Urban Living
Between Mandala and the World Stage: Tundikhel’s Transformation through History
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Urmi Sengupta
Urban spaces have been contested terrain in both conceptual and theoretical realms. The meanings and constructs of space and time change with the changing characteristics of conflicts over appropriation and domination of spaces.This paper takes the journey from medieval times through to contemporary times to decipher ways in which Tundikhel, the largest open space in Kathmandu has been historically formed, construed, interpreted, and contested. Using particular reference to Edward Soja’s (1996) concept of "third space," the paper discusses how specific aspects of history impacted both the imagined and constructed form of this space. The paper argues that if the city’s medieval mysticism lends itself to a rich cultural history that forms the basis of the "imagined," its current physical and symbolic fragmentation displays the contested nature of the lived spaces. Both imagined and lived spaces come together to provide a unique vantage point for an investigation into urban public space in cities that have both medieval groundings and modern tapestry constantly generating overlapping expectations, functions, and multitudes of vision. The paper contends, unlike the common notion that public spaces in the global south are quintessentially public, that hypocrisy has been inherent to the "publicness" agenda of the state in Kathmandu throughout the passage of history from then to now.
Infrastructures of Migration: The In-betweenness of Space and Subject
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Somayeh Chitchian
Since the seminal work of Manuel Castells (1972), the “urban question” has formed a focal point among critical urban scholars in their effort to unpack and understand the complexities of the multilevel and multiscalar processes of urban restructuring. This paper centralizes the question of the urban as one of infrastructure and migration. Through the notion of the "urbanity of movement," the paper deconstructs both the category of the urban beyond that of “the city” together with the complex category of the spatio-political figure on-the-move beyond that of “the migrant.” Thus, the paper problematizes the fixed and static ontologies which have been central in both urban- and migration-research. Through the lens of the infrastructures of human movement, this paper deconstructs Castells’ concepts of the “space of flow” vis-à-vis the “space of places” (1996) and, instead, posits the in-between figure in the space of in-between as the central foci of analysis with the aim of hybridizing “the city”/non-city and “the migrant”/non-migrant categorical dichotomies. This analytical shift allows us to conceptualize the notion of movement and those on-the-move not within a place but that of place, thus actively (re)producing and (re)creating the space of flow[s] within the space of places.
Traveler Urbanists and Their Legacy in Latin America from 1850 to 1950
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Fernanda Cantarim
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, European contries represented the vanguard of urban planning ideas, they were centralities within the urban knowledge network. Several European urbanists travelled to Latin American, sometimes participating directly in urban plans, sometimes influencing local architects and urbanists by getting involved in seminars and lectures in those countries. Direct or sutil, those influences helped to transform not only Latin American capital cities, but also the whole academic and professional practice of urbanism in local levels, leading to generation of architects and urbanists that had planning principles inspired by European ideas. This paper is divided in five parts: Introduction; Methodology; Latin American capitals: the urge of planning; From Europe, with Love; Final thoughts. The first two parts mainly focus on giving brief explanations to set the stage for this paper and how it was methodologicaly structured. The third part aims to discuss the reality of Latin American capital cities during 1850-1950 and why there was a need to look for new solutions for them. The forth part discuss the urban planning ideas and traveler urbanists who came to Latin American in order to spread their knowledge; it includes maps and timelines that organizes informations such as places involveds, flows, ideas and urbanists that were protagonists in those tranfers. Finally, the last part discuss the results, including the reasons why the transfer of those ideas happened; and a temporal reading of facts and urban “trends” that affected Latin America during the period of interest.
Lessons from Urban Transport in Less Formal Cities: Isochrone Mapping, Mode Choice, and Informality
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nastaran Peimani, Hesam Kamalipour
Imperatives to build a more walkable and transit-oriented city have raised a key question on the accessibility of major transit nodes. The condition of accessibility within a certain distance or time is geared to the ways in which different modes of transport variously mesh and compete for the use of the same public space networks. This is particularly the case in less formal and more congested cities where informal modes of transport largely emerge to fill the gap of more formal modes. Within a framework of assemblage thinking, this paper maps the competition between formal and informal modes of public transport in a case study. Such mapping also enables comparing the range and area of urban transport access for each of these modes within a certain timeframe. The paper further elaborates on the morphological, social, and infrastructural dimensions of the selected transit-oriented assemblage under which people choose for their everyday travels. It concludes with a focus on the relationships of motorcycle-taxis to formal modes of transport and discusses on the prospects for formalisation.
