Metropolitics

Power in the Periphery: Waste Conflict and Resistance in Periurban Kerala

Ashish Prabhakar — 2022-09-06T05:00:00Z

Ashish Prabhakar analyzes one Indian village's fight against a city waste processing plant in 2011–2012, illustrating the perils of rapid urbanization, increasing consumption, the diminishing carrying capacities of cities, and growing mounds of garbage. The village's pushback not only highlights the tensions between various levels of governance structures, but also signals the need for a deeper examination of urban planning and urbanization.
---- Series: Urban Wastes, Present and Future In

- From the Field / waste, waste management, conflict, periurban, India, Global South, periphery

When Memory is Confined: Politics of Commemoration on Avenida 26, Bogotá

Violante Torre — 2020-04-07T05:00:00Z

After more than five decades of conflict, the Colombian capital, Bogotá, is undergoing processes not just of regeneration, but also of commemoration. The decision to create spaces of memory along one particular road in the city, Avenida 26, has highlighted the stark differences between neighborhoods on either side of its congested lanes—and runs the risk of reinforcing existing segregation.
Bogotá, Colombia, is a socially divided city in a post-conflict country marked by clashing spatial and

- From the Field / Colombia, Latin America, South America, Bogotá, conflict, urban regeneration, urban renewal, memory, commemoration, institution, memory-making

Why School Securitization Fails. Lessons from Morrill and Musheno's Navigating Conflict

Andrés Besserer Rayas — 2019-10-08T05:00:00Z

Navigating Conflict describes how pupils are able to address conflicts on their own, and how school securitization policies undermine these efforts.
“Every day when I walk into the campus, I am greeted by uneasy stares and nervous shouting reminding me to make sure I do not have keys or a belt or anything that may alert the metal detector,” a high-school student declared before the New York City Council Budget and Oversight Hearings in March of 2019 (Make the Road New York 2019). She spoke as

- Reviews / school, education, conflict, securitization, security, United States, ethnography

How Can Talking Save Trees?

Léo Magnin & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-07-12T05:00:00Z

In rural France, tree exchange systems seek to avoiding the felling that typically accompanies exchanges of parcels between farmers resulting from land-consolidation procedures. Leo Magnin's analysis of how this system operates reveals a means of managing conflicts between environmental protection on the one hand and individual property rights on the other.
On Tuesday, February 6, 2018, the village of La Siouve1 in the Auvergne region of central France wakes to negative temperatures. It' is 9

- From the Field / land consolidation, hedgerows, trees, conflict, farming, agriculture, landscape, environment, environmental protection, ecology, rural, France

The Limits of Progressive Policymaking in US Cities

Richard Schragger — 2018-09-11T05:05:00Z

While many US cities appear to enjoy extensive powers—as evidenced by the progressive policies enacted by certain mayors—local government is in reality often curbed by legislative retaliation at state and federal levels, in a context of ruthless political competition, geographical polarization, and rising anti-urbanism. Richard Schragger, author of City Power, sheds light on the dynamics at play and how cities can respond to them.
---- Series: Progressive Mayors and Urban Social Movements

- Essays / city, local government, urban policy, conflict, polarization, state, progressive urban politics, political geography, political power, anti-urbanism, policymaking, power play

The Boys of Sarajevo's War Tunnel

Luka Lucić — 2016-01-12T06:00:00Z

What are the impacts of war upon young people's psychological development? Research with young men who survived Sarajevo's siege sheds new light on how young people draw upon their social and spatial environment to make sense of violent experiences.
“… The next moment I was walking in a narrow passage reeking of urine and sweat. The tunnel was about five feet high, so I had to hunch down or I would hit my head. Dirt and water dripped on us, and we slogged through ankle-deep mud. I was

- From the Field / conflict, adolescents, development, teenagers, youth, affordances, war, siege, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Jerusalem: divisive urban planning at the heart of the Holy City

Vincent Lemire & translated by Oliver Waine — 2015-06-19T04:50:00Z

How is the Israeli–Palestinian conflict reflected in the way the city of Jerusalem has been planned and developed? In this book, based on meticulous fieldwork, Irène Salenson reveals the various actors and the manifold complex and contradictory processes involved in this particularly conflictual urban-planning context.
As a revised and abridged version of a PhD thesis defended in 2007, this work – “Jerusalem: Building Two Cities in One” – by geographer Irène Salenson is devoted to examining

- Reviews / segregation, urban planning, Palestine, local governance, Jerusalem, conflict, Israel, religion, urban geography, geopolitics, local politics

Bypassing the city: divisions and divergences in Antananarivo

Catherine Fournet-Guérin & translated by Oliver Waine — 2014-12-04T05:50:00Z

In a context of global competition, major projects are the order of the day, including in the global South. The new bypass road recently built in the Malagasy capital Antananarivo fits into this vision of modernity and aspiration to international standards. But this bypass has become more than just a road; it has been transformed into a recreational space – and consequently a source of conflict.
In the major cities of less-developed countries, highway projects aimed at easing traffic

- From the Field / public space, infrastructures, conflict, Africa, Global South, use of space, Madagascar, Antananarivo, social practices, infrastructure

The role of proximities in improving territorial governance

Lise Bourdeau-Lepage & translated by Oliver Waine — 2013-07-10T04:55:00Z

What can be done to improve territorial governance? André Torre and Jean-Eudes Beuret emphasise the role of proximity in this process, where conflict and negotiation are two sides of the same coin.
This work, through its 105 pages, proposes the broad lines of a method for managing and coordinating territories using a proximity-based approach (Gilly and Torre 2000; Pecqueur and Zimmermann 2004). The key idea is relatively simple and can be stated as follows: territories are subject to major

- Reviews / local governance, proximity, conflict, negotiation

The reconstruction of Beirut: sowing the seeds for future conflicts?

Bruno Marot & Serge Yazigi & translated by Oliver Waine — 2012-11-14T10:59:43Z

Periods of post-war reconstruction are often the backdrop for new socio-economic and political dynamics. In Beirut, the rise of market-led urbanism, a lack of proper urban planning and the far-reaching sectarian polarisation are all factors that could raise questions about the model of urban regeneration implemented and arouse new socio-political tensions.
“Beirut in times of peace has been more disfigured and destroyed than in times of war.” While the city centre, devastated by the combats

- From the Field / gentrification, developers, governance, urban renewal, residential mobility, reconstruction, Lebanon, Beirut, conflict, urban regeneration, demolition