few more since then so thought it pertinent to post a second set. These are an eclectic bunch, but encapsulate the rhizomic essence of modern day phenomena and resonate with my own…
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