Silvia comments

General remarks (Silvia)


 I share the concern of a lot of us for making the political perspective and implications of the project clearer. I also agree we need for “a theory” to make it possible.



 As for the political perspective, I think the project aim should be more ambitious than “to describe and analyse the NMM diversity”. What I would propose as an alternative aim for the INURA common project is twofold: 
 * 1) to unveil the impacts of NMM strategies and policies on our cities (how they are transforming processes of “social production of space”, who is included or excluded, who is gaining or losing, …)
 * 2) to identify ways (both in research and action) to resist or subvert those strategies and policies, and to build other possible urban worlds.

 As for the theory’s need, there are several ideas that could be inspiring for us. A lot of them are already included in the original NMM paper, maybe too many. Others should be added in order to deal with some missing aspects that have been highlighted in Zurich (like North-South differences or environmental issues).



 Aims NMM, philipp



 NMM is a thesis to unveil strategies*, developments and impacts of global urban processes (political, social, environment, economic) and phenomena.

 by comparative research and integration of a wide range of urban theories.

 * Public Private Partnerships, privatisation, new planning rules, deregulation, city marketing, flagships and cultur in the competition among cities, changes in budget (reduction of social expensis, loss of public housing).  à Entrepreneurial City, Harvey 1989.

 The project aims at making understandable what has happened and is happening in our cities (p. ex. competition between cities and ist consequences) for a wider public. Therefore analysis and description of processes and phenomena need to be in a clearly structured concept and executed in a language that is rather easily to understand. The framework of analysis and description is based on: INURA Principles and INURA Declaration



<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> The project aims at showing Countercurrents to NMM and developping Possible Urban Worlds with egalitarian, just and ecological life conditions.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> I would select and develop the followings from the original NMM paper:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> - “urbanity”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> - “commodification of the urban”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> - “right to the city” and “social production of space”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> I made this choice because it seems to me that NMM, apart from being a sort of world wide generalization of tendencies emerging since the 80s, consists above all of imposing of a new notion of urbanity (that is the one on which new urbanism draws) that paths the way to the city’s commodification and results in completely excluding urban dwellers from the production of “their” space.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> In my opinion these few ideas provide a strong background for both critical analysis of NMM impacts and identification of resistance / subversion / alternative practices.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> Very good.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> Calling into question the notion of urbanity not only will allow for a better understanding of the shift which NMM is pushing for (e.g. open to the “other”, but not for all; producing “innovation”, but only the one useful for profit; …). It will also help to open the debate on how much northern (or western) is the notion of urbanity most of us refers to for developing critical analysis of NMM and identifying other possible urban worlds.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> Very good.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> With regards to that, I found two very inspiring articles:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops:list 36.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;mso-fareast-font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"> -         ANANYA ROY, The 21st-Century Metropolis: New Geographies of Theory, Regional Studies, Vol. 43.6, pp. 819–830, July 2009 (mentioned by Ute and Roger in their comments)

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops:list 36.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;mso-fareast-font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"> -         JENNIFER ROBINSON, Cities in a World of Cities: The Comparative Gesture, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2427.2010.00982.x

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> I made both of them available on the “virtual repository” I created for this group.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> An abstract of the NMM paper follows, in which I added some comments.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">ABSTRACT of The New Metropolitan Mainstream -INURA Zurich – with Silvia comments

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Philipp’s Remark on idea that the NMM_Project is Eurocentristic
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> Eurocentrism and North-South 

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> The NMM-Thesis does not say:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> - only urban strategies that are found in the North are analysed for the rest of the world.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> - But, the thesis is that urban strategies imposed in cities of the North and mainly in the Western world are applied in cities of the East, and the South. Global Cities like Mumbai, Sao Paolo, Cape Town and Shanghai are used as hubs for global investments (see Global Cities Thesis ) and therefore are shaped in a "Western" or "Northern" way. The Dualism and polarisation of the urban regions and countries (Planet of Slums) is supported by the urban strategies and are part of a Metropolitan Mainstream.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> - There are hundreds of variations to the Mainstream (cultural, legal, physical conditions). The NMM-project wants to peel them out.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> - Local/regional strategies

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