LIVING ON THE MARGINS: The Socio-spatial Representation of Urban Internally Displaced Persons in Ethiopia

In cities in the global South, internally displaced persons (IDPs) often end up in marginalized places created by uneven processes of urbanization. While IDPs experience similar disadvantages to the urban poor living in these places, they face additional vulnerabilities related to their displacement. Building on insights from urban studies and forced migration studies, we argue in this article that a multidimensional understanding of urban marginality is a useful analytical lens with which to examine the conditions of urban IDPs. Based on multi-sited ethnographic research in Kersa and Sululta IDP settlements of Ethiopia, this study reveals how IDPs experience similar spatial, social and symbolic marginality in different urban contexts. Our findings show the relational manifestation of segregation, social distance and stigmatization that impede IDPs’ access to urban space and services. This study also highlights how these dimensions of marginality interact and reproduce an additional layer of marginality. Our research suggests the need for inclusive urban governance in which IDPs contribute to and benefit from urbanization as citizens.     

Physical accessibility as a social indicator

A discussion is presented of the ways in which accessibility to employment and urban services constitute an important measure of the quality of urban living, and how accessibility might, therefore, be included as an important component of a “social report” for a city or region. A conceptual framework is introduced for measuring accessibility in terms of the ease with which citizens may reach a variety of opportunities for employment and services. This framework is interpreted as an approach to evaluating transportation and regional plans which differs from approaches based upon travel volumes and travel times which are currently employed in urban transportation planning and evaluation. The use of the proposed measures of accessibility is illustrated with data on accessibility to employment and health care facilities in Los Angeles, and these data are interpreted to illustrate differences in accessibility as a function of spatial location of residence, and socio-economic status.     

VERTICAL GEOGRAPHIES,POLYVOCALITY AND THE EVERYDAY IN A DIVIDED CITY

The vertical turn in urban scholarship is a critique of the overly horizontal perspectives used in studying cities in academic research. This article broadens this scholarship by engaging with the ways that horizontal perspectives on urban conditions dominate not only scholarly perspectives but also professional responses to urban change. By drawing on research in the divided city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it argues for a ‘polyvocal’ approach to studying professional responses to urban conditions, one that facilitates a productive juxtaposition of those responses with city dwellers’ everyday engagements with the vertical qualities of the built environment. It also seeks to understand how vertical geographies—here, tall landmarks—in divided cities are seen as part of the complex urban realities of city dwellers in strategies of urban planning and heritage-making related to postwar reconciliation. These findings are compared with ethnographic data about how people make sense of tall landmarks in divided cities and how they experience and interpret them in relation to senses of togetherness and belonging to divided cities. By putting these two lines of research in a dialogue, the ‘polyvocal' approach offers a way to rethink conventional strategies of urban reconciliation and taken-for-granted ways of conceptualizing cities.     

Urban agglomerations,knowledge-intensive services and innovation: establishing the core connections

This paper investigates how resources available in urban agglomerations influence the organizational form, innovation activity and collaborative linkages of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) firms. Compared with their counterparts elsewhere, KIBS located in Norwegian large city labour market regions are more likely to be independent of multi-establishment business organizations and thus reliant on resources available externally, in their locations. This is most pronounced in the central and Western business districts of the capital, wherein independent KIBS exhibit high turnover of professionals and are less inclined to engage actively in innovation. Yet, those that do engage use the capital region economy as a platform for engaging with both domestic and international collaboration partners. Only by consecutively analysing these aspects and accounting for the selection processes involved is the empirical analysis able to uncover contrasting firm-level responses to the same urban economy resource base.     

Home Truths about Care-less Competitiveness

The literature on city-regionalism can be criticized for neglecting the mundane ways that cities and regions are socially reproduced (and contested) through processes of household decision-making and routine coordination. Moreover, dominant debates on macro-scale governance and economic competitiveness rarely question the way strategic city-regional partnerships equate notions of ‘liveability’ with marketability. However ‘smart’, these initiatives persistently fetishize growth, allowing little scope for collective endeavour or an ethic of care — values which Linda McDowell (2004 ) points out are fundamentally undermined by neoliberalism. This paper challenges the ‘top-down’ discourse of city-regionalism both on the grounds of what it examines (economic efficiency and governance) and how this is viewed (partially and globally). The case is made for raising awareness of the structural inequalities which restrict the ‘choice of choices’ actually available to households competing for public services on the basis of uneven resource entitlement. This calls for an understanding of a ‘whole’ economy, recognizing the full value of unpaid care-giving, volunteering and ‘free’ environmental resources.     

Urban Ecological Enclosures: Conservation Planning,Peri-urban Displacement,and Local State Formations in China

Across contemporary China, city governments are unevenly territorializing peri-urban villagers’ land and housing by creating new urban ecological conservation sites. I analyze this emerging form of what I call ‘ecological territorialization’ through three interrelated spatial practices: comprehensive urban–rural planning, peri-urban ‘ecological migration’, and the distribution of institutional responsibility for conservation site financing, construction and management. Detailing this triad of territorializing practices renews attention to the relationship between conservation classifications that justify state intervention, uneven displacements of people from rural land and housing, and site-specific capitalizations that collectively consolidate urban government control over rural spaces. These practices emerge stochastically as state, private, and semi-state institutions capitalize on conservation projects in the context of legally and constitutionally underdefined land use rights and ecological land designations. In the current post-socialist moment of urban ‘greening’, these practices are key to producing frontiers of land-based accumulation and extending local state control across the peri-urban fringe. Urban ecological enclosures not only remake city-level state power but also shape rural people's relationships to land, labor and housing.     

A conceptual framework for the location of public facilities in the urban areas of developing countries: the Nigerian case

The provision of adequate public services to their urban populations within the constraints of financial resources is a major problem of most developing countries. The fact that the few available facilities are unevenly distributed in the urban areas suggests a need for efficient physical planning of public services. This paper suggests a conceptual framework for the provision of public services in Nigerian urban areas. The paper identifies the supply and demand factors which should govern the distribution of public services in the urban areas of the country.     

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE: Heterogeneous Governance,Claims Making and Forced Eviction in a Megacity

Residents of informal settlements worldwide face challenges defending their land tenure. In contexts with overlapping systems of governance these challenges are even more complex and claims to land tenure more precarious. How do heterogeneous systems of governance, a characteristic of some global South megacities, affect evictions? This article presents an in-depth case study of the informal Otodo Gbame waterfront settlement's struggle to defend its customary land tenure through multiple authorities in Lagos, Nigeria. The analysis reveals how a heterogeneous system of governance disempowers citizens by obscuring the locus of power and creating confusion when communities make claims on the state. Communities find themselves claiming rights to the city that receive varying degrees of recognition from the many authorities within the heterogeneous system. In Lagos, the state weaponizes this heterogeneous system in pursuit of modern development and urban growth.     

False promises of co-production in neighbourhood regeneration: the case of Dutch community enterprises

Many European countries are implementing austerity measures alongside trends of welfare state retrenchment. Entrepreneurial forms of active citizenship are considered as a new form of public management to fill gaps left by spending cuts and to continue neighbourhood regeneration. Inspired by British practices, Dutch citizens are trying to set up community enterprises (CEs) to provide services or other benefits for residents in deprived neighbourhoods. Based on a qualitative panel study, this article reveals supportive responses but also resistance from local governments and housing associations. Within a positive policy discourse on co-production, institutional responses often encompass forms of ‘counter-production’ that hold CEs in full uncertainty about crucial conditions for their business.     

Political Underdevelopment: What causes ‘bad governance’

The states of the ‘South’, although diverse, tend to be underdeveloped in the political sense: neither authoritative and effective nor legitimate and accountable to citizens. The conventional response of aid donors is institutional transfer : trying to align the institutional configurations of Southern states even more closely with those of Northern polities. This may not be the best approach. The political underdevelopment of much of the South largely results from the ways in which Southern states have been created and political authority shaped through economic and political interactions with the wealthier countries of the North. Political underdevelopment is an outcome of uneven (economic) development. A better appreciation of the nature of these processes could lead to more appropriate policy. History cannot be reversed. But more attention could be paid to the ways in which Northern states currently help sustain political underdevelopment in the South, notably by perpetuating the conditions under which state elites in the South can remain too independent of their own citizens.     

Deprivation and Incidence of Urban Public Services: A Tale of Three Cities

We approach the problem of deprivation and incidence of urban public services by quantifying the extent of deprivation of different income groups in relation to both desired and minimum levels. Three types of deprivation are clearly established. First, deprivation in both Bombay and Calcutta is higher than that of Delhi. Second, there is a serious concern for primary health and education because it is established that the lack of these local services is the major source of deprivation among urban settlers. Finally, we report how well different income classes are served in these cities: the rich are worst-off in Calcutta and best-off in Bombay. Middle income and poor citizens are best-off and worst-off in Delhi and Bombay, respectively.     

BETWEEN DEPRESSION AND HOPE: Affective Mediations of Urban Restructuring in Leipzig,East Germany

In this article, which is based on an empirical analysis of neoliberal restructuring in Leipzig, East Germany, I describe how the study of affective atmospheres adds to our understanding of urban restructuring, showing how collective moods affect (de)mobilization, contestation and the regulation of urban political economy to shed light on the relation between institutional, political and social processes. I demonstrate the relevance of affect for power relations, political interactions beyond rationality, and the rhythms and temporalities of urban restructuring, as exemplified by two prominent atmospheres that characterize Leipzig—post shrinkage depression (PSD) and anticipatory hope (AH).     

Public policies,political cleavages and urban space: state infrastructure policies in São Paulo,Brazil, 1975–2000

This article deals with the state policies of urban infrastructure in São Paulo, Brazil, from 1975 to 2000. Working with primary information about the investments made by the state in public works, we discuss a series of arguments present in the urban studies literature about the patterns of state investment in urban spaces and propose an alternative explanation for state action in Brazilian urban spaces in recent decades. We analyze the main elements that have influenced the overall pattern of investments, describe the main characteristics of this policy over time and in each of the municipal governments of the period, as well as develop an evaluation of the spatial distribution of the resources among each of the main social groups in the city.     

Planning à la Carte: The Location Patterns of Gated Communities around Buenos Aires in a Decentralized Planning Context

The spectacular growth of gated communities around Latin America’s largest cities has been widely noted. In Buenos Aires, after the upgrade of the northern highway in the 1990s, the number of gated communities along the road more than tripled, reaching 500 by the year 2001. Yet, the geographic distribution of these communities was uneven, with the majority concentrated in municipalities with the highest percentage of poor households. Why, given similar land prices, land availability, access to infrastructure and distance to the city’s core, did developers build gated communities in the poorest municipalities? This article argues that the decentralization of planning controls contributed to these patterns of distribution. While wealthier municipalities used this prerogative to enforce tighter controls on land use, the less affluent ones relied on their capacity to modify planning codes to lure real estate developers. Unlike well‐serviced municipalities, who perceived the gated communities’ privatization of services as a potential danger to their fiscal tax base, the municipalities that lacked urban services in most of their territory saw gated communities as a fast and inexpensive way of increasing local economic activities in less productive lands. As a consequence, after decentralization of planning capacities, the development of gated communities clustered in less affluent municipalities, hence deepening the social polarization in these jurisdictions.     

Neoliberalism and casualization of public sector services: the case of waste collection services in Cape Town,South Africa

This article focuses on the waste collection strategies of the municipal government in Cape Town, South Africa, using the case as a point of entry to a wider critique of global neoliberalism and the privatization of municipal services. The analysis of the case sheds light on the links between the cost recovery agenda of the neoliberal state and the casualization of labor. To minimize costs, local governments, like private sector firms, rely on and have enhanced the casualization of labor. This strategy further blurs the conceptual distinction between the public and private sectors, in that the local governments treat citizens as, instead, customers with stratified entitlements to basic services. Stressing the continuities of apartheid under the neoliberal policies, the article identifies specific ways in which the neoliberal government in its post‐apartheid moment uses gender ideologies and the rhetoric of voluntarism and empowerment to justify its use of residents' underpaid and precarious labor for municipal services in poor black townships. Cet article aborde les stratégies de ramassage des ordures établies par la municipalité de Cape Town (Afrique du Sud) et utilise ce cas comme point de départ d'une critique plus large sur le néolibéralisme ambiant et la privatisation des services municipaux. L'analyse révèle les liens entre le programme de recouvrement des coûts de l'État néolibéral et la précarisation de la main‐d'?uvre. En effet, pour minimiser les coûts, les gouvernements locaux, à l'instar des entreprises privées, s'appuient sur une précarisation (qu'ils accroissent) de l'emploi. Cette stratégie atténue encore la distinction conceptuelle entre secteurs public et privé, les gouvernements locaux traitant les habitants plutôt comme des clients ayant droit, selon leur strate d'appartenance, à tel ou tel service de base. Soulignant les prolongements de l'apartheid sous une politique néolibérale, l'article identifie les modalités spécifiques grâce auxquelles le gouvernement néolibéral de post‐apartheid recourt aux idéologies sexistes et au discours sur le bénévolat et l'habilitation pour justifier son utilisation d'une main‐d'?uvre précaire et mal rémunérée parmi les habitants, pour les services municipaux dans les quartiers noirs pauvres.     

Sisyphean Dilemmas of Development: Contrasting Urban Infrastructure and Fiscal Policy Trends in Maputo,Mozambique

In sub‐Saharan African (SSA) cities like Maputo, land commodification is predictably fueled by plans for aspirational infrastructure serving elites. What is rather more peculiar, however, is the way in which the promotion of some fiscal policy reforms can also inadvertently support land commodification and the uneven development it (re)produces. This article describes how efforts to host both democratic fiscal reforms (via localized exercises like participatory budgeting) and to tap into international capital circuits to stir economic development (via aspirational infrastructure and urban redevelopment plans) can produce a Sisyphean dilemma. While gains in ordinary infrastructure investments (e.g. wells, water pumps) were achieved democratically in Maputo's KaTembe district with the participatory budget, these material (and political) improvements have been rendered irrelevant by better funded aspirational infrastructure projects for KaTembe (e.g. bridges, high‐rise residential buildings, tourist facilities) supported by more opaque decisions made by the national government without residential input. Given the wide embrace of participatory budgeting in contexts of weak democracy across SSA cities and elsewhere, Maputo's experience serves as a timely alert of the risks run when this popular exercise is prematurely promoted, especially when wider‐scaled property tax reforms could better redress uneven and undemocratic urban development.     

Union modernisation,coalitions and vulnerable work in the construction sector in Britain

This article analyses vulnerable work in the construction sector, the impact of the recession and union responses to these problems including the development of coalitions with civil society and state organisations, and provision of new services to members and other workers faced with heightened vulnerability at work. The case study is based on qualitative interviews and internal documentation, and focuses on the construction union, Union of Construction, Allied Technicians and Trades, and its work supported by the government‐backed Union Modernisation Fund. The findings demonstrate some innovative approaches to supporting workers facing vulnerability in terms of job insecurity, health and safety and other problems, including drawing on support from other organisations with specific expertise and resources. Problems in terms of the political contingency of these links, vulnerability in terms of changing funding regimes and priorities within state agencies, and the vast scale of the problem of vulnerability at work are also highly prominent.     

环渤海中心城市服务业的结构及特征

以环渤海区域地级及以上城市为主要考察对象,以从业人员为主要指标,分析了该区域中心城市服务业发展现状、内部结构差异及服务业发展的空间分异特征。研究认为,近年来环渤海区域服务业发展迅速,服务业布局呈现梯度化空间分布特征;服务产业,尤其是消费性服务集中于行政级别较高的中心城市。研究还发现,环渤海区域服务业存在城市之间服务产业发展不平衡、部分区位条件优越的城市服务业发展滞后以及山东半岛和辽东半岛部分中心城市服务职能有待强化等问题。在此基础上,提出了根据服务业内部各行业特点和城市的发展条件、遵循区别对待原则确定具体服务行业的发展重点和优先顺序等对策措施。     

Heterogeneity in states and urban structure

The purpose of this paper is to relax the standard assumption of static urban economic theory concerning perfect homogeneity in tastes of individuals belonging to the same class. We study the impact of heterogeneity in tastes on urban structure using the simplest meaningful clone of the standard model: all arguments are presented in the context of a metropolitan area which is partitioned in two homogeneous zones, centre and suburd. Given that individuals have perfect knowledge, heterogeneity in tastes may affect equilibrium in two ways. Namely, individuals may differ with respect to their location decision and, at a particular location, they may differ with respect to how they allocate their initial resources. The strategy adopted here is to study these two effects in isolation.