City Imaging: Regeneration, Renewal and Decay

263 Pages·2014·2.069 MB·English

by  Tara Brabazon (auth.), Tara Brabazon (eds.)

GeoJournal Library 108
Tara Brabazon Editor
City Imaging:
Regeneration,
Renewal and
Decay
City Imaging: Regeneration, Renewal
and Decay
GeoJournal Library
Volume 108
ManagingEditor:
DanielZ.Sui,Columbus,Ohio,USA
FoundingSeriesEditor:
WolfTietze,Helmstedt,Germany
EditorialBoard:PaulClaval,France
YehudaGradus,Israel
SamOckPark,SouthKorea
HermanvanderWusten,TheNetherlands
Forfurthervolumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/6007
Tara Brabazon
Editor
City Imaging:
Regeneration, Renewal
and Decay
123
Editor
TaraBrabazon
SchoolofTeacherEducation
CharlesSturtUniversity
Bathurst,NSW
Australia
ISSN0924-5499
ISBN978-94-007-7234-2 ISBN978-94-007-7235-9(eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-94-007-7235-9
SpringerDordrechtHeidelbergNewYorkLondon
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2013949199
©SpringerScience+BusinessMediaDordrecht2014
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Contents
1 Introduction:SlicedCities................................................. 1
TaraBrabazon
PartI Disconnection
2 GlasgowtheBrand:WhoseStoryIsItAnyway?....................... 13
MhairiLennon
3 MyStateHadaMiningBoomandAllIGotWasThis
LousyTrain-Line........................................................... 29
LeanneMcRae
4 SwanValleySideways:EconomicDevelopmentThrough
TasteandTourisminWesternAustralia................................. 53
TaraBrabazon
5 The Atrium: A Convergence of Education, Leisure
andConsumption........................................................... 71
DannyHagan
6 CultureofCarParksorCarParkingCultures?........................ 83
ZuzanaBlazeckova
7 StickyBrighton:DogExcrementinBrightonandHove
PublicAreas................................................................. 93
AnaKvalheim
8 HackingtheCity:DisabilityandAccessinCitiesMade
ofSoftware .................................................................. 103
DavidCakeandMikeKent
9 SecurityandtheCity:TheCHOGMLockdown........................ 117
LeanneMcRae
10 Luanda:RunningontheWrongTrackTowardsGlobal
Acceptance .................................................................. 125
BoniswaVazContreiras
v
vi Contents
Fado................................................................................ 131
FaracyGrouse
PartII Intervention
11 When Bohemia Becomes a Business: City Lights,
ColumbusAvenueandaFutureforSanFrancisco..................... 135
TaraBrabazon
12 WorkingtheCrowds:StreetPerformancesinPublicSpaces.......... 157
AndrewCarlin
13 ThirdTierRaveTowns:‘TheOrbit’inMorley......................... 171
NickDunn
14 Beats by the Bay: Sixties San Francisco Music and
theDevelopmentofaContemporaryTourismIndustry ............... 183
NadineCaouette
15 BrightonSound?Cities,MusicandDistinctiveness .................... 195
AbigailEdwards
16 MakkahAl-Mukaaramah:ASecondTierCity
forReligiousTourism ...................................................... 201
SaeedAlAmoudy
17 UnseenNapa:QRCodesasVirtualPortals ............................. 209
MickWinter
18 Osaka In and Out of the Nation: Neoliberal Spatial
GesturesfortheGloballyCompetitiveCity-Region.................... 221
JoelMatthews
19 BrandWellington:WhenCityImagingIsGLAM’ed.................. 229
TaraBrabazon
20 Conclusion:ImagingInjustice ............................................ 249
TaraBrabazon
AbouttheAuthors ............................................................... 255
Index............................................................................... 257

1
Introduction: Sliced Cities
TaraBrabazon
Webeginwithanexperiment:anactivationofimaginationandexperience.Prepare
tocloseyoureyes.Beforeyoudo,readthefollowingsentencesandthenletimages
floodyourmind.
Thinkofacity.Thinkofitsbuildingsandstreets,skyandground,soundsand
smells.Isyourcity(ofthemind)populatedbypeopleorisitdeserted?What
colours,texturesandshapesfillyourimaginaryvista?
Open your eyes. You might have imagined a particular city from a memory,
summoningfamiliarlandmarks,buildingsandstreets.Youmayhaveassembledan
amalgam of real and virtual images, punctuated by popular culture. Such jigsaw
puzzles of urbanity confirm that cities are multisensory formations. Mumford
describes, “a related collection of primary groups and purposive associations
(Mumford2004).”Theseassociationsareeconomic,social,culturalandhistorical.
Howandwhytheyalignintoacoherentimageofurbanityistheprojectofthisbook.
Wetracktheshiftingmetaphorsofgeographical,socialandeconomicdevelopment.
Modernity and postmodernity, industrial and post-industrialization, Fordism and
post-Fordism,classandpost-classaremappedoverandthroughthecity.
Mostimportantly,Mumford’s“purposiveassociations”move.Mobilityisakey
concepttounderstandcontemporarylife.Itisanewmarkerofclass.Therichcan
move. The poor cannot. The rich can move their ideas over wireless networks.
Thepoormanageunderfundedpublictransportationsystems,makingitdifficultto
(even)movetheirbodiestoaworkplace.Socialexclusionisspatial.Whileeconomic
and educational disadvantages frequently align, the consequences of that injustice
digintothelandscape.
T.Brabazon((cid:2))
SchoolofTeacherEducation,CharlesSturtUniversity,Bathurst,NSW,Australia
e-mail:[email protected]
T.Brabazon(ed.),CityImaging:Regeneration,RenewalandDecay, 1
GeoJournalLibrary108,DOI10.1007/978-94-007-7235-9 1,
©SpringerScienceCBusinessMediaDordrecht2014
2 T.Brabazon
Connectivity–movement–isimportanttocities.Somearespreadout:Auckland
in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Perth in Australia are two examples of sprawling
urbanspaces.Insuchcities,itismoredifficulttobringagroupofpeopletogether
in space. For a music industry to function, there must not only be venues to play,
but enough people who can travel from their home to attend the gig. Without
connectivity, there is no audience or consumer for sporting events and music
industries. When cities are compact, they are connected. Certainly there are other
models for connectivity. WillAlsop’s “Supercity” inthe United Kingdom offers a
strategytoconnectcitiesalongtheM62thattraversesfromLiverpooltoHull(BBC
News2005;Weaver2004;Sudjic2005).TheLondonUndergroundprovidesanother
model(BassoliandMartin2006).
Besides transportation, cities are structured by buildings and landmarks that
sculpt social exclusion. Manchester’s railway line is a determinant of class. The
Thames in London separates the city, organizing spaces, buildings and streets
sociallyandeconomically.Cliche´sofinnercitydeclineandinnercityrejuvenation
fight for ascendency. Another ideology of urbanity is based on fear of crime,1
poorhousing,pollutionandenvironmentaldamage.Everycityencasesmanyother
cities.Thesameplacehasdifferentmeaningsforasportsfanortourist,frominner
city resident to office worker. The key for creative industries’ initiatives, policies
and strategies is to generate economic value from these social re-imagings. It is
no coincidence that the major creative industries theorists focus attention on the
city. Monographs such as Charles Landry’s The Creative City (2000) and Richard
Florida’sCitiesandtheCreativeClass(Florida2005)areexamplesofthisinterest.
All cities have commonalities. Yet the differences are marketed, promoted,
mediated and emphasized. These distinctive images of a city – from Detroit to
Singapore and Luanda to Glasgow – may coalesce into a tourist destination or
initiateacityimagingstrategyorplantoinstigatechange.Cityimagingisaphrase
that is increasingly used in public discourse, but is rarely defined. It refers to how
particularcitiesarebrandedandmarketed.Butitisatheoryofthecitybasedonan
assumption:representationscanbetransformedandsoldforthepurposesoftourism
or attracting corporations and in-demand workers to one city rather than another.
It is an inaccurate science. Consider the imag(in)ing exercise that commenced the
introduction to this book. Subjectivity, impressions, bias and prejudice may flood
thevistaofthemind.Similarly,thevisualityofacityoftenoverwhelmsthesounds,
touch, taste and smell of urbanity. Different senses operate in some cities and not
others. For Singapore, thick and humid air predominates. In Detroit, the greyness
ofindustrialization–fromthehistoricmotorplantsortechnomusic–saturatesthe
visualpalette.
1It is important that this law and order crisis not be nostalgic. The power of English’s (2011)
researchisthatheshowstheracism,discriminationandbrutalityofNewYorkfrom1963until
1973.Buthealsorecognizesthat,“thepastisnotpast:acity’sidentityiscomposednotjustof
eventsinthepresentmomentbutalsoofallthatcamebefore,”p.xxi.