Constructing Metropolitan Space

There is little question today that processes of globalization affect national and local economies, governance processes, and conditions for economic competitiveness in the major urban regions of the world. In most liberal-democratic countries, these processes are occurring according to a rationale which attempts to combine strategies of state-supported development with increasing local-regional governmental decentralization and autonomy. Against this background, the issue of metropolitan development is being redefined worldwide, along with its institutional frameworks, modes of governance, policy instruments, and spatial planning strategies. The overarching assumption of this volume is that ‘metropolitan space’, far from being consolidated as a policy object, is currently being redefined and in some instances ‘constructed’ and contested as a scale, through a variety of policy practices related to spatial-economic development objectives. Through case studies drawn from across four continents, the authors reveal a range of interesting cross-national commonalities concerning the power that state actors, situated at various spatial scales, exert as agents in these processes. This volume interrogates key research issues raised by these developments, and is intended as a contribution to the establishment of a globally comparative analysis of the construction of metropolitan spaces and scales under conditions of globalization and neoliberalization.

The aim of this book is to investigate contemporary processes of metropolitan change and approaches to planning and governing metropolitan regions. To do so, it focuses on four central tenets of metropolitan change in terms of planning and governance: institutional approaches, policy mobilities, spatial imaginaries, and planning styles. The book’s main contribution lies in providing readers with a new conceptual and analytical framework for researching contemporary dynamics in metropolitan regions. It will chiefly benefit researchers and students in planning, urban studies, policy and governance studies, especially those interested in metropolitan regions. The relentless pace of urban change in globalization poses fundamental questions about how to best plan and govern 21st-century metropolitan regions. The problem for metropolitan regions—especially for those with policy and decision-making responsibilities—is a growing recognition that these spaces are typically reliant on inadequate urban-economic infrastructure and fragmented planning and governance arrangements. Moreover, as the demand for more ‘appropriate’—i.e., more flexible, networked and smart—forms of planning and governance increases, new expressions of territorial cooperation and conflict are emerging around issues and agendas of (de-)growth, infrastructure expansion, and the collective provision of services.

Could the concepts of »metropolitanism« and »thick space« aid our understanding of historical and contemporary urban change? Essays by scholars from both sides of the Atlantic provide interdisciplinary approaches to the complex dynamics of large-scale urbanization. The book opens with conceptual questions regarding the development of metropoles and metropolitan studies. The following sections provide analyses of the social, environmental, and cultural dimensions of metropolitan spaces from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective, such as the role of planning and urban parks, the impact of ethnic diversity and segregation, the place of cinematic visions or the centrality of infrastructures and architecture.

In recent years there has been a growing recognition that a mature analysis of scientific and technological activity requires an understanding of its spatial contexts. Without these contexts, indeed, scientific practice as such is scarcely conceivable. Making Space for Science brings together contributors with diverse interests in the history, sociology and cultural studies of science and technology since the Renaissance. The editors aim to provide a series of studies, drawn from the history of science and engineering, from sociology and sociology and science, from literature and science, and from architecture and design history, which examine the spatial foundations of the sciences from a number of complementary perspectives.

This book offers new perspectives through which to observe and interpret mega-events. Using the specific case studies of World’s Fairs, Di Vita and Morandi present a report of the Milan Expo 2015 and its trans-scalar legacies. While the event and post-event have been affected by the world crisis, the locations of exhibition areas have greatly expanded, encompassing regional as well as post-metropolitan spaces. The two main aims of comparing Milan to previous expos such as Lisbon 1998, Zaragoza 2008 and Shanghai 2010, were to demonstrate the contribution of the 2015 World’s Fair to the urban innovation process and to the debate surrounding a new urban agenda; as well as to examine empirically and theoretically the international discussion regarding the growth of regional and macro-regional scales of contemporary cities in order to offer suggestions for future urban agendas through mega-events. This book will be of great value to students, researchers and policy makers in the area of urban planning and the urban studies more broadly, geography and spatial politics.

This edited volume covers many aspects of the Metropolitan Landscapes. Solutions are needed to meet the demand of the citizens of a renewed metropolitan region landscape. It opens up discussions about possible toolkits for strategic actions based on understanding the territory from geographical, urban, architectural, economic, environmental, and public policy perspectives. This book intends to promote the Metropolitan dwelling quality, ensuring human well-being proposing a discussion on the resilient articulation of the interface space among the city's infrastructure, agriculture, and nature. This book results from the Symposium: Metropolitan Landscapes that MSLab of the Politecnico di Milano and ETSA (Sevilla) organized at the IALE 2019 Conference (Milan, July 2019) to manage radical territory transformation with a strategic vision. The widespread growth of urban areas indicates the importance of building resilient sustainable cities capable of minimizing climate-change impact production. The Symposium aimed to discuss the Urban Metabolism approach considering the combination of Landscapes set in a single Metropolitan Ecosystem. Accordingly, new design strategies of transformation, replacement or maintenance can compose Urban-Rural Linkage patterns and a decalage of different landscape contexts. Ecological interest in environmental sustainability, compatibility, and resilience is not tied exclusively to the balance between production and energy consumption. Thus, it is the integration over time and at several scales of the urban and rural landscapes and their inhabitants that nourish the Metropolitan Bioregion. Moreover, the Metropolitan Landscape Book's research hypothesis is the need for a Glossary, strengthening the basis of understanding Metropolitan Landscape's complexity. This book's topic is particularly relevant to Landscape Urbanism, Architecture, Urban disciplines Scholars, Students and Practitioners who want to be connected in a significant way with Metropolitan Discipline’s research field.

This book investigates self-build housing for low and middle-income groups in urbanized areas in three different continents: South America (Brazil and Ecuador), Europe (the Netherlands, Albany, and Turkey) and Africa (Ethiopia, Egypt and Burkina Faso). Although the levels of social and economic prosperity and the related housing and urban context across these three continents are vastly different, there is a recurring central field of tension of governmental regulation vis- -vis societal self-regulation. The following question will be at the center of the book: How is the capacity for self-regulation in practices of self-build housing and facilities related to formal domains of governance and regulation and how can this relationship be optimized to create more socially sustainable forms of urbanization?

Representing many different disciplines, the book will attract any reader interested in urban problems.