Contested Cities in flux

Contested Cities in flux

Role of public space in Manila during EDSA Revolution

Cities are in constant flux. Economic, social and political influences dictate the urban form. Because cities are in constant change, the city is contested in nature. Spaces reflect power and lack of power, as most seen here in the EDSA People Power Revolution in Manila, Philippines. After a 20 year authoritarian (martial) rule, about two million people fought for democracy against regime violence and electoral fraud in a successful attempt to mobilize and reclaim public rights and democracy.

The highway space was not designed for protest like a large park or in front of a government building. The infrastructure was literally cut off, no access to transportation for four days along the main thoroughfare, EDSA. People decided what is in the public realm- communications, news space.

Organizing the contested city

Urban integrated mega-project the Global City, Fort Bonifacio

With Shatkin’s piece on urban integrated mega-projects, an example from Manila (Fort Bonifacio) that I have visited brought light to the idea of organizing the contested city. As evidenced in Saskin’s theory on global cities, urbanites are pressured to go global by being global. The Global City in Fort Bonifacio is an effort to re-situate power and organize away from the center core of Manila with its  dense and messy squatter areas. By designing ‘globally’ (in this case the plan was designed in from a US firm) the cultural character is lost, where the landscape becomes a placeless architecture and void of people, as seen below.

Segregation, Investment and Decline

In the discussion of segregation, investment and decline, the topic of shrinking cities and planning for smart decline calls to mind the relationship of shrinking cities to reclamation of post-industrial landscapes. In many shrinking cities, as Hollander suggests, people are emptying cities, causing a shrink in talents and jobs, leading to economic decline. But in smart city decline, one analyzes the decline as a lifecycle or natural process similar to the human body, where decline occurs and the ability to plan smart decline relies on, "whether residents have access to financial resources within an environment of community control (353)." Due to decline, segregation of resources and investment occur and it is difficult for communities to have access to economic opportunity people are seeking.

Transformation of a post-industrial landscape; Freshkills Park, NY

Landfill 1947

In regard to post-industrial landscapes, the goal of smart planning is to utilize brownfield sites or areas of the city's past industrial relics that are underutilized and do not provide little or no economic benefit. A case study of a post-industrial landscape that was once home to a 1947 landfill in operation until 2001, Freshkills Park in Staten Island was once a site for daily waste disposal of 5 barges with 650 tons of garbage each barge everyday. Although not located in a shrinking city, post-industrial landscapes occur in shrinking cities like Detroit among others. In the discussion of decline, post-industrial landscapes are a part of shrinking cities and the transformation of them into utilized places of production, aesthetics and public participation are a landscape approach to smart decline.

Resources:

Hollander, J.B., and Németh, J. (2011). The bounds of smart decline: a foundational theory for planning shrinking cities. Housing Policy Debate. 21 (3), pp. 349-367.

Socioeconomic and Spatial Polarization in Megacities- Transnational Landscapes and Ecologies

In the World City Syndrome by David McDonald, a major point that connects urban theory into the spatial realm is the idea of income disparities leading into socioeconomic and spatial polarization, translating as a work-space polarization we see in gentrified urban living spaces in central business districts (McDonald). The relationship of economy, user and space conglomerate and result in homogenized, designed spaces tailored to the transnational elite with its live, network and play themes.

Because the infrastructure exists, it doesn't mean it is accessible. I believe that along with architecture, landscape architecture is also experiencing a homogenization of urban public green spaces that exacerbate the inequality evident in the spatial form, alienating and polarizing the non-elite. These exportable architecture and landscapes creates a sameness within business districts across world cities, cities competing and cooperating with a similar aesthetic and program.

Running along with the –trans prefix, from transnational elites to transnational relationships to now transnational ecologies. In the emerging urban ecological landscape, an oversimplification of infrastructural systems have resulted in a loss of native ecosystems like plants, habitat and wildlife. With the homogenization of transnational landscapes, the embedded ecologies are oversimplified as well, evidenced in homogenized single-species row planting in corporate office landscapes lacking a diversified plant palette and overall habitat and human diversity. Similar issues of local disconnections arise, with developing projects as floating islands of urban elite paradise surrounded by periphery slum presence.