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Documentary : “Creativity and the capitalist city. A struggle for affordable space in Amsterdam” a film by Tino Buchholz

Text from the official webpage of the documentary :  

“Creativity is fancy, glamorous and desirable. Who can be against creativity? At the same time it is used selectively for economic purposes and consists of precarious and hard work.

In this film, the search for creativity is linked to existential struggles for affordable housing and working space in Amsterdam, such as temporary accommodation, squatting, anti-squatting and some institutional synthesis: “breeding places” Amsterdam.

This film is more than a local documentary on Amsterdam. It explores the latest urban re-/development pattern in advanced Western capitalist cities. The hype around the creative city began already a decade ago, it is global in scope and about to reach its peak. After Richard Florida’s influential book “The Rise of the Creative Class” (2002) creativity has advanced to be the role model of urban regeneration:The New American Dream.

 The whole film is watchable here : http://www.creativecapitalistcity.org/#!prettyPhoto

“Media and the city workshop” – ECREA

Organisers’ description:

The MEDIA & THE CITY Temporary Working Group is happy to announce the organization of its first Workshop. The Workshop will take place on FEBRUARY 10, 2012, at the CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY of MILAN, ITALY.

 

Workshop overview

The first TWG Workshop will feature parallel sessions and a final plenary. During the parallel sessions, members will be able to share and discuss their research. The final plenary session will discuss the organizational aspects of the Group and delineate future activities. Parallel sessions will be open to all interested scholars, while the plenary will be open only for TWG members.

 

Selected papers (see website for full details):

Giorgia Aiello – The urban built environment as global(ist) communication: Concepts, methods, critique

Clemens Apprich – Rise and fall of the city metaphor to describe digital networks in the 1990s

Girogio Bacchiega – Peripheral views on Milan

Giovanni Caruso, Riccardo Fassone, Gabriele Ferri and Mauro Salvador – Check-in everywhere: Places, people, narrations, games

Mariana Ciancia and Walter Mattana – Imagine Milan: An audiovisual design thinking approach to the image of the city

Andrea Cuman – Hardcopy vs digital mobile travel guidebooks: A preliminary comparison on mediated spatial interactino and a case study

Amedeo Damato – Cities of blood and longing. The protagonist’s architectural projection in Hollywood cinema

Miriam De Rosa – Cinematic architectures IN SITU. Notes on the participatory construction of a visual urban imagery

Manuela Farinosi – New media and the city in an “out of ordinary” context: Exploring the motivations behind the citizen journalism production after a natural disaster

Gabriele Ferri and Patrick Coppock – Serious urban games. From play in the city to play for the city

Katalin Feher – Digital urban identities

Cezary Hunkiewicz – City as a medium: The space and street art activities

Angelo Imperiale – Avoiding urban marginality: How to build social sustainability?

Sami Kolamo – Branding urban spaces through football media spectacles

Peter Maroldt – New media and the Asian city

Gonca Noyan – Old bridge as a symbol of multiculturalism: Global discourse and local narratives in Mostar

Christian Oggolder – Losing centrality – urban spaces and the network society

Seja Ridell – The cybercity as a medium. Public living and agency in the digitally shaped urban space

Gabriella Sandstig – There is a light that never goes out – cultivation effects on the freedom of movement in urban and suburban public places

Barbara Scifo – The sense of place from mobile communicatino to locative media

Katia Segers, Joost Vaesen and Rudi Janssens – Opportunities and dangers of Brussels media for its Dutch-speaking minority. Research on audience use, expectations and appreciation

Satomi Sugyiama – The muted mobile in Tokyo

Moira Sweeney – Space and the geographical imagination on the Dublin Docklands

Robert Szwed – Researching media representations of the city. Preliminary remarks on how to measure representations of Lublin, Poland

Matteo Tarantino and Simone Tosoni – Convergent media and social production of space: An approach through controversies

Federica Timeto – In the middle of urban space: The case of critical city

Ferenc Zsélyi – Concrete dreamworks

Ferenc Zsélyi, István András and Mónika Rajcsányi-Molnár – Global staging in a postindustrial city: Dunaújváros, the media platform of intercultural networking

Weiming Ye – Phoenix man and woman: Discussions on urban and rural gap in Chinese BBS forums

Documentary : “Ekümenopolis : city without limits”, by Imre Azem

source : http://www.ekumenopolis.net/

Projection at the IFEA : May 25th 2011, 6pm

Synopsis:

“The neoliberal transformation that swept through the world economy during the 1980’s, and along with it the globalization process that picked up speed, brought with it a deep transformation in cities all over the world. For this new finance-centered economic structure, urban land became a tool for capital accumulation, which had deep effects on major cities of developing countries. In Istanbul, which already lacked a tradition of principled  planning, the administrators of the city blindly adopted the neoliberal approach that put financial gain ahead of people’s needs; everyone fought to get a piece of the loot; and the result is a megashantytown of 15 million struggling with mesh of life-threatening problems.

Especially in the past 10 years, as the World Bank foresaw in its reports, Istanbul has been changing from an industrial city to a finance and service-centered city, competing with other world cities for investment. Making Istanbul attractive for investors requires not only the abolishment of legal controls that look out for the public good, but also a parallel transformation of the users of the city. This means that the working class who actually built the city as an industrial center no longer have a place in the new consumption-centered finance and service city. So what is planned for these people?

This is where the “urban renewal” projects come into play. Armed with new powers never before imagined, TOKI (State Housing Administration), together with the municipalities and private investors, are trying to reshape the urban landscape in this new vision. With international capital behind them, land plans in their hands, square meters and building coefficients in their minds, they are demolishing neighborhoods, and instead building skyscrapers, highways and shopping malls. But who do these new spaces serve?

The huge gap between the rich and the poor in Istanbul is reflected more and more in the urban landscape, and at the same time feeds on the spatial segregation. While the rich isolate themselves in gated communities, residences and plazas; new poverty cycles born in social housing communities on the prifery of the city designed as human depots continue to push millions to desperation and hopelessness. So who is responsible for this social legacy that we are leaving for future generations?

While billions of dollars are wasted on new road tunnels, junctions, and viaducts with a complete disregard for the scientific fact that all new roads eventually create their own traffic, Istanbul in 2010 has to contend with a single-line eight-station metro “system”. Due to insufficient budget allocations for mass public transportation, rail and other alternative transport systems, millions of people are tormented in traffic, and billions of dollars worth of time go out the exhaust pipe. What do our administrators do? You guessed right: more roads!

Everything changes so fast in this city of 15 million that it is impossible to even take a snap-shot for planning. Plans are outdated even as they are being made. A chronic case of planlessness. Meanwhile, the population keeps increasing and the city expands uncontrollably pushing up against Tekirdağ in the east and Kocaeli in the west. But does Istanbul really have a plan?

In 1980 the first plan for Istanbul on a metropolitan scale was produced. In that plan report, it is noted that the topography and the geographic nature of the city would only support a maximum population of 5 million. At the time, Istanbul had 3.5 million people living in it. Now we are 15 million, and in 15 years we will be 23 million. Almost 5 times the sustainable size. Today we bring water to Istanbul from as far away as Bolu, and suck-up the entire water in Thrace, destroying the natural environment there. The northern forest areas disappear at a rapid pace, and the project for a 3rd bridge over the Bosphorous is threatening the remaining forests and water reservoirs giving life to Istanbul. The bridges that connect the two continents are segregating our society through the urban land speculation that they trigger. So what are we, the people of Istanbul, doing against this pillage? If cities are a reflection of the society, what can we say about ourselves by looking at Istanbul? What kind of city are we leaving behind for future generations?

Ecological limits have been surpassed. Economic limits have been surpassed. Population limits have been surpassed. Social cohesion has been lost. Here is the picture of neoliberal urbanism: Ecumenopolis.

Ecumenopolis aims for a holistic approach to Istanbul, questioning not only the transformation, but the dynamics behind it as well. From demolished shantytowns to the tops of skyscrapers, from the depths of Marmaray to the alternative routes of the 3rd bridge, from real estate investors to urban opposition, the film will take us on a long journey in this city without limits. We will speak with experts, academics, writers, investors, city-dwellers, and community leaders; and we will take a look at the city on a macro level through animated maps and graphics. Perhaps you will rediscover the city that you live in and we hope that you will not sit back and watch this transformation but question it. In the end this is what democracy requires of us.”

Source : official website
http://www.ekumenopolis.net/

Facebook page of the film:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ekümenopolis/141253259238073


Call for papers, VI International PhD Seminar – Urbanism and Urbanization, 21/05/11

“Three main aspects can be identified today that define an “urban question” different from the past: first, the growing distance between the rich and the poor, second, the environmental risks, and third the mobility crises. The ‘question’ is and will be ‘urban’ because it is in the urban context that the largest part of the world population lives. It is in the context of the city that the question is most apparent and gains a sense of urgency.(…)”

“Short and ‘full papers’
The seminar invites full papers that present a coherent piece of research or dissertation chapter, as well as short papers that address methodology, research question or articulate a starting point for PhD research.
Full papers will be organized in thematic sessions. Short papers will be organized in thematic workshops.

Abstract guidelines
PhD candidates interested in presenting a paper should submit an abstract of maximum 1000 words by May 21st . The scientific committee, taking into account the interest of the themes proposed, will select the papers to be presented during the seminar by July 8th . Upon selection of the various contributions, we will invite respondents in function of the subject of the papers submitted. The selected papers will be submitted in a final version to the scientific committee and to each respondent before September 15th. (…)”

Call for papers launch:
21 March 2011

Deadline abstracts:
21 May 2011
Notification of acceptance:
8 July 2011
Full paper due:
15 September 2011

More infos :
http://www.uu2011.eu/

“The naked city” – by Sharon Zukin

Renowned sociologist Sharon Zukin will discuss her latest book, The Naked City: the death and life of authentic urban places, which explores the gentrification of cities.

Sharon Zukin is Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College and City University Graduate Center and the author of Naked City : The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places (2010).

“The Geography of Financial Crisis, an interview with David Harvey” – Métropolitiques

“David Harvey is a leading figure of the marxist critique of neoliberalism. During his last stay in France, in October 2010, he answered a few quick questions on his relationship to Paris, on the geography of the financial crisis and on utopia and social movements.”

by David HarveyNadine RoudilStéphane Tonnelat

Source : Métropolitiques


David Harvey: the geography of financial crisis Metropolitiques


David Harvey: the geography of financial crisis Metropolitiques


David Harvey: the geography of financial crisis Metropolitiques