Interdisciplinarity in teaching: probing urban studies

This article arises from a research project funded by the Subject Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics and a literature review on ‘interdisciplinarity’ commissioned by the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies (Chettiparamb, 2007). It attempts to unpack how disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity are created through pedagogy in higher education at the module level while teaching an interdisciplinary subject such as ‘urban studies’. In particular, comparisons are made between the teaching aims and methods in two disciplines: planning and sociology. Comparisons are also made between the approach of two types of universities – a pre-1992 university and a post-1992 university. The article argues that the differences between the universities are more profound than the differences between the disciplines. The research reveals two key findings. In the pre-1992 university case study, even though the ‘contributing’ subject domains of the disciplines are similar, the disciplinary identities are maintained and accomplished in subtle ways. In contrast, in the post-1992 university, disciplinary boundaries are not so purposefully maintained, resulting in the realisation of a different construction of interdisciplinarity.

Remaking place and securitising space: Urban regeneration and the strategies, tactics and practices of policing in the UK

Urban regeneration programmes in the UK over the past 20 years have increasingly focused on attracting investors, middle-class shoppers and visitors by transforming places and creating new consumption spaces. Ensuring that places are safe and are seen to be safe has taken on greater salience as these flows of income are easily disrupted by changing perceptions of fear and the threat of crime. At the same time, new technologies and policing strategies and tactics have been adopted in a number of regeneration areas which seek to establish control over these new urban spaces. Policing space is increasingly about controlling human actions through design, surveillance technologies and codes of conduct and enforcement. Regeneration agencies and the police now work in partnerships to develop their strategies. At its most extreme, this can lead to the creation of zero-tolerance, or what Smith terms 'revanchist', measures aimed at particular social groups in an effort to sanitise space in the interests of capital accumulation. This paper, drawing on an examination of regeneration practices and processes in one of the UK's fastest-growing urban areas, Reading in Berkshire, assesses policing strategies and tactics in the wake of a major regeneration programme. It documents and discusses the discourses of regeneration that have developed in the town and the ways in which new urban spaces have been secured. It argues that, whilst security concerns have become embedded in institutional discourses and practices, the implementation of security measures has been mediated, in part, by the local socio-political relations in and through which they have been developed.

The property development industry and sustainable urban brownfield regeneration in England: an analysis of case studies in Thames Gateway and Greater Manchester

The property development industry is a key actor in UK brownfield regeneration projects. UK policy has attempted to interlink ‘sustainable development’ and ‘sustainable brownfield’ policy agendas, which have found an additional focus through the UK government’s ‘Sustainable Communities Plan’, part of a growing international emphasis on sustainable development. This paper examines the emergence of these agendas and related policies, and the role of the property development industry in the regeneration of six differing brownfield sites, based in Thames Gateway and Greater Manchester. Using a conceptual framework, the paper investigates aspects of the sustainability of these projects and highlights key lessons from them for both the UK and overseas. The research is based on structured interviews with a variety of stakeholders, including developers, planners, consultants and community representatives to highlight emerging best practice and related policy implications.

Resilience planning, economic change and the politics of post-recession development in London and Hong Kong

For much of the 1990s and 2000s, the emphasis of urban policy in many global cities was on managing and mitigating the social and environmental effects of rapid economic growth. The credit crunch of 2008 and the subsequent recession have undermined some of the core assumptions on which such policies were based. It is in this context that the concept of resilience planning has taken on a new significance. Drawing on contemporary research in London and Hong Kong, the paper shows how resilience and recovery planning has become a key area of political debate. It examines what is meant by conservative and radical interpretations of resilience and how conservative views have come to dominate ‘recovery’ thinking, with élite groups unwilling to accept the limits to the neo-liberal orthodoxies that helped to precipitate the economic crisis. The paper explores the implications of such thinking for the politics of urban development.

The distribution of London residential property prices and the role of spatial lock-in

Much of mainstream economic analysis assumes that markets adjust smoothly, through prices, to changes in economic conditions. However, this is not necessarily the case for local housing markets, whose spatial structures may exhibit persistence, so that conditions may not be those most suited to the requirements of modern-day living. Persistence can arise from the existence of transaction costs. The paper tests the proposition that housing markets in Inner London exhibit a degree of path dependence, through the construction of a three-equation model, and examines the impact of variables constructed for the 19th and early 20th centuries on modern house prices. These include 19th-century social structures, slum clearance programmes and the 1908 underground network. Each is found to be significant. The tests require the construction of novel historical datasets, which are also described in the paper.

Institutional framing of CSR and social entrepreneurship interactions in South Africa

Objectives. This paper considers the intersection of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and social entrepreneurship in South Africa through the lens of institutional theories and draws upon a number of illustrative case study examples. In particular it: (1) charts the historically evolving relationship between CSR and social entrepreneurship in South Africa, and how this relationship has been informed by institutional changes since the end of apartheid, particularly over the last few years; (2) identifies different interactional relationship forms between social enterprises and corporates engaging in CSR, with an emphasis on new innovative multi-stakeholder partnerships; and (3) considers internal engagements with social responsibility by SME social enterprises in South Africa. Prior Work. Reflecting South Africa’s history of division, the controversial role of business during apartheid, and the ongoing legacies of that period, the South African government has been particularly pro-active in encouraging companies to contribute to development and societal transformation through CSR and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). Accordingly a substantial body of work now exists examining and critically reflecting upon CSR and BEE across a range of sectors. In response to perceived problems with BEE, efforts have recently been made to foster broader-based economic empowerment. However the implications of these transitions for the relationship between CSR and social entrepreneurship in South Africa have received scant academic attention. Approach. Analysis is undertaken of legislative and policy changes in South Africa with a bearing on CSR and social entrepreneurship. Data collected during fieldwork in South Africa working with 6 social enterprise case studies is utilised including qualitative data from key informant interviews, focus groups with stakeholders and observational research. Results. The paper considers the historically evolving relationship between CSR and social entrepreneurship in South Africa informed by institutional change. Five different relationship forms are identified and illustrated with reference to case examples. Finally internal engagement with social responsibility concerns by small and medium social enterprises are critically discussed. Implications. This paper sheds light on some of the innovative partnerships emerging between corporates and social enterprises in South Africa. It reflects on some of the strengths and weaknesses of South Africa’s policy and legislative approaches. Value. The paper provides insights useful for academic and practitioner audiences. It also has policy relevance, in particularly for other African countries potentially looking to follow South Africa’s example, in the development of legislative and policy frameworks to promote corporate responsibility, empowerment and transformation.

An overview on the urban boundary-layer atmosphere network in Helsinki

The Helsinki Urban Boundary-Layer Atmosphere Network (UrBAN: http://urban.fmi.fi) is a dedicated research-grade observational network where the physical processes in the atmosphere above the city are studied. Helsinki UrBAN is the most poleward intensive urban research observation network in the world and thus will allow studying some unique features such as strong seasonality. The network's key purpose is for the understanding of the physical processes in the urban boundary layer and associated fluxes of heat, momentum, moisture, and other gases. A further purpose is to secure a research-grade database, which can be used internationally to validate and develop numerical models of air quality and weather prediction. Scintillometers, a scanning Doppler lidar, ceilometers, a sodar, eddy-covariance stations, and radiometers are used. This equipment is supplemented by auxiliary measurements, which were primarily set up for general weather and/or air-quality mandatory purposes, such as vertical soundings and the operational Doppler radar network. Examples are presented as a testimony to the potential of the network for urban studies, such as (i) evidence of a stable boundary layer possibly coupled to an urban surface, (ii) the comparison of scintillometer data with sonic anemometry above an urban surface, (iii) the application of scanning lidar over a city, and (iv) combination of sodar and lidar to give a fuller range of sampling heights for boundary layer profiling.

Financialisation, the valuation of investment property and the urban built environment in the UK

The financialisation literature has been criticised for its limited empirical base and its failure adequately to link the everyday world with that of high finance. The paper addresses these shortcomings by examining the calculative practice of property valuation. The way that valuations are performed affects their results and, therefore, the operation of the property market. The paper traces the evolving influence of finance capital on the valuation of commercial property in the UK by constructing a historiography of investment valuation since 1960. Traditional approaches to valuation have been increasingly challenged by those derived from financial economics. However, the former remains the dominant method for undertaking market valuation. Its grounding in comparison – a centring and standardising process – offers an explanation for some of the changes in the urban built environment that are ascribed to financialisation. This suggests that a more detailed and historically sensitive interpretation of financialisation is required.

Adaptive climate change governance for urban resilience

Climate change poses new challenges to cities and new flexible forms of governance are required that are able to take into account the uncertainty and abruptness of changes. The purpose of this paper is to discuss adaptive climate change governance for urban resilience. This paper identifies and reviews three traditions of literature on the idea of transitions and transformations, and assesses to what extent the transitions encompass elements of adaptive governance. This paper uses the open source Urban Transitions Project database to assess how urban experiments take into account principles of adaptive governance. The results show that: the experiments give no explicit information of ecological knowledge; the leadership of cities is primarily from local authorities; and evidence of partnerships and anticipatory or planned adaptation is limited or absent. The analysis shows that neither technological, political nor ecological solutions alone are sufficient to further our understanding of the analytical aspects of transition thinking in urban climate governance. In conclusion, the paper argues that the future research agenda for urban climate governance needs to explore further the links between the three traditions in order to better identify contradictions, complementarities or compatibilities, and what this means in practice for creating and assessing urban experiments.

Spatial housing economics: a survey

This introduction to the Virtual Special Issue surveys the development of spatial housing economics from its roots in neo-classical theory, through more recent developments in social interactions modelling, and touching on the role of institutions, path dependence and economic history. The survey also points to some of the more promising future directions for the subject that are beginning to appear in the literature. The survey covers elements hedonic models, spatial econometrics, neighbourhood models, housing market areas, housing supply, models of segregation, migration, housing tenure, sub-national house price modelling including the so-called ripple effect, and agent-based models. Possible future directions are set in the context of a selection of recent papers that have appeared in Urban Studies. Nevertheless, there are still important gaps in the literature that merit further attention, arising at least partly from emerging policy problems. These include more research on housing and biodiversity, the relationship between housing and civil unrest, the effects of changing age distributions - notably housing for the elderly - and the impact of different international institutional structures. Methodologically, developments in Big Data provide an exciting framework for future work.

Refashioning local government and inner-city regeneration: The Salford experience

This paper explores the role of local government in urban regeneration in England. The first part describes local-central government relations during recent decades. It concludes that 'actually occurring' regeneration fuses top-down and bottom-up priorities and preferences, as well as path dependencies created by past decisions and local relations. The second part illustrates this contention by examining the regeneration of inner-city Salford over a 25-year period. It describes Salford City Council's approach in achieving the redevelopment of the former Salford Docks and how this created the confidence for the council to embark on further regeneration projects. Yet the top-down decision-making model has failed to satisfy local expectations, creating apathy which threatens the Labour government's desire for active citizens in regeneration projects.