Urban Heritage In Divided Cities

Urban Heritage in Divided Cities explores the role of contested urban heritage in mediating, subverting and overcoming sociopolitical conflict in divided cities. Investigating various examples of transformations of urban heritage around the world, the book analyses the spatial, social and political causes behind them, as well as the consequences for the division and reunification of cities during both wartime and peacetime conflicts. Contributors to the volume define urban heritage in a broad sense, as tangible elements of the city, such as ruins, remains of border architecture, traces of violence in public space and memorials, as well as intangible elements like urban voids, everyday rituals, place names and other forms of spatial discourse. Addressing both historic and contemporary cases from a wide range of academic disciplines, contributors to the book investigate the role of urban heritage in divided cities in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East. Shifting focus from the notion of urban heritage as a fixed and static legacy of the past, the volume demonstrates that the concept is a dynamic and transformable entity that plays an active role in inquiring, critiquing, subverting and transforming the present. Urban Heritage in Divided Cities will be of great interest to academics, researchers and students in the fields of cultural studies, sociology, the political sciences, history, human geography, urban design and planning, architecture, archaeology, ethnology and anthropology. The book should also be essential reading for professionals who are involved in governing, planning, designing and transforming urban heritage around the world.

The Divided City contributes to the growing body of scholarly work on cities of the global South. Cities in developing countries, particularly emerging economies, are undergoing rapid urbanization and social transition. Empirically grounded to the contemporary urban situation in India, The Divided City is set in an opportune moment to assess how cities fare up to the challenge of inclusive urbanization. It highlights how the urban pathway of contemporary India departs from the goal of inclusion in multiple ways -- access to energy, public services, architecture, land, infrastructure, commons, and cultural and civic spaces. It simultaneously interrogates both policy and theory with intermingling issues like informality, privatization, political economy and gender divide in the contemporary Indian city. The book argues for greater urban inclusion (social, economic and environmental) acknowledged in principle, in national and international urban policy frameworks.

This new volume in the GCI's Readings in Conservation series brings together a selection of seminal writings on the conservation of historic cities. This book, the eighth in the Getty Conservation Institute’s Readings in Conservation series, fills a significant gap in the published literature on urban conservation. This topic is distinct from both heritage conservation and urban planning despite the recent growth of urbanism worldwide, no single volume has presented a comprehensive selection of these important writings until now. This anthology, profusely illustrated throughout, is organized into eight parts, covering such subjects as geographic diversity, reactions to the transformation of traditional cities, reading the historic city, the search for contextual continuities, the search for values, and the challenges of sustainability. With more than sixty-five texts, ranging from early polemics by Victor Hugo and John Ruskin to a generous selection of recent scholarship, this book thoroughly addresses regions around the globe. Each reading is introduced by short prefatory remarks explaining the rationale for its selection and the principal matters covered. The book will serve as an easy reference for administrators, professionals, teachers, and students faced with the day-to-day challenges confronting the historic city under siege by rampant development.

In this book, the authors present a combination of research-by-design, place-based, and policy-oriented approaches to the territorial fragilities of Nicosia. Nicosia, in Cyprus, is a city divided. Since 1974, a 180 km long Buffer Zone has separated the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and the Republic of Cyprus (RoC). This "open wound" cuts through the city's historical center, crossing the Venetian walls, a key cultural heritage asset, and impacting the city's spatial and cultural identity. Outcomes of an inter-doctoral research initiative, this edited book documents the local realities of the divided city and tests scenarios and spatial patterns of intervention to cope with the partition through the enhancement of local cultural heritage. The book targets an academic audience, architects, urban planners, heritage preservation professionals and policymakers, providing a transferable research method relevant to those approaching a complex, fragile, and contested "border territory".

The book discusses how division affect the fabric of cities, and people’s sense of identity and agency, and are reflected in physical features, architecture, and urban planning. The question of divided cities represents a complex and multistranded urban Ecology—at once both social and spatial; it cannot be limited to a single science or discipline, such as social or spatial fields. This suggests integrated and cross- disciplinary understandings, as well as integrated or parallel approaches and solutions. Urban ecologies of division manifest in multiple forms. One of their most palpable expressions is conflict, with parallels around the world, and often with correlations in the spatial fabric. Violence in such contexts is often a surface expression of deeper socio-economic or ideological differences. Whether as a result of intervention by authority or by dissent between groups, a divided city inevitably becomes a place of conflict in various forms and intensity, eroding the joy of living and sense of collective belonging to the detriment of all. In effect, it erodes the collective advantage of being part of a more unified society. A city exists in collections of social structures which mutually form a society. A divided city implies divided social structures and, in consequence, a divided society. The papers compiled in this book present many case studies of divided cities, discussing the different causes of divisions and their effects on societies. Some of the causes can be linked to conflicts, wars, colonialism, or legislative political systems. In response to the serious challenges resulting from these divisions, the book aims to provide opportunities for new approaches and possibilities for new interventions and solutions, making it significant to urban planners, architects, and policymakers.

This book presents cross-national insights into spatial fragmentation in post-socialist cities in Europe. Trying to rethink the heritage of the last 30 years of transformation and grasp current processes taking urban units of various categories as examples, the book exemplifies typical or unique causes of political, social and ethnic disintegration of cities in Central and Eastern Europe. Presenting spatial studies into different cases of conflict in a cross-national context, the authors apply concepts of contested and divided cities, urban geopolitics, cultural atavism, contested heritage, etc. The book is divided into four parts. The first part raises the issue of genesis, development and contemporary discrepancies of cities divided by political and state borders. The second part includes chapters which deal with the impact of ongoing geopolitical divisions, wars, and ideologies on the social and political tensions as well as their polarising effect on urban territory. The third part comprises reflections on controversial relations of ethnic and national culture with urban space. The fourth part deals with socio-economic transformation of post-socialist cities which went through transition of old patterns of spatial planning and attempts to establish more rational and justice spatial order.

Divided Cities is the comparative analysis of New York and London which many have been waiting for. Wider in scope and richer in detailthan any previous study, this work provides the best introduction available to these pre–eminent world cities. Seeming at times to mirror each other acrocc the Atlantic, New York and London stand at the apex of their respective national hierarchies, as economic and cultural capitals, and occupy similarly commanding positions within the world economy. From decline in the 1970s to renewal in the 1980s, both cities once again face decline in the 1990s, exhibiting ever–widening social divisions. While struck by the many socio–political similarities on New York and London in their responses to global economic restructuring, the authors also delineate the quite distinctive political structures and social divisions constituted by class, race, and gender, of each city. At the heart of the book lies the question: In what sense, if any, was there an urban revival in the last decade – and for whom? In answering this question Divided Cities traces the influence of international economic forces, and national and local policies upon the fortunes of New York and London.