New York City: 12 December, 1980

This article compares two documentary treatments of the Central Park vigil for John Lennon in 1980: Happy Birthday to John (Jonas Mekas, 1995, 16mm, 18 min.), and Dix minutes de silence pour John Lennon/Ten Minutes Silence for John Lennon (Raymond Depardon, 1980, 16mm, 10 min.). Mekas and Depardon might seem an improbable combination but as the article demonstrates there are affinities, if not direct points of convergence, in outlook and documentary method: both sensibilities have been shaped by migrant experiences, and much of their work, for all its formal and structural differences, is preoccupied with experiences of exile and displacement, rootedness and the meaning of home, the country and the city (and in Mekas’s case, the country in the city). Mekas and Depardon are also Europeans who have developed an intimate social and artistic relationship with New York City; both are concerned with the place of autobiography in their work, using captions, inter-titles, diary entries, photographs, and 1st person commentary to complicate relations between the imaginary and the documentary. In addition to discussing the significance of these preoccupations, and differences in the manner in which both filmmakers witness the apotheosis of Lennon as cultural martyr (and natural New Yorker), the article also examines the phenomenon of public mourning, and how it often displaces its ostensible subject: associatively, in the case of Mekas; incidentally, in the case of Depardon; and intentionally, in the case of the mass media, and popular culture.

Recomposing the City: New Directions in Urban Sound Art

The editorial introduces the invited edition of the journal based around our International Symposium for Recomposing the City, an interdisciplinary group which asks how the sound of urban spaces might be considered in new ways.

Recomposing the City: New Directions in Urban Sound Art

This special edition, which we were invited by the journal editors to edit, highlights the proceedings of our International Symposium on sound art and urban architecture. We selected these and other authors from multiple disciplines and practices, including sound art, planning, architecture, and anthropology to analyze how sound might be better understood in urban environments.

Integrating Land-use Planning and Transportation in Belfast: A New Policy Agenda for Sustainable Development

Much of the interest in promoting sustainable development in planning for the city-region focuses on the apparently inexorable rise in the demand for car travel and the contribution that certain urban forms and land-use relationships can make to reducing energy consumption. Within this context, policy prescription has increasingly favoured a compact city approach with increasing urban residential densities to address the physical separation of daily activities and the resultant dependency on the private car. This paper aims to outline and evaluate recent efforts to integrate land use and transport policy in the Belfast Metropolitan Area in Northern Ireland. Although considerable progress has been made, this paper underlines the extent of existing car dependency in the metropolitan area and prevailing negative attitudes to public transport, and argues that although there is a rhetorical support for the principles of sustainability and the practice of land-use/transportation integration, this is combined with a selective reluctance to embrace local changes in residential environment or in lifestyle preferences which might facilitate such principles.

Desegregation and Place Restructuring in the New Belfast

A sustained reduction in unemployment, economic growth and house price increase have reflected Belfast’s post-conflict renaissance just as readily as the global recession has exposed the fragility of construction-led growth. Rates of segregation had stabilised and new consumption spaces and élite developments further reflected the city’s engagement with globalisation and economic liberalisation. This paper explores the spatial impact of these processes, not least as gentrification has created new layers of residential segregation in a city already preoccupied with high rates of ethno-religious territoriality. A case study of south Belfast connects these shifts to the production of new mixed-religion neighbourhoods. These have the capacity to reduce the relevance of traditional binary identities, but at the same time reproduce new forms of segregation centred on tenure and class. The paper concludes by highlighting the implications for policy and practice, not least as the recession opens new spaces to present alternatives to the market logic.

Getting off the escalator? A study of Scots out-migration from a global city region

Something new is happening to reverse the historical trend of skilled Scots moving to London for career progression. The Scottish population of London and the South East is falling and this despite Scots enjoying continued occupational success within the South East labour market. The authors ask why Scots are leaving the UK's main escalator region and then investigate how these migration changes can best be theorised relative to literature on the mobility of the 'new service class'. Building on Fielding's escalator region hypothesis, the authors report on recent research on longer distance flows out of the UK's main escalator region. They advance the critique of the escalator region hypothesis set out by Findlay et al and ask why people would leave a global city offering good opportunities for occupational mobility. Demographic regime change provides only a partial answer. Other explanations can be found in the changing mobilities of the new service class as they engage in what Smith has defined as 'translocal' and 'transnational' urbanism. The authors argue that Scotland's changing relationship with London and the South East may be representative of a wider set of changes in migration linkages between regional economies and global cities.

The New Political Economy of the Macroprudential Ideational Shift

From late 2008 onwards, in the space of six months, international financial regulatory networks centred around the Swiss city of Basel presided over a startlingly rapid ideational shift, the significance and importance of which remains to be deciphered. From being relatively unpopular and very much on the sidelines, the idea of macroprudential regulation (MPR) moved to the centre of the policy agenda and came to represent a new Basel consensus, as the principal interpretative frame, for financial technocrats and regulators seeking to diagnose and understand the financial crisis and to advance institutional blueprints for regulatory reform. This article sets out to explain how and why that ideational shift occurred. It identifies four scoping conditions of presence, position, promotion, and plausibility, that account for the successful rise to prominence of macroprudential ideas through an insiders' coup d'état. The final section of the article argues that this macroprudential shift is an example of a ‘gestalt flip’ or third order change in Peter Hall's terms, but it is not yet a paradigm shift, because the development of first order policy settings and second order policy instruments is still ongoing, giving the macroprudential ideational shift a highly contested and contingent character.

Dubai revisited: is new planned housing sustainable?

Dubai, the second largest city of the United Arab Emirates, is a fast growing hub with increasing need for infrastructure, housing and public facilities. Dubai is trying to market itself as an attractive holiday destination, which saw the launching and building of large scale planned communities, some of which are located on reclaimed land along the city's coast line. This paper reviews Dubai\'s green building agenda by examining the scale and typologies of new and planned low carbon projects, and discusses the potential of renewable sources of energy that can reduce the country's dependence on fossil fuels and improve the country's long term sustainability. It assesses the potential of solar energy, wind power, and geo-thermal energy in Dubai and the UAE in general.

School as ‘Micro-city’ for the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Pupil

As architects and designers we have a responsibility to provide an inclusive built environment. For the person with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) however, the built environment can be a frightening and confusing place, difficult to negotiate and tolerate. The challenge of integrating more fully into society is denied by both having difficulty in communication and in an alienating built environment. The following paper therefore firstly outlines the challenge when designing for those with ASD. It then illustrates, by critically examining the school as a 'micro-city' (Hertzberger 2008) that a voice can be given to those with ASD. It then goes onto highlight, through two case studies in an Irish context, some of the lessons that can be learnt from pupils with ASD that are applicable to the city beyond. Finally in conclusion it suggests some of the benefits for an enriched built environment for all, when listening to the pupil with ASD. The objective is twofold; firstly to gain a better understanding of the needs of those with ASD and secondly, to ascertain what can be learnt from those with ASD that can challenge our perception of not just school, but also of the city.