Search

Focusing on the construction of London's West India Docks in 1802, I argue that this project established a feedback loop with conditions of production in the Caribbean. Through an analysis of committee minutes, letters, parliamentary papers and visual art, I move beyond economic accounts of slavery's impact to demonstrate how geographies of security and surveillance—first developed on the sugar plantation—were imported into the design and function of London's port. As such, I argue that London's docks produced a geography of segregation which offers a unique insight into the workings of racial capitalism and its exploitation of group‐differentiated vulnerabilities. Positioning my discussion alongside London's contemporary landscape, I excavate Britain's repressed memories of slavery to illustrate how they still scar the urban environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to work on the social life of time. It focuses on how time is doubled; produced by, and productive of, the relations and processes it operates through. In particular, it explores the methodological implications of this conception of time for how social scientists may study the doubledness of time. It draws on an allied move within the social sciences to see methods as themselves doubled, as both emerging from and constitutive of the social worlds that they seek to understand. We detail our own very different methodological experiments with studying the social life of time in London, engaging interactive documentary to elucidate nonlinear imaginaries of space-time in London's pop-up culture (Ella Harris) and encountering time on a series of walks along a particular stretch of road in south east London (Beckie Coleman). While clearly different projects in terms of their content, ambition and scope, in bringing these projects together, we show the ability of our methods to grasp and perform from multiple angles and scales what Sharma (2014) calls 'temporal architectures'. Temporal architectures, composed of elements including the built environment, commodities, services, technologies and labour, are infrastructures that enable social rhythms and temporal logics and that can entail a politicized valuing of the time of certain groups over others. We aim to contribute to an expanded and enriched conceptualisation of methods for exploring time, considering what our studies might offer to work on the doubled social life of time and methods, and highlighting in particular their implications for an engagement with a politics of time and temporality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of VAD: Veredes, Arquitectura y Divulgación is the property of Alberto Alonso Oro and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Zadie Smith's first novel White Teeth has been interpreted as a metaphor for national unity in a multicultural society, suggesting that the layers of racial and cultural differences hold commonalities, like the “white teeth” that symbolize unity within the notion of diversity. Defined as a contemporary epic, the novel’s expansive and dynamic narrative reflects on Britain's postcolonial, Multicultural identity, examining the transformed reality of contemporary England. Critics address the novel’s postmodern variety of styles and genres that mirror the plurality that is characteristic for a multicultural society. Zadie Smith’s story and its narrative approach convey the complexity of a multicultural nation, pointing to the fact that old categorizations of race do not capture the true diversity of contemporary English society. Despite the multicultural perspectives, the novel also reflects on the powerful influence of historical and cultural legacies. Namely, the remnants of the past, be it the ancestral roots of individuals or the colonial past of England, hinder the emergence of a cosmopolitan multicultural identity. This paper aims to explore the notions of multiculturalism and national identity within the novel, through the family dynamics of the Jones’, the Iqbals, and the Chalfens. Through the interconnected stories of their relationships, the novel unveils a rich world in which conflict and cohabitation are textured through cross-cultural fusion. London, the epitome for cosmopolitanism, is the setting that offers a space for critical exploration. The paper further aims at focusing on the family conflicts, that serve as an example of the struggle to balance the influence of the cultural and historical influences. It also suggests that fixed beliefs about race and culture problematize the ideal of cultural pluralism in postcolonial England White Teeth, does not simply depict a mosaic of cultures existing in their separate realms, it reflects on the dynamic space where integration, assimilation, privilege, and racism interact in complex ways. In addition, the paper provides two views to London’s multicultural reality: practical, as presented through the actions and interactions of the characters, and a theoretical, one that defines multiculturalism through an ideological framework. The novels depiction of the city integrates postmodernist elements to point out the challenges of a multicultural society that is evolving toward cohesion against the forces of disunity. The paper acknowledges a dual depiction of London which shows that the city is not a simple mosaic of cultures that live in harmony, yet it is a rather dynamic environment where privilege and oppression, racism and integration are interrelated. Smith’s London is not a mere passive environment, it is a potent source for new forms of cultural and political action. In this regard, the paper argues that such diverse settings offer opportunities to question and reshape social norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since austerity policies in the UK began in 2010, homelessness has risen rapidly. Drawing from feminist geographical theories and methodologies, this paper examines experiences of homelessness under austerity in Haringey, London through photo‐elicitation research with one participant, Tessa. This paper argues that home(un)making—the constantly shifting balance of homemaking and unmaking—is central to everyday experiences of, and resistance to, austerity. The paper first demonstrates how Tessa resists austerity through practices of homemaking that enable her to cope with the difficulties of homelessness at a time of austerity. Next, it explores how Tessa's relationships with other actors in the homeless shelter—other residents and government officials—contributed to processes of home‐unmaking, exacerbating the hardships she experiences. By developing the concept of home(un)making, therefore, this paper aims to show the dynamism of home for homeless people under austerity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impacts of Brexit as an external shock to European financial centre relations. In particular, it studies the changing nature of Paris-London financial relations post Brexit. Early on in the Brexit process, Paris was not understood as the most likely European centre to benefit from Brexit given its tax regime and high office costs. However, our analysis shows that through policy and corporate network change, it has been one of the major beneficiaries. In making this argument, the paper develops a sympathetic critique of work on global cities that has tended to emphasise corporate networks without fully situating them within their political landscapes. We argue that bringing work in economic geography into closer dialogue with work in international political economy offers one fruitful way of addressing this oversight and, in turn, better understanding how inter-city relations respond to external shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper is concerned with the situated production of opinions in human geography research. Drawing on an online focus group project in which university students were asked to discuss smartphone use in urban greenspace, I'm interested in how our methods can make opinions as much as collect those that are already assumed to exist. Why were these students inclined to speak of having and sharing opinions? How important should opinions be to us if they are not actively influencing the everyday lives of those who we hope to understand in our studies? And what does this all say about staging effective group discussion in the discipline? This paper considers how opinions feature in human geography research and how focus groups are organised most effectively. It does this by drawing on a study in which university students were asked to discuss smartphone use in urban greenspace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A mature developed urban area like London has various policy tools to trigger economic development and leverage poverty. The scale of economic inequality in London has called for more effective policy tools to leverage poverty and close the gaps of economic inequality. Opportunity Areas is one of the tools in urban regeneration to alleviate poverty and develop communities. After over a decade of the policy rollout we have little knowledge how effective this type of policy tool is. The project investigates how effective opportunity areas for economic growth and societal development in London. The key economic indicators including unemployment rate and house price were assessed at MSOA/ward levels in London to understand their spatial variation through GIS mapping. Subsequently, socio-economic factors of commercial land use, culture infrastructure and public transport accessibility were discussed and selected to explore whether they have impacts on the difference of economic performance within opportunity areas. The spatial impacts of these factors among wards/MSOA were evaluated by Geographically Weighted Regression. The research discussed these factors' variations in Lee Valley, Park Royal and Croydon. Finally, this paper argued that local geographical context has limitations for small area growth corresponding to general policy and strategic management plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses methodological approaches to comparative urban geography and the consequences of such approaches. It demonstrates three ways by which an imaginative comparison can be constructed and employed: letting the sites speak to one another, repeated instance analysis, and tracing. Successfully employing these methods requires adopting comparison as both an implicit ethos and explicit approach during data collection and analysis, answering "why is it different here?" Reflecting on the impact of utilising comparative approaches, I argue that comparative urbanism helps balance the unique and ubiquitous conclusions from research, and forces researchers to question the norms or assumptions they hold from doing singular case study research, which in turn foregrounds the situational nature of urban governance in analysis. In the specifics of this paper, it also helps uncover assumptions around the power of state and reveals (some) global elite urban networks. This paper addresses methodological approaches to comparative urban geography and the consequences of such approaches. It demonstrates three ways by which an imaginative comparison can be constructed and employed: letting the sites speak to one another, repeated instance analysis, and tracing. Successfully employing these methods requires adopting comparison as both an implicit ethos and explicit approach during data collection and analysis, answering "why is it different here?" [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 2020, a Suburban Taskforce was established by Members of Parliament (MPs) in the UK. This Taskforce argued that the experiences of suburbs in England were poorly understood by policy-makers and developers, practitioners, and the general public. Over the two years of research and engagement that followed, a key consideration to emerge was the management of change and particularly in the context of growth pressures evident in Outer London. This has synergies with recent trends in suburban research that turn away from negative framings of places in extended metropolitan areas, such as 'edgeness' (not in the city) and 'in-between-ness' (neither urban nor rural activity). Instead, there is increasing focus on suburban cultural dynamics and political ecology. Drawing on these ideas, this paper looks at suburbs as landscapes with natural and built elements, as well as diverse activities, and focuses on the processes of blending. The evidence and views presented to the Taskforce are used to investigate the blended landscapes of Outer London. The paper explores the elements and development rationalities in two London Boroughs, Sutt on and Waltham Forest, and the context that shapes choices. The findings suggest that, while not discounting the significance of growth pressures and limits to local control, suburban landscapes are heavily influenced by responses to local socio-economic concerns, historic urban form, and the politics of local development. The paper concludes by reflecting on the directions of change in the study areas, and the significance of dynamics of ongoing blending of the landscapes across outer parts of major cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores some of the institutional and theoretical silences within debates on infrastructural violence with reference to migrant women survivors of gendered violence. Drawing from feminist thinking around structural and symbolic oppression, it develops the notion of gendered infrastructural violence to help understand how migrant women survivors navigate statutory and non-statutory institutions when seeking support. Empirically, the paper elucidates how diverse Brazilian migrant women in London negotiate multiple forms of passive and active infrastructural violence played out in terms of xenophobia, discrimination and a hostile immigration environment. Such experiences can dissuade them from reporting due to actual and perceived fear of further violence being perpetrated against them. While infrastructural violence perpetrated by an oppressive racial state can exacerbate Brazilian migrant women's suffering of direct gendered abuse, migrant and/or feminist organisations provide invaluable support and an essential protective bulwark. Yet these experiences are mediated differently depending on women's social locations in terms of intersecting race, class, occupational and immigration status and language competencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An emerging theme within the mega-events literature is the ways they affect the provision, regulation and design of urban public spaces. Parks, streets and squares host competition venues, and are also used for supplementary occasions and facilities associated with hosting mega-events. Using examples from the London 2012 Olympic Games and Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, this paper examines the long-term significance of mega-events for urban public spaces. The paper contends that these events can be used as 'Trojan Horses', allowing new systems to be introduced under the cover of an event. It also emphasizes how temporary mega-events transform public spaces into venues for subsequent commercial events. Finally, the paper acknowledges more positive legacies, showing how mega-events can change how public space is imagined by users and by those responsible for managing it. Both cases highlight how events influence the ways spaces are used, designed and managed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding on if and how hotel senior managers (HSMs) in four-star chain hotels in London and Stockholm implemented crisis management techniques (CMTs) as a response to the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative questionnaires were sent to 30 HSMs in London and Stockholm. From the feedback, this paper assesses, using thematic analysis, differences in CMTs used, past and present, alluding to COVID-19's economic impacts on hotels. Findings: Results determined that crises broadly economically impacted destinations similarly through loss of travellers and thus revenue. However, with a more intricate and specific assessment, destinations are impacted differently; thus, CMTs must alter. Findings show many CMTs can be implemented to reduce crises' economic impacts. The literature review and empirical results allude to many previous and current CMTs, although these must be relevant and specific to the crisis, hotel and/or destination. Practical implications: This paper has theoretical implications for academics on, among other things, theory building. Practically, it supports hotels in developing and determining CMTs to reduce the economic impacts of crises, to be better prepared when another pandemic emerges and contributes to the tourism and hospitality industry's knowledge of management strategy within crises. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first Swedish study focusing on post-COVID-19 crisis management in hotels in London and Stockholm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly shifted how individuals navigate in cities. Governments are concerned that travel behavior will shift toward a car-driven and homeworking future, shifting demand away from public transport use. These concerns place the recovery of public transport in a possible crisis. A resilience perspective may aid the discussion around recovery – particularly one that deviates from pre-pandemic behavior. This paper presents an empirical study of London's public transport demand and introduces a perspective of spatial resilience to the existing body of research on post-pandemic public transport demand. This study defines spatial resilience as the rate of recovery in public transport demand within census boundaries over a period after lockdown restrictions were lifted. The relationship between spatial resilience and urban socioeconomic factors was investigated by a global spatial regression model and a localized perspective through Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) model. In this case study of London, the analysis focuses on the period after the first COVID-19 lockdown restrictions were lifted (June 2020) and before the new restrictions in mid-September 2020. The analysis shows that outer London generally recovered faster than inner London. Factors of income, car ownership and density of public transport infrastructure were found to have the greatest influence on spatial patterns in resilience. Furthermore, influential relationships vary locally, inviting future research to examine the drivers of this spatial heterogeneity. Thus, this research recommends transport policymakers capture the influences of homeworking, ensure funding for a minimum level of service, and advocate for a polycentric recovery post-pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In global cities such as London and Tokyo, there are neighbourhoods where ethnic, religious, cultural and other forms of diversity associated with migration are commonplace and others where migrants are regarded as unusual or even out-of-place. In both types of contexts, migrant-run eateries are spaces in which people of various backgrounds interact. In some contexts, eateries may serve as 'third places' in which regular forms of intercultural conviviality occur, yet in others, interactions are civil but fleeting. This comparative paper is based on findings from two ethnographic neighbourhood studies in West Tokyo and East London. The Tokyo neighbourhood of Nishi-Ogikubo is one of emerging diversity, in which migrant entrepreneurship is rather new and uncommon, whereas East London has seen immigration for decades and migrant-run businesses are so common as to be taken-for-granted. In Tokyo the Japanese norms of 'drinking communication' in small eating and drinking spots inevitably involve migrant proprietors and their customers more deeply in social interactions. In East London, in contrast, intercultural interactions are much more commonplace in public and semi-public spaces, but in the case of migrant-run eateries, they are characterized by somewhat superficial encounters. This paper contributes to scholarship on the role of third places for intercultural relations, highlighting the importance of established cultural norms of interaction in specific third places. By comparing two vastly different contexts regarding the extent of immigration-related diversity, it demonstrates how encounters between residents of different backgrounds are deeply embedded in cultural norms of interaction in these places, and how migrant entrepreneurs in each context adapt to these established norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Annual Review of the Faculty of Philosophy / Godisnjak Filozofskog Fakulteta is the property of Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper critically engages with the increasingly prevalent concept and practice of "urban experimentation" and associated transformations towards sustainability. Too often, the paper argues, urban experiments are assessed from a diffusion-oriented perspective which foregrounds questions of how to replicate lessons from (similar) experiments across (similar) places. This common perspective implies an over-emphasis of unifying visions and rationales at the expense of diverging interpretations of "sustainability"; a neglect of "unsuccessful" experiments and questions of persistence; and an over-focus on certain types of – "green" or "creative" – places while disregarding the emergence and characteristics of experiments in more ordinary urban geographies. To address these issues, the paper introduces a novel methodological approach, combining a metropolitan geodemographic typology with qualitative data on 166 active and inactive urban agriculture initiatives across London. Varying socio-spatial patterns of experimentation are discussed, illustrating how contextual differences at neighbourhood levels matter. The paper demonstrates that neglecting the diversity of urban socio-economic, demographic, and physical contexts may lead to the erroneous suggestion that only places privileged by certain demographics can "achieve" sustainability and points to the significance of experiments beyond narrow ideas of novelty and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a new politics of knowledge and skills, which is being used effectively by campaigning groups over planning, housing, and land, challenging the very basis of conventional property development. The new politics, articulated by Hilary Wainwright in a recent book, is grass roots local action which challenges top–down conventional knowledge and expertise. Using examples from campaigns for social and affordable housing in London, in which the author has been involved, this practitioner paper highlights how grass roots knowledge and organisation can challenge conventional power in land and property markets, and the language and expertise on which they rest. In these campaigns, the knowledge of local residents about their communities is combined with the skills of committed professionals in planning and land economics. Conventional property market expertise is extraordinarily powerful in UK social, economic, and environmental policy, yet it can and must be challenged at a fundamental level if alternative community‐led models of urban development are to be taken seriously. Examples of "People's Plans" and successful community challenges to the abuse of financial viability analysis by developers demonstrate that new knowledge and skills combined with grass roots organisation can create a new politics of opposition to conventional urban development. This practitioner paper highlights how grass roots knowledge and organisation can challenge conventional power in land and property markets, and the language and expertise on which they rest. Examples of "People's Plans" and successful community challenges to the abuse of financial viability analysis by developers demonstrate that new knowledge and skills combined with grass roots organisation can create a new politics of opposition to conventional urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While recent debates have widely acknowledged gentrification's varied manifestations, success in enumerating and disentangling the process and its defining features from other forms of neighbourhood change at‐scale and across entire cities, has remained largely elusive. This paper addresses this gap and employs a novel, open and reproducible urban analytics approach to systematically examine the past and future trajectories of neighbourhood change using London, England, as a case‐study example. Using suites of datasets relating to population, house prices, and built environment development, the nature of gentrification's mutations and its spatial patterns are extracted through a multi‐stage data dimensionality reduction and classification methodology. Machine learning is subsequently adopted to model gentrification's observed trends and predict its future frontiers with interactive visualisation methods offering new insights into gentrification's projected dynamics and geographies. This paper employs a novel, open, and reproducible urban analytics approach to systematically examine the past and future trajectories of neighbourhood change using London, England, as a case‐study example. Using suites of datasets relating to population, house prices, and built environment development, the nature of gentrification's mutations and its spatial patterns are extracted through a multi‐stage data dimensionality reduction and classification methodology. Machine learning is subsequently adopted to model gentrification's observed trends and predict its future frontiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women played fundamental roles in the establishment of London as a 'science city' in the period 1650-1800.Taking its inspiration from the themes explored in the Science Museum's new permanent gallery, Science City 1550-1800:The Linbury Gallery, this paper explores four broad categories of contribution that women made - as scientific instrument makers or retailers, as teachers, as students or participants, and as authors or correspondents in science - to demonstrate that they played more significant roles than has been fully accounted for previously.To do so, we consider the examples of 25 specific individuals and various other virtually unidentifiable women spanning the period 1650-1800. By bringing together examples of different types of contribution, we show that women did not play a single role; they contributed to the emergence of a scientific culture in London in many different ways. All of the women discussed in this paper were individuals with their own reasons for involvement in science. But several factors such as contemporary perceptions of women, networks in London, and the growing demand for scientific knowledge united them all and influenced their experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles Montagu (c. 1662–1722), Earl (later Duke) of Manchester, played an important role in furthering the establishment of Italian-style opera in London. He gained knowledge of opera and continental singers and musicians on his Grand Tour and three diplomatic missions abroad. This article prints relevant portions (some for the first time) from his correspondence and other printed and manuscript sources to expand our knowledge of his involvement with opera in London, Vienna, France and Italy. The correspondence suggests why his advice and assistance were sought by John Vanbrugh and later by the Royal Academy of Music and adds to our knowledge of the history of opera in London in its so-called 'critical decade'. Most important was his mission to Venice in 1707–8. Although no evidence has emerged that Manchester met Handel in Venice or extended to him an invitation, he was responsible for the recruitment of Nicola Grimaldi (called 'Nicolini'), painters and other singers to London. Even at this early stage, opera in London was part of an operatic system that extended across Europe, involving not only musicians and impresarios but also ministers of state and foreign diplomats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Most housing forms and living arrangements in contemporary cities are designed for settled populations, and housing markets poorly address the needs of mobile population groups. This paper explores the housing forms and living arrangements which emerge from the conditions of temporality and mobility and are practised by the middle-income group of high-skilled transnational professionals. The study is based on 65 semi-structured interviews with migrants from Western countries in Moscow and London. Three inter-related factors of highly mobile living are found to shape the particular housing demands of this migrant group. Firstly, the need for economic flexibility determines the preference for sharing options rather than for individual renting. Secondly, the travelling pattern of their jobs imposes time-related housing limitations, and their life-course stage may require flexibility. Thirdly, this migrant group expresses requirements for physical and functional comfort of housing, as well as access to amenities and a sense of community, despite their detached lifestyles. However, although most of these housing needs are known in the literature, they have not yet been examined in relation to the mobile living of transnational professionals, and this paper illuminates this research gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we argue that it is generative to link struggles around access to, control over, and the transformation of urban energy systems to the imaginary of the right to the city; and we explore the conceptual, empirical and political contributions of this connection. Our paper starts with two main questions: (1) what do we learn from reading attempts to reclaim urban energy systems from a right to the city perspective? (2) What can this analysis add to debates around the right to the city? We make two main arguments from our empirical engagements with initiatives seeking to remunicipalise urban energy systems in Berlin and London, each of which is premised upon calls for more just, democratic and ecologically sustainable forms of energy supply. First, we argue that these struggles need to transcend concerns around energy infrastructure to raise broader questions around the democratisation of urban space. Second, we contend that appropriating long-lasting urban infrastructure requires the creation of new and durable forms of democratic institutions, providing insights into the notion of self-management (autogestion) beyond more spontaneous and fleeting forms of protest and uprising addressed in much of right to the city literature. Overall, the paper hopes to put the question of autogestion and related strategies at the centre of conversations around right to the city moving forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vacant land is a widespread urban phenomenon that has been problematised as a waste of a scarce resource, which needs to be brought back to use. The consensus around this belief has been almost unanimous, despite the contradiction between the idea of scarcity and that of vacancy. This paper explores the assumptions underpinning this contradiction to point to new ways of addressing the 'vacant land problem'. Drawing on the work of Lefebvre and Massey, the paper suggests a dialectical framing of vacant land to understand how its socially constructed nature shapes its transformation. The paper reveals a static understanding of urban change behind the conceptualisation of Battersea Power Station and Silvertown Quays as 'bad places', which in turn legitimises and shapes their transformation. The paper argues for a re-problematisation of 'vacant land', whereby its function as a planning tool for growth can be challenged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims at introducing some critical views on 'multicultural quarters', reflecting on the cases of Spitalfields in London and Torpignattara in Rome. Urban practices and policies that led these places to be recognised as 'Banglatowns' are explored, disentangling two major narratives of multicultural quarters, respectively, commodification of diversity and everyday multiculturalism. Whether literature tends to establish an opposition between these interpretative frameworks, the paper argues that context-based research shows how both categories are interlaced. The coexisting aspects of commodification of ethnicity and encounter are explored, focusing on the human and spatial agents supporting the construction of the image of the (multi)ethnic quarters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses conflicts associated with policies to protect the built heritage. Such conflicts relate to a host of tensions between private and public concerns and specifically between pro-development and pro-conservation approaches. To examine these cleavages, the paper operationalises private and public concerns over heritage by asking if there is a recognisable set of justifications that policy-makers use for supporting a pro-conservation or alternatively a pro-development approach? To do this, the paper looks at appeals decided by Her Majesty’s Planning Inspectors in London. The findings show that although they are not dichotomous, public and private interests in heritage development can be factually recognised in the setting of appeals. Moreover, the paper finds that Planning Inspectors often channel conflicts through the prism of certain public interests, namely, protecting architectural and physical attributes of the building and its surroundings. Although inspectors are instructed to actively weigh in other (potentially overriding) considerations in heritage appeals, such as socio-economic and proprietary issues, these considerations do not appear to have the same standing within the decision-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The longstanding housing crisis in the UK, and London in particular, has been exacerbated in recent years by an increased understanding of the flammability of buildings and the arrival of what activists term 'The Cladding Scandal'. In this paper, I show how in response to the health and financial risks of The Cladding Scandal, disparate groups come together to challenge the dominant politics of expertise through the enrolment of traditionally 'expert' forms of knowledge within community groups. I analyse community building practices, especially the lines of communication, to show a means by which the social reproduction of the city is sustained, to argue that such practices constitute an important but under-recognised form of expertise. Drawing together geographies of emotion and social reproduction theory, I demonstrate the productive possibilities of thinking through the social reproduction of the city and its politics of expertise by questioning the role, types and circulation of particular emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Curriculum making”, highlighted in the Geographical Association's Manifesto in 2009, was the focus of a research symposium held in London in April 2011. Using an auto-ethnographic approach, I reflect on and explore my experience of participating in that symposium. The analysis explores the “cultures of influence” and the “forms of problematisation” represented in the symposium papers, and argues that there is a tension between the ideas that underpin curriculum making (which focus on the actions of the teacher) and how research conducted in higher education problematises the geography curriculum. The analysis reveals three categories of “problems”: subject identity and expertise, teacher professionalism and engagement, and education policy and its enactment. In helping to understand these problems further, the research has been able to highlight the significance of local contexts in influencing and facilitating change in education, and the necessity of a productive relationship between academics and teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that squatting provides a concrete and theoretical location for dismantling binaries between successful and failed resistance. Focusing on the development of a political and affective consciousness and the inherent antagonism within squatting above the temporality of an individual squat or occupation helps to recentre the 'urban political' and understand the value and power of the urban commons. I combine radical democracy and affect theory to argue for the centrality of squatting in challenging urban capitalist hegemony. Not only does squatting transform consciousness, but the physically and emotionally supportive practices that it engenders helps to return the emotive as well as the political to the urban environment. I support this claim with reference to the successful 2015 Aylesbury occupation in London, which the occupiers approached with affective solidarity and a desire to reclaim space through antagonistic urban insurrection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to empirically review the process of housing financialisation in London, exploring a time series causal relationship between house prices and financial instruments, using the Granger method and a VAR test. In order to carry out this analysis, we use a vector autoregressive model with a monthly data series that seeks to contribute to exploring this relationship. The results are relevant to the important role that the theory of housing financialisation plays in explaining the crisis of access to secure tenure that can be seen in developed nations. The results also provide an empirical background to pursue this theory more specifically in the context of the vectors that are effectively causal to the financialisation processes that impact everyday life through housing prices. The study is original, given that this type of modelling has not previously been carried out for a major world city such as London, and adds to the findings of similar explorations that have applied other methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK economy is one of the most geographically unequal among OECD countries, with London's lead having increased since the mid-1980s. The UK is also one of the most centralised, in terms of the overwhelming concentration of economic, financial, political and institutional power in the capital, London. A key question, therefore, is whether the latter feature is a cause of the former. This paper focuses on one aspect of this question, namely London's dominating role in the UK's financialised, neoliberal-globalised growth model that has held sway for the past forty years. It is often argued that London's pre-eminence in finance acts as an engine of national growth, delivering benefits to all regions through 'trickle down' effects. We argue that these claims are exaggerated and that much more need to be known about London's negative impacts on other regions and cities, about the geographical dimensions of what some have labelled the 'finance curse'. We argue that such negative effects are integral to the growth of regional inequality in the UK. The Government's new 'Levelling Up' policy, though innovative in some respects, remains subordinate to the promotion of London and finance, and is unlikely to decentre and spatially rebalance the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based upon the searches carried out in London by the Wardens of the Goldsmiths’ Company during the seventeenth century. Rings that were thought to be below the Gold Standard of 22 carats were taken to Goldsmiths’ Hall to be assayed. A description of the rings and the subsequent result of the assay were entered into the Court Books by the Clerk. Some of these descriptions include a note and sometimes a drawing of the maker’s mark. Other entries in the Court Books give the names and details of the careers of certain ringmakers which are entered in the Mitchell Merry Database at Goldsmiths’ Hall. By comparing these records with the marks given for particular rings, it is possible to suggest which ringmaker used the mark. Short biographies are given of possible or probable owners of these marks. An illustrated glossary of seventeenth century terms for the various ring types is provided. These records give an indication of the lives of seventeenth century ringmakers and how they coped with the calamities of the century: war, plague and fire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brexit brought an end to the free‐movement rights of EU citizens in the United Kingdom, but the rights of the poorest Europeans were being actively curtailed even before that. From 2010, street homeless EU citizens were deported through a series of pilot schemes operating in London. In 2016, their 'administrative removal' was instituted as national policy. Using process‐tracing methodology, we have analysed publicly available documents and others obtained through Freedom of Information requests to assemble an account of how and why a range of 'stakeholders' worked together to deport rough‐sleeping EU citizens. Our paper addresses two research questions: (i) what actors contributed to these deportations and (ii) through the use of which analytic framework(s) can we begin to understand the deportation of street homeless foreigners? As we find, London's deportation apparatus involved national and local‐level state actors, homelessness NGOs and local businesses. The deportation of rough‐sleeping EU citizens was a racist biopolitical practice that reflected a concern for 'hygiene' at local and national scales, as well as the prevention of 'harm' to individual and social bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "escalator region" concept became a key element of migration literature after Fielding's work on South East England and fuelled a welcome growth of interest in the links between spatial and social mobility. More recent research has shown that London has continued to perform an escalator function since the 1970s, but little attention has been given to how its strength has altered both over time and compared with other parts of the UK. Against the background of the declining rates of internal migration observed in the United States and several other countries, this paper seeks to identify whether London's escalator role was waxing or waning over the four intercensal decades between 1971 and 2011. The primary emphasis is on the chances of people shifting up from noncore to core white‐collar work during each decade for London's nonmigrant and in‐migrant populations, in both absolute terms and relative to England's second‐order cities. It is found that over the three decades since the 1970s London's escalator was still performing in the way originally conceived, but although its net gain of young adults from the rest of England and Wales steadily increased over this period, it was not operating as strongly in 2001–2011 as during the 1990s in terms of both the career‐progression premium gained by its in‐migrants and the extent of its advantage over England's second‐order cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent developments in the field of machine learning offer new ways of modelling complex socio-spatial processes, allowing us to make predictions about how and where they might manifest in the future. Drawing on earlier empirical and theoretical attempts to understand gentrification and urban change, this paper shows it is possible to analyse existing patterns and processes of neighbourhood change to identify areas likely to experience change in the future. This is evidenced through an analysis of socio-economic transition in London neighbourhoods (based on 2001 and 2011 Census variables) which is used to predict those areas most likely to demonstrate 'uplift' or 'decline' by 2021. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of such modelling for the understanding of gentrification processes, noting that if qualitative work on gentrification and neighbourhood change is to offer more than a rigorous post-mortem then intensive, qualitative case studies must be confronted with – and complemented by – predictions stemming from other, more extensive approaches. As a demonstration of the capabilities of machine learning, this paper underlines the continuing value of quantitative approaches in understanding complex urban processes such as gentrification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

London's water sector professionals seek to secure public funds for blue and green infrastructure projects while also engaging with local advocates for river improvement. This paper argues that current project appraisal practice forms a barrier to aligning public investment with local demand because justifying investment requires the enactment of a utilitarian public good that is at odds with the non-instrumental values motivating local advocacy. Drawing on qualitative evidence and performativity theory, we show how the appraisal practices of water sector professionals and the environmental advocacy of London residents both enact publics in different arenas of water management: appraisal enacts a general public to secure funding, while advocacy enacts a particular public that serves to articulate local demand for environmental improvement. Whereas the performativity of a general public works through demonstrating nature's economic value to people, the performativity of local publics is animated by people's responsibility towards nature. We find that the general public that is enacted through cost-benefit analysis legitimizes public expenditure on readily demonstrable economic benefits, such as flood risk mitigation, while withholding funds from the water quality improvement valued by local publics. Comparing the performativities of general and local publics, we discuss the conditions under which appraisal and advocacy practices enact their respective underlying values. We conclude that the current appraisal practice frustrates the delivery of blue and green infrastructure projects that would respond to local demand for improving rivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The UK's purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) sector has seen significant institutional investment in recent decades. This paper unpacks contemporary trends and perspectives on the sector. It questions whether PBSA has moved from being an "alternative" to "mainstream" residential asset class, framing the analysis through the lens of market maturity. Design/methodology/approach: The methods triangulate perspectives drawn from literature on the evolution of PBSA as an asset class with illustrations of investment trends across the UK between 2005 and 2020 using data from Real Capital Analytics (RCA), combined with findings from 40 semi-structured interviews with investors and stakeholders in PBSA in the UK London is the focus of the work, whilst other regional cities are integrated for comparison. Findings: The results demonstrate that London's PBSA market is ahead of trends currently being replicated in regional cities. However, the regions currently offer greater return potential and opportunities for risk taking compared to London, where yields are compressed, and the market is considered lower risk. The concept of maturity remains useful as a framework for evaluating markets, however a more granular analysis of sectors is necessary to further understand asset classes within sectors. PBSA continues to trade at a premium across the UK; it is considered the most mature residential asset class. Practical implications: The emergence of PBSA as an asset class continues to play a developing role within the residential sector and UK investment market. Risk, value and local context remain key when integrating PBSA into institutional portfolios, and as the first to consider the UK market from a qualitative research approach, this research provides a snapshot of these influences in 2021. Originality/value: Our approach offers original insight into investment trends across the UK and is the first to focus reflections on the London market specifically. The research highlights the role of PBSA as a vanguard asset class for investors into residential, situating its growth within the framework of market maturity and drawing out market nuances from interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The health effects of urban air pollution are particularly acute for children. This paper details a research project with undergraduates drawing on UPE and children's geography that attempts to address the uneven burdens of air pollution in an east London neighbourhood. Children are uniquely socially and biophysically exposed to the toxic and illegal air pollution plaguing many cities around the world. Scholars working in urban political ecology (UPE) and in children's geographies have a significant opportunity to research these toxic metabolic flows and responses to them, though scholarship at the intersection of UPE and children's geographies is scarce and falls behind the growing social movements involved in activism regarding air pollution in children's urban spaces. Additionally, the intersection of children's geographies and UPE presents a chance for significant pedagogical reflection in UPE, which, to date, has been nearly absent. To address these issues, this paper details a multi‐method and participatory action research project with undergraduates to locate and intervene in uneven and unequal urban metabolism of air pollution near a primary school in east London. It argues for the increasing relevance of air pollution for UPE scholarship, for further interdisciplinary work at the intersection of UPE and children's geographies, and for the greater participation of undergraduates in urban environmental politics beyond the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Second World War, artist Peter Laszlo Peri approached the London County Council with the idea of creating sculptural reliefs with a family theme in coloured concrete on two of Lambeth's new housing estates. The results were three reliefs: 'Following the Leader (Memorial to the Children Killed in the Blitz)', 1949, on the Vauxhall Gardens estate and 'Boys Playing Football', 1951–52, and 'Mother with Children Playing', 1951–52, on the nearby South Lambeth estate. After the war, the reconstruction and improvement of housing were crucial. The London County Council planned for large areas of London to be rebuilt: including an ambitious programme of housing. This paper looks at these artworks within the context of the housing they sit amongst. I read these sculptural reliefs, created between 1949 and 1952, within the LCC's post-war housing and community policies and as symbols of Lambeth's renewal. This paper places these reliefs, and their settings, within the wider context of debates surrounding the post-war renewal of London, community participation and placemaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an ethnography of an investigation of an under-explored sociolinguistic phenomenon, namely handwritten signs in public spaces, against a context of urban regeneration and socio-cultural transformation. These signs are a subset of urban communicates that involve handwriting, lettering or the painting of letters and text using different materials and serving different functions. We focus primarily on handwritten signs on paper or cards. The data were collected in Stratford, a ward in the ethnically and linguistically diverse London Borough of Newham and home of the 2012 Olympics. Our analytical focus is on the indexicalities of the handwritten signs. We engaged ordinary residents in Stratford, customers and visitors of the two main shopping centres, precinct management, and local council staff who interacted with such signs as part of their everyday work and life, as well as non-participant commentators in interpreting and analysing the meanings of the signs. We also analyse the disappearance of the signs vis-à-vis urban development policies, and the emergence of refashioned painted signs with handwritten style lettering in the global-facing commercial spaces. The study highlights the significance of handwritten signs and invite the reader to engage in making sense of their meaning potentials and symbolic values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 14th March 1554 at the Mercers' Hall on Cheapside, London, 'serten velyns [villains] dyd breke the neke of the ymage of sant Thomas of Canturbere, and on of ys arms broke'. This attack followed a previous bout of iconoclasm earlier in the year. Through the biographical study of this statue of St Thomas Becket, this paper provides a fresh insight into the London experience of the Reformation in the first half of the sixteenth century. By drawing on theories of the temporal nature of art, the paper explores how the turbulent history of London, plus royal religious policies, during the English Reformation maps onto the treatment of the statue from the reign of Henry VIII to Elizabeth I. It considers the importance of the statue both to the Mercers' Company and within the City and how the statue reflects the complex religious sentiments felt by contemporaries in London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The covenant strength of flexible workspace (FW) providers as tenants is debatable. There is the argument that providers are risky mainly due to the very nature of their business which consists of volatile revenue streams obtained from subletting the space in membership format, paying little attention to covenants. On the other hand, there is also the argument that the presence of a provider can add vibrancy and diversity to a building whilst also offering an additional amenity to existing tenants through overflow space, making FW providers desirable. This paper aims to explore this ambiguity by comparing rents paid by FW providers and other tenants within the same building in London over the period 2011 to 2021. Design/methodology/approach: Using a dataset of 1,042 leases in London over the period of 2011–2021 which was extracted from CoStar, the rent conditions of FW providers and their peers within the same building were analysed employing a hedonic pricing model. Findings: The results of the analysis suggest that FW providers have a negative and statistically significant effect on the effective rent in comparison to other tenants within the same building over the analysed period. Practical implications: This analysis has the potential to identify how FW providers are perceived in the market and offers both academics and practitioners valuable insights. Originality/value: The relationship between landlords and FW providers as tenants does not have a major coverage in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The club-like nature of the real estate industry shapes planning permission success. • Global actors must find a way to embed themselves in local real estate networks. • Local politics dictates institutional settings within which real estate actors function. In highly internationalised cities, real estate developers must learn to negotiate global-local tensions to territoralise their work and secure planning permission. This paper examines how they do this and positions itself at the meeting point of research on policy mobility and real estate. Developers have been shown to be co-coordinators of development processes, and one of many agents who facilitate the global flow and production of urban spaces and ideas. In these endeavours local knowledge is important, yet developers remain interested in sites beyond their home city. This paper questions what strategies developers utilise to become co-ordinating forces in new cities, a pertinent issue because increasingly urban actors position themselves as 'global' or beyond a geographically circumscribed space. Based on 60 interviews across London's Royal Docks and Johannesburg's Modderfontein, this paper argues that to work in a new location, developers and their consultants must utilise local knowledge, highlighting three specific strategies: (1) on-boarding local political actors; (2) hiring individuals who primarily work in the city and (3) becoming part of 'the club'. These illustrate the ways developers localise themselves, 'learning to play the game', and evidence the consequences for where and how urban politics happens. Ultimately, this paper argues that at the heart of internationalised urban environments there are transnational networks which are becoming sites of urban politics where assemblages of actors are formed that make the global movement of urban ideas possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of global finance in the latter twentieth century was an epochal transformation in the history of capitalism and new socio-technical devices emerged to value these innovations, among the most significant being the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR). Today, LIBOR values over $200 trillion in global financial markets despite the repeated attempts by international regulators to repeal the benchmark since its infamous scandal in 2012. How did LIBOR ever rise to its apotheosis in global finance? In this paper, I provide a historical analysis of the rise of LIBOR in global finance, tracing its emergence as an unstandardized rate for eurodollar syndicated loans in the 1960s to its evolution as a standardized benchmark for the growing derivative market in London by the 1980s. In tracing the rise of LIBOR, I argue that global financial markets were shaped by practices and norms particular to the financial centre of London. I conclude by offering the concept of 'positionality' to help theorize the construction of global finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employs a qualitative, biographical approach, to explore the motivations and subjectivities behind migration of middle‐class Brazilians to London. It uses the concept of the geographical imagination to understand how migrants imagine not only their destinations and places of origin but also how their own identity is shaped by their imagined relationship to these places. The paper argues that for many middle‐class Brazilians, their motivation to migrate is couched in terms of "societal alienation": a feeling of distance from the place of origin resulting from a lack of identification and trust in its institutions and the very culture of the place itself. This is in contrast to the more popularly understood concept of migrating due to "material alienation": migrating to access a higher level of material consumption or to acquire financial capital to use "back home." For those who migrate due to "societal alienation" what is "fetishised" is the cultural and less material aspects of the 'quality of life' of the migration destination, which become a kind of commodity in their own right. It argues that social class which often intersects with regional and racial divisions within Brazilian society, is a key marker of difference in these two types of imaginary. This article employs a qualitative, biographical approach, to explore the motivations and subjectivities behind migration of middle‐class Brazilians to London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]