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Full-Text Articles in Urban Studies and Planning
Help-Yourself City: Market-Driven Planning And D.I.Y. Responses In Making The “Neoliberal” Streetscape, Gordon Douglas
Help-Yourself City: Market-Driven Planning And D.I.Y. Responses In Making The “Neoliberal” Streetscape, Gordon Douglas
Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning
Since the 1970s, the consequences of global economic restructuring and the rise of free-market “neoliberal” ideologies in governance have been visible in most every arena of social life, but are perhaps nowhere more visible than in urban space. The humble bus stop, a basic element of local transit service, is today often turned over in large part to private advertising interests and in the process has become both an indicator of neglect and a symbol of the commodification of public space. This paper examines such physical manifestations of neoliberal planning policy in the urban streetscape – spatial neglect and inequality …
The Formalities Of Informal Urbanism: Technical And Scholarly Knowledge At Work In Do-It‐Yourself Urban Design, Gordon Douglas
The Formalities Of Informal Urbanism: Technical And Scholarly Knowledge At Work In Do-It‐Yourself Urban Design, Gordon Douglas
Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning
Among the numerous ways people make illegal or unauthorized alterations to urban space, of particular interest in recent years have been the creative, local, and often anonymous efforts at informal but functional “improvement” to the built environment where the state or property owners have failed to act – practices I call “do-it-yourself urban design.” Authorities, planners, and community members alike rightfully wonder about the meanings of these actions, and the questions they raise about rights, responsibilities, benefits, and consequences. Building from alarger qualitative study on DIY urban design across eleven cities, this paper focuses on the motivations, methods, and self-perceptions …
'The Edge Of The Island': Neighborhood Identity And Evolving Community In 'Liminal Places', Gordon Douglas
'The Edge Of The Island': Neighborhood Identity And Evolving Community In 'Liminal Places', Gordon Douglas
Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning
This paper examines the contemporary processes at work in urban areas without clear spatial identities that are simultaneously facing the challenges of cultural change and gentrification. I do so through the close analysis of one such ‘liminal place’ on Chicago’s West Side. I use the phrase ‘a community on the edge of the island’ to describe the area, inspired by an interview subject who referred to the tenuous search for a sort of ideal bohemian hipness as the need to stay as “close to the edge of the island” as possible without actually leaving it. Making use of ethnographic and …
Cultural Sincerity In Urban Development, Gordon Douglas
Cultural Sincerity In Urban Development, Gordon Douglas
Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning
This paper examines the role of culture in the urban development process. An abridged selection from an ongoing study of developers, activists and the politics of growth in Davis, California, it presents the case of the Target Corporation's campaign to build the first "big box" retail store in that city. I argue that Target's ability to win over the strongly slow-growth and anti-corporate community in a public referendum -- following apparently successful attempts to meet popular expectations of environmental leadership and the preservation of unique local character -- provides a clear example of how what I call cultural sincerity can …