1,721,096 research outputs found
Urbanisation processes and new towns in contemporary China: A critical understanding from a decentred view
No full textAbstract
The article discusses the results of research on Chinese new towns focusing on three places: Tongzhou New Town, located in the eastern suburban expansion of Beijing; Zhaoqing New Area, currently being built approximately 20 km from the old city of Zhaoqing (Guandong Province); and Zhengdong New District, located near Zhengzhou (inland Henan Province). Tongzhou, Zhaoqing and Zhengdong have absolutely nothing in common: location, size, spaces, economies, inhabitants, or when and how they were built. However, studying these places allowed us to iden- tify two issues that still seem to be in need of investigation both empirically and theoretically: the spatial features and regional scaling-up of the Chinese urbanisation processes. While presenting these issues, on the one hand, the article emphasises their specificity in the investigated contexts and, on the other, it transcends these specific cases in order to question urban studies beyond the (alleged) exceptionality of Chinese urbanisation. By adopting this approach, Chinese new towns become an object of study as well as a specific viewpoint from which to examine contem- porary urbanisation and radically re-discuss old categories, conceptualisations and even the epis- temology of the urban
Seeing like an Italian city
No full textThis chapter briefly reviews global urban research as seeing from Southern European cities. It subsequently discusses the possibility of reconsidering “worlding practices”, starting from a so-called urban margin in Turin, an Italian “ordinary city”. The chapter reassesses some research paths that may help us to pursue a “different” urban view – neither global nor local, general nor specific – in order to apply Nancy’s notion of “being singularly plural and plurally singular” to global urbanism. Starting from the late nineteenth century, Barriera di Milano was the emblem of Turin’s industrialization, working-class culture and later resistance to the fascist dictatorship. Inserted in the Global North/Global South divide, Italian cities can be considered an “in-between space”, just like other Southern European and Mediterranean cities
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