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Sustainability
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Creating a More Equitable City: Alternative Narratives of Spatial Production
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Creating a More Equitable City: Alternative Narratives of Spatial Production

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 February 2021) | Viewed by 5763

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Aseem Inam

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Urban Design, Cardiff University, Cardiff, CF10 3NB, UK
Interests: urban transformation; urban theory and design practice; urbanism; urban practice

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The primary focus of this Special Issue will be social, political and economic sustainability in the contemporary city and will be entitled “Creating a More Equitable City: Alternative Narratives of Spatial Production”. Conventional narratives regarding spatial production of the city in the 21st century rely heavily on accounts of the influential role played by public policy, market mechanisms, city planning and urban design. Beyond the narrowly defined confines of formal policy and planning are a host of narratives that describe spatial production in terms of a rich mix of state and non-state actors, market and non-market mechanisms, city planning and grassroots movements, and a wide range of urban practices beyond the mainstream. The goal of this Special Issue is to encourage comparative and theoretical insights into new ways of thinking about spatial production via the lens of equity. Taken together, the peer-reviewed and carefully selected articles will contribute to the literature on new modes of spatial production and their implications for new types of transformative spatial practices.

Prof. Dr. Aseem Inam
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • equitable city
  • spatial production
  • grassroots movements
  • urban transformation
  • spatial political-economy
  • socio-economic sustainability

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

22 pages, 46368 KiB  
Article
Representing the Under-Represented: Labor Unions as Urbanists
by Aseem Inam
Sustainability 2021, 13(9), 4739; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13094739 - 23 Apr 2021
Viewed by 2292
Abstract
Persistent precarity is a fundamental, yet usually hidden and often overlooked condition of urbanism, particularly for those who represent the human labor that produces and reproduces the capitalist city. The question, then, is how do those who represent this under-represented human labor, unions, [...] Read more.
Persistent precarity is a fundamental, yet usually hidden and often overlooked condition of urbanism, particularly for those who represent the human labor that produces and reproduces the capitalist city. The question, then, is how do those who represent this under-represented human labor, unions, engage with and influence the underlying power structure that actually shapes the city? Labor unions simultaneously shape and are shaped by the spatial political economy of the contemporary city. This article examines this phenomenon through analysis of an illuminating case study, the powerful Culinary Union in Las Vegas. Drawing from different primary and secondary sources, this article offers several valuable insights: organized labor is significant in the spatial production of the city, urban precarity can be mitigated by advocating for the public realm, and asserting agency in the power dynamics of the city can be an effective way of influencing its urbanism. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Creating a More Equitable City: Alternative Narratives of Spatial Production)
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22 pages, 2912 KiB  
Article
Reframing Kiruna’s Relocation—Spatial Production or a Sustainable Transformation?
by Aslı Tepecik Diş and Elahe Karimnia
Sustainability 2021, 13(7), 3811; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13073811 - 30 Mar 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2871
Abstract
Due to the expansion of nearby mining operations, the city of Kiruna, an arctic city in Sweden, has been undergoing a massive urban transformation, led by the mining company, Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag (LKAB), which is the largest iron ore producer in the EU. This [...] Read more.
Due to the expansion of nearby mining operations, the city of Kiruna, an arctic city in Sweden, has been undergoing a massive urban transformation, led by the mining company, Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag (LKAB), which is the largest iron ore producer in the EU. This paper explores this relocation in a three-sphere transformation framework that has sustainability as the outcome (practical sphere), and analyses it as a socio-spatial transformation process, including political decisions as its driving forces (political sphere), to examine how this outcome and decisions represent individual and collective values (personal sphere). The analysis of three spheres is used as a tool to understand how and why Kiruna’s urban transformation is deemed to be sustainable, as it claims, and which it is being globally acknowledged for. Methods include analysis of Kiruna’s new master plan, media representations, and interviews with key actors of the project, who include municipal planners; the mining company’s planning developers; consultants, as the designers of ‘Kiruna 4-ever’ and the new city center; as well as the city’s residents. The analysis is a critique of the approaches that fit this project into either the critique of market-led spatial production, or as an example of best practice, based on its participatory processes. Results indicate that although Kiruna’s relocation is claimed to be a transformation of collective values, practical and technical transformations were dominant, which represents only partial responses in the framework. Therefore, a multi-voice narrative challenges the sustainability of Kiruna’s transformation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Creating a More Equitable City: Alternative Narratives of Spatial Production)
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