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This paper examines the impact of urban policy change through an attention to shifting feelings about time and place among those affected by such changes. The focus is the shift from 'Neighbourhood Renewal' under the UK Labour Government (1997–2010) to 'localism' under the Conservative Coalition Government (2010–2015), as part of its programme of austerity. The article draws on longitudinal research with policy officials and resident-activists in two neighbourhoods in one UK city and examines their narratives about policy change and wider shifting feelings about time and place. From an official perspective, discourses and practices of localism were embraced to an extent, but uncertainty was also present. From the perspective of resident-activists, the changes in policy were experienced as a loss of past services and support, a sense of pessimism about the future, and fragmenting and inequitable trajectories for different localities. Temporalities of crisis were also apparent in responding to the material needs of residents undergoing deepening poverty. The failure of the localism discourse to provide everyday meaning can be seen as an example of the incoherent and fragmented nature of contemporary austerity urban governance. A time–space perspective, in particular focusing on how both policy actors and citizens use narrative to organise their spatial and temporal experiences, therefore offers resources for the wider analysis of urban governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst attention has previously focused on the importance of monolithic ethnic identities on migrant place-making, less attention has been paid to how place-making proceeds in super-diverse urban neighbourhoods where no single ethnic group predominates. This paper makes an original contribution by identifying the factors that shape migrants’ affinity with, or alienation from, super-diverse neighbourhoods. Through using and critiquing an analytical framework developed by Gill (2010 Pathologies of migrant place making: The case of Polish migrants to the UK. Environment and Planning A 42(5): 1157–1173) that identifies ‘ideal’ and ‘pathological’ place-making strategies, the paper contrasts two super-diverse neighbourhoods in the UK with different histories of diversity. We show how ‘ideal’ migrant place-making is more likely to occur where there is a common neighbourhood identity based around diversity, difference and/or newness, and where those with ‘visible’ differences can blend in. In contrast, ‘pathologies’ are more likely where the ongoing churn of newcomers, coupled with the speed and recency of change, undermine migrants’ affinity with place and where the diversity of the neighbourhood is not yet embedded. Even where neighbourhood identity based on diversity is established, it may alienate less visible migrants and culminate in a new form of (minority) white flight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has argued that human capital has become the key driver of city growth and that there is a widening divergence between high- and low-skill cities. This skilled-city view includes several stylised propositions. The first is that more skills and human capital generate stronger economic growth; the second is that already-skilled cities are becoming ever more skilled; and, the third is that larger cities tend to have stronger concentrations of, and faster growth in, high-skilled, cognitive occupations. Using a detailed data set for occupational change in 85 urban Travel to Work Areas in Britain between 1981 and 2015, this paper evaluates whether these propositions apply to British urban evolution, and how they relate to the 'hollowing-out' of medium-skilled jobs. The results confirm the close interactive relationship between growth and high-skilled occupations. However, some of the skilled-city propositions, such as 'smart cities becoming smarter', and a positive relationship between agglomeration and high-skilled employment growth, do not apply in Britain where other factors have been more important. The pattern of high-skill growth has shown a strong regional dimension, and the 'emergence' of newer smaller cities, particularly in southern England, has been more evident than the 'resurgence' of large core and industrial cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the regulation of commercial sex in the city has traditionally involved formal policing, recent shifts in many jurisdictions have seen sex premises of various kinds granted formal recognition via planning, licensing and environmental control. This means that 'sexual entertainment venues', 'brothels' and 'sex shops' are now not just labels applied to particular types of premises, but formal categories of legal land use. However, these categories are not clear-cut, and it is not simply the case that changes in the law instantiate a change whereby these premises are brought into being at a particular point in time. Countering the privileging of space over time that is apparent within much contemporary research on sex and the city, this paper foregrounds the varied temporalities in play here, and describes how the actions of those policy-makers, municipal bureaucrats and officers allow sex premises to variously 'fade in', accelerate, linger, or disappear as legal land uses within the city. We examine the implications of these different temporalities of the law by exploring how sex premises have been subject to regulation in London and Sydney, showing that the volatile, contradictory and fractured nature of legal space-making does not necessarily provide the certainty sought by the law but produces overlapping and contested understandings of what types of premises should be subject to regulation. More broadly the paper highlights how attention to the contingency and complexity of municipal law can help us better understand the ways that commercial sex is differently manifest in different cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the changing spatiality of the sex retail industry in England and Wales, from highly regulated male-orientated sex shops, pushed to the legislative margins of the city and social respectability, towards the emergence of unregulated female-orientated 'erotic boutiques' located visibly in city centres. This is achieved through an exploration of the oppositional binaries of perceptions of sex shops as dark, dirty, male-orientated, and 'seedy' and erotic boutiques as light, female-orientated and stylish, showing how such discourses are embedded in the physical space, design and marketing of the stores and the products sold within them. More specifically, the paper analyses how female-orientated sex stores utilise light, colour and design to create an 'upscaling' of sexual consumerism and reflects on what the emergence of up-scale female spaces for sexual consumption in the central city might mean in terms of theorisations of the intersectionality between agency, power, gender and class. The paper thus considers how the shifting packaging and presentation of sex-product consumption in the contemporary city alters both its acceptability and visibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The technological vision of smart urbanism has been promoted as a silver bullet for urban problems and a major market opportunity. The search is on for firms and governments to find effective and transferable demonstrations of advanced urban technology. This paper examines initiatives by the UK national government to facilitate urban technological innovation through a range of strategies, particularly the TSB Future Cities Demonstrator Competition. This case study is used to explore opportunities and tensions in the practical realisation of the smart city imaginary. Tensions are shown to be partly about the conjectural nature of the smart city debate. Attention is also drawn to weakened capacity of urban governments to control their infrastructural destiny and also constraints on the ability of the public and private sectors to innovate. The paper contributes to smart city debates by providing further evidence of the difficulties in substantiating the smart city imaginary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that careful attention needs to be paid to the handling of urban CCTV digital data. Since the early 1990s, CCTV has left an indelible mark on UK cities, and beyond. CCTV is a crime-reduction strategy, and its activation owes much to the laws and regulations that govern its function and the passivity with which it is often viewed. I consider the nature of security when CCTV signs, recorded images and the rights of citizens are interlinked in controlled urban spaces. Despite the regulatory powers of the Data Protection Act, the management of CCTV data is at times poorly operationalised and often obfuscated. The paper discusses my experiences of identifying 17 different CCTV cameras and being recorded, and my attempts to access my images through subject access requests (SARs). In what follows, I draw on different topologies of experience in expanding upon the mutable, unpredictable and intensive relations that guide the management of CCTV data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities have begun to develop a more 'place-based approach' to food policy that emphasises translocal alliances. To understand how such alliances develop distinct capacities to act, in this paper we integrate key theoretical contributions from governance networks, social movements and translocal assemblages. Our analysis focuses on the activities and tools used by the UK's Sustainable Food Cities Network to assemble local experiences, create common imaginaries and perform collective action. Through these processes, we argue, the network creates cross-scalar, collective and distributive agencies that are modifying incumbent governance dynamics. As we conclude, this raises the need to further explore how translocal configurations can develop forms of power that contest, break or reassemble the relations in the food system that are actively preventing the emergence of more sustainable foodscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of the ‘night-time economy’ in the UK through the 1990s has been associated with neoliberal urban governance. Academics have, however, begun to question the use and the scope of the concept of ‘neoliberalism’. This paper identifies two common approaches to studying neoliberalism, one exploring neoliberalism as a series of policy networks, the other exploring neoliberalism as the governance of subjectivities. It is argued that to understand the urban night, we need to explore both these senses of ‘neoliberalism’. As a case study, the paper takes the ‘Alive After Five’ project, organised by the Business Improvement District in Newcastle upon Tyne, which sought to extend shopping hours in order to encourage more people to use the city at night. Drawing from actor–network theory, the planning, the translation and the practice of this new project are explored together with the on-going nature and influence of neoliberal policy on the urban night in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper frames the debate on ‘binge’ drinking amongst young people within the perspectives of materialism and cultural geography. Drawing on the concept of social practice as interpreted through the perspective of urban design, the research investigated spatial variations in youth drinking using a case study approach to examine two urban areas in England. The study confirmed that the social practice of the ‘big night out’ has become an established feature of youth drinking. The research found the practice constituted in specialist ‘clusters’ of venues and it is argued that place-based characteristics form a significant component of its production and experience. The paper concludes with a reflection on the challenges the evidence poses to previous interpretations of leisure divisions within mainstream nightlife and to the theorisation of place-based differences in drinking milieux oriented towards young people. The implications for public policies are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The rise of reassurance policing in the UK, informed by ideas drawn from a Signal Crimes Perspective, replaced a narrow focus on controlling crime with a broader emphasis on communicating security. This paper provides a sympathetic critique of dominant assumptions implied in this policy shift concerning the reassurance function of policing. Important in these theoretically informed policy debates is the idea that the police and their partners, through symbolic communications, can influence the extent to which individuals perceive that order and security exist within urban spaces. The paper draws on research findings to illustrate the contrasting ways visible signifiers of crime and formal controls are received and interpreted by diverse audiences. It challenges assumptions about the impact of criminal activities upon perceptions of safety and contributes insights into the unintended effects of formal controls that have implications for our understanding of local social order. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite an emerging literature on guerrilla gardening as a political practice in public spaces, with few exceptions, these accounts theorise it as working against many corporate and bureaucratic forms of power. Using the example of ‘F Troop’—a group of gardeners operating on a site in an English midland city—this paper focuses on the practices of urban guerrilla gardening in order to illustrate that these are perhaps not as ‘resistant’ or ‘celebratory’ as previous accounts have suggested. Rather, this paper draws on ethnographic data to focus attention on the micro politics of garden activism, arguing that the social backgrounds and motivations of those involved in guerrilla gardening and their relationship with other users of the space surrounding the dig site are also important—but largely underacknowledged—aspects of guerrilla gardening. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses the contradictions of citizen participation in regeneration. Focusing on the south Wales Valleys, it observes that the creation of the Welsh Assembly in 1999 created a window of opportunity for a radical, bottom–up programme of ‘non-prescriptive’ regeneration, Communities First, which invoked active citizenship to address democratic deficit and economic crisis. Drawing on interview and policy evidence, the analysis shows how the programme became captured by a New Labour policy agenda shifting the priorities from citizen representation to ‘community activation’. This trajectory is interpreted in the light of Jones’ and Ward’s analysis of the ‘crisis of crisis management’, in which the state attempts to offset repeated failures to address economic crisis by a series of political-level ‘fixes’ that in turn create new problems. In the case discussed, these fixes take the form of risk management measures, which the paper discusses using the concepts of the risk society (Beck) and reflexive government (Dean). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper seeks to provide a conceptual framework in which to examine the social practices of contemporary austerity programmes in urban areas, including how these relate to different conceptions of crisis. Of current theoretical interest is the apparent ease with which these austerity measures have been accepted by urban governing agents. In order to advance these understandings we follow the recent post-structuralist discourse theory 'logics' approach of Glynos and Howarth (2007), focusing on the relationship between hegemony, political and social logics, and the subject whose identificatory practices are key to understanding the form, nature and stability of discursive settlements. In such thinking it is not only the formation of discourses and the mobilisation of rhetoric that are of interest, but also the manner in which the subjects of austerity identify with these. Through such an approach we examine the case of the regeneration/economic development and planning policy area in the city government of Birmingham (UK). In conclusion, we argue that the logics approach is a useful framework through which to examine how austerity has been uncontested in a city government, and the dynamics of acquiescence in relation to broader hegemonic discursive formations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role re-location has played in shaping the status of elite and middle-class schools in and around London. A Bourdieusian lens is applied to understand the institutional trajectories of 51 schools which moved from central London out to the suburbs and beyond between the 1860s and 1970s. It is argued that this strategy served to maintain, reinforce and create institutional prestige within the ‘field’ of schools serving the upper and middle classes. These re-locations have had a lasting effect on London’s school system, pushing key institutions of elite social reproduction outwards and away from the city centre. In discussing the motivations for re-location, Bourdieu’s (1996) theory of field and elite formation is used with specific reference to urban change, thus developing a Bourdieusian-historical approach to understanding the geography of social reproduction (Thiem, 2009). The focus on London also sets these re-locations in the context of broader socio-spatial shifts within the British upper and middle classes, in which new social formations were emerging, with an aristocratic-financial elite concentrated in the south-east of England (Anderson, 1964; Rubinstein, 1977). Re-location formed part of a broader process of urban and socio-economic transformation which created a powerful educational infrastructure for the upper and middle classes in and around London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how young people experience territoriality in six British cities. It challenges the prevailing view within existing literature that young people derive important benefits from their ability to shape their identities by occupying public spaces. The paper is based on an exploratory study using semi-structured interviews, focus groups and cognitive mapping with young people. The origins, motivations and impacts of territoriality among groups and ‘gangs’ are examined, especially among those groups who possess an acute sense of place attachment and rivalry with groups from other neighbourhoods. It finds that territoriality is a form of cultural capital passed from one generation to the next, often with rich, heavily mythologised histories. Territoriality comes from the close affinity between young people and place and is often expressed through periodic violent confrontations. The paper illustrates how territoriality limits mobility and subsequently imposes sanctions on access to leisure, education, employment and social opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the concept of the post-secular city by examining the growing presence of Street-Pastors in the night-time economy of British cities. Street-Pastors are Christian volunteers who work to ensure the safety of people on a ‘night out’. We contribute to work that has called for greater attention to be placed on the ways in which religious faith and ethics are performed to create liminal spaces of understanding in urban areas. Drawing upon in-depth ethnographic research conducted in a range of UK towns and cities, we consider this distinct form of faith-based patrolling in relation to the spatial processes and practices of urban-nightscapes. By exploring the geographies of Street-Pastors, we not only contribute to more nuanced accounts of ‘drinking spaces’ but provide an empirical engagement with the growing body of work on urban rhythms and encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Burglary prevalence within neighbourhoods is well understood but the risk from bordering areas is under-theorised and under-researched. If it were possible to fix a neighbourhood’s location but substitute its surrounding areas, one might expect to see some influence on its crime rate. However, by treating surrounding areas as independent observations, ecological studies assume that identical neighbourhoods with markedly different surroundings are equivalent. If not, knowing the impact of different peripheries would have significance for crime prevention, land use planning and other policy domains. This paper tests whether knowledge of the demographic make-up of surrounding areas can improve on the prediction of a neighbourhood’s burglary rate based solely on its internal socio-demographics. Results identify significant between-area effects with certain types of periphery exerting stronger influences than others. The advantages and drawbacks of the spatial error and predictor lag model used in the analysis are discussed and areas for further research defined. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Increasing attention has focused on relational spatial entities as potentially embedding renewed and alternative paths of local development. This paper discusses the intertwining of an emerging relational configuration of space and the pursuit of post-industrial development, by analysing the formation of an organisational identity. The case of NewcastleGateshead (UK) is interpreted as a brand emerging from urban collective strategy-making, involving two partner cities, thus crossing administrative borders. By suggesting the importance of the emergence of ‘branded relational spaces’, research results stress the active role of a collective construction of meanings and their communication in the creation of relational spatial entities. This provides an opportunity to reflect on the extent to which branding, here interpreted as collective strategy-making, goes beyond mere communication and fosters an institutionalisation of the branded space, thus influencing the way in which local development is spatially and strategically conceived. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper interrogates pathways into multiple exclusion homelessness (MEH) in the UK and, informed by a critical realist theoretical framework, explores the potential causal processes underlying these pathways. Drawing on an innovative multistage quantitative survey, it identifies five experiential clusters within the MEH population, based on the extent and complexity of experiences of homelessness, substance misuse, institutional care, street culture activities and adverse life events. It demonstrates that the most complex forms of MEH are associated with childhood trauma. It also reveals that the temporal sequencing of MEH-relevant experiences is remarkably consistent, with substance misuse and mental health problems tending to occur early in individual pathways, and homelessness and a range of adverse life events typically occurring later. The strong inference is that these later-occurring events are largely consequences rather than originating causes of MEH, which has important implications for the conceptualisation of, and policy responses to, deep exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Within the context of theoretical and policy debates about the new economic geography and an urban renaissance, this paper examines how far and in what way ‘Our cities are back’, as claimed by England’s Core Cities Group. It focuses on 1984–2007 employment changes for the eight Core Cities and their city-regions: Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield. These provincial city-regions are found to have suffered from the early 1990s recession relatively less than London, but then recovered more slowly. While they continued to gain jobs until 2007, their growth rate relative to the national average peaked in 1998–2002, which was also the only time that Core Cities themselves outpaced the rest of their city-regions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The past few years have seen a proliferation of skills analysis in urban regeneration in England. In France, in contrast, researchers have linked questions of skills to the styles and form of public-sector work. This paper reworks the debates in the two countries to provide a comparative analysis of neighbourhood management. There are three main sections and themes: the implications of a bottom—up perspective in the study of policy implementation; the emergence in France of the chef de projet as an ideal type figure of transversal working; and finally, in relation to England, the fragmentation and diversity of policy initiatives, agencies and funding streams. This fragmentation and diversity have implied, in turn, an emphasis on flexibility and generic rather than specialist skills in urban regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]