Urban public space is being redefined and revaluated in the emerging megacity of Hyderabad. In everyday life, exclusion takes place, but also the corresponding persistence of groups perceived as backward and undeveloped. Elites try to shape globally competitive cities attractive for foreign investment: they see the disappearance of street vending as progress, yet vendors can still be found everywhere. Illustrated by a case study, this book uses the production of public space to exemplify ambivalent outcomes of change: as a new aesthetic is implemented, access to public space becomes contested and its appropriate use is redefined.

What do the recent urban resistance tactics around the world have in common? What are the roles of public space in these movements? What are the implications of urban resistance for the remaking of public space in the "age of shrinking democracy"? To what extent do these resistances move from anti- to alter-politics? City Unsilenced brings together a cross-disciplinary group of scholars and scholar-activists to examine the spaces, conditions, and processes in which neoliberal practices have profoundly impacted the everyday social, economic, and political life of citizens and communities around the globe. They explore the commonalities and specificities of urban resistance movements that respond to those impacts. They focus on how such movements make use of and transform the meanings and capacity of public space. They investigate their ramifications in the continued practices of renewing democracies. A broad collection of cases is presented and analyzed, including Movimento Passe Livre (Brazil), Google Bus Blockades San Francisco (USA), the Platform for Mortgage Affected People (PAH) (Spain), the Piqueteros Movement (Argentina), Umbrella Movement (Hong Kong), post-Occupy Gezi Park (Turkey), Sunflower Movement (Taiwan), Occupy Oakland (USA), Syntagma Square (Greece), Researchers for Fair Policing (New York), Urban Movement Congress (Poland), urban activism (Berlin), 1DMX (Mexico), Miyashita Park Tokyo (Japan), 15M Movement (Spain), and Train of Hope and protests against Academic Ball in Vienna (Austria). By better understanding the processes and implications of the recent urban resistances, City Unsilenced contributes to the ongoing debates concerning the role and significance of public space in the practice of lived democracy.

The relationship between public and private spheres is one of the key concerns of the modern society. This book investigates this relationship, especially as manifested in the urban space with its social and psychological significance. Through theoretical and historical examination, it explores how and why the space of human socities is subdivided into public and private sections. It starts with the private, interior space of the mind and moves step by step, through the body, home, neighborhood and the city, outwards to the most public, impersonal spaces, exploring the nature of each realm and their complex, interdependent realtionships. A stimulating and thought provoking book for any architect, architectural historian, urban planner or designer.

This international volume explores the transformations of public space and public transport in response to COVID-19, both those resulting from official governmental regulations and from everyday practices of urban citizens. The contributors discuss how the virus made urban inequalities clearer, and redefined public spaces in the “new normal”.

Public spaces mirror the complexities of urban societies: as historic social bonds have weakened and cities have become collections of individuals public open spaces have also changed from being embedded in the social fabric of the city to being a part of more impersonal and fragmented urban environments. Can making public spaces help overcome this fragmentation, where accessible spaces are created through inclusive processes? This book offers some answers to this question through analysing the process of urban design and development in international case studies, in which the changing character, level of accessibility, and the tensions of making public spaces are explored. The book uses a coherent theoretical outlook to investigate a series of case studies, crossing the cultural divides to examine the similarities and differences of public space in different urban contexts, and its critical analysis of the process of development, management and use of public space, with all its tensions and conflicts. While each case study investigates the specificities of a particular city, the book outlines some general themes in global urban processes. It shows how public spaces are a key theme in urban design and development everywhere, how they are appreciated and used by the people of these cities, but also being contested by and under pressure from different stakeholders.

Large-scale protest movements have recently transformed urban common spaces into sites of resistance. The Arab Spring, the European Summer, the American Fall in 2011, the revolts in India and South Africa and, more recently, in Istanbul, in several cities in Brazil, and in Hong Kong, are part of a common wave of protests which reclaims squares and urban places, monumentally designed as political and economic centres, as places for discussion and decision-making, for increasing participation and intervention in the governance of the community. Through banners and signs, open assemblies, and other communicative practices in the encampments and interconnecting physical and virtual spaces, participants permanently reconfigure their lived spaces discursively. The attempt to account for on-going social phenomena from the moment they first happen, and with an international perspective, undoubtedly represents a theoretical and methodological challenge. This book is a successful and innovative attempt to address this challenge, capturing the complex interplay between social, spatial, and communicative practices, drawing on complementary and alternative methods. Originally published in Journal of Language and Politics issue 13:4 (2014).

Globalization, the City and Civil Society in Pacific Asia presents a detailed examination of the underlying issues of urban life in the Far East. Leading authorities on globalization and politics in the region cover key themes of continuity and change: relationships between civil society and the production of urban spaces. Chapters focus on various types of ‘civic spaces’ that provide spaces for life that are autonomous from state and capital ten case studies explore a wide variety of contexts ranging from spaces where lower classes congregated in ancient Chinese cities to cyberspaces of the contemporary internet the history and role of civil society in social and political philosophies of societies in the Pacific Asia region tendencies and issues related to specific types of civic spaces in a given city. Several studies find that great stress has been placed on long-standing community and civic spaces common themes, patterns and issues as well as singularities of each particular context. In this way it can contribute to the broader (mostly Western) literature on society and space the future of cities in Pacific Asia from the perspective of civic space. Can civic spaces be routinely created rather than appropriated through civil society-state-economy struggles? Most research on globalization and civil society has focused on the West, this unique book brings together a tight analysis and a series of ten case studies on Pacific Asian countries. It also theorizes and empirically explores the relationships between civil society and the production of urban spaces.

Social cohesion is often perceived as being under threat from the increasing cultural and economic differences in contemporary cities and the increasing intensity of urban life. Public space, in its role as the main stage for social interactions between strangers, clearly plays a role in facilitating or limiting opportunities for social cohesion. But what exactly is social cohesion, how is it experienced in the public realm, and what role can the design of city spaces have in supporting or promoting it? There are significant knowledge gaps between the social sciences and design disciplines and between academia and practice, and thus a dispersed knowledge base that currently lacks nuanced insight into how urban design contributes to social integration or segregation. This book brings together scholarly knowledge at the intersection of public space design and social cohesion. It is based on original scholarly research and a depth of urban design practice, and analyses case studies from a variety of cities and cultures across the Global North and Global South. Its interdisciplinary, cross-cultural analysis will be of interest to academics, students, policymakers and practitioners engaged with a range of subject areas, including urban design, urban planning, architecture, landscape, cultural studies, human geography, social policy, sociology and anthropology. It will also have significant appeal to a wider non-academic readership, given its topical subject matter.

Cities are staging more events than ever. Within this macro-trend, there is another less acknowledged trend: more events are being staged in public spaces. Some events have always been staged in parks, streets and squares, but in recent years events have been taken out of traditional venues and staged in prominent urban spaces. This is favoured by organisers seeking more memorable and more spectacular events, but also by authorities who want to animate urban space and make it more visible. This book explains these trends and outlines the implications for public spaces. Events play a positive role in our cities, but turning public spaces into venues is often controversial. Events can denigrate as well as animate city space; they are part of the commercialisation, privatisation and securitisation of public space noted by commentators in recent years. The book focuses on examples from London in particular, but it also covers a range of other cities from the developed world. Events at different scales are addressed and, there is dedicated coverage of sports events and cultural events. This topical and timely volume provides valuable material for higher level students, researchers and academics from events studies, urban studies and development studies.