City, Culture ,Society

Rose tinted spectacles: Culturally informed differences between Iran and Australia in architect's colour cognition, preference and use Publication date: Available online 6 June 2019 Source: City, Culture and Society Author(s): Bahareh Motamed, Richard Tucker Abstract This paper investigates if the cultural indoctrination of architects impacts their use of colour in their designs. Here, cultural indoctrination is considered as the process by which an architect's socio-cultural background informs their design ideas and attitudes. Specifically, a survey of 274 architects, architectural academics and postgraduates in Australia and Iran addressed the question: does an architect's cultural background affect their general attitudes to colour and their use of colour when designing and, if so, how? A series of quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted to answer these questions. The findings reinforce evidence from other studies indicating that colour use is influenced by culture and elucidate for the design community greater understanding about the relationship between culture and colour use in architecture. In particular, it is demonstrated that architects' preferences towards more colourful designs are informed by practice influences; such as contemporary trends and demands, facilitated by new material and representational technologies, for more colourful buildings in our cities. Moreover, although climatic conditions, light intensity, heritage context and local materials were contextual factors influencing colour use both in Iran and Australia, a large difference was found between the two countries on the impact, and especially imposed limitations, of socio-cultural factors on colour cognition, preferences and use.

Cutting through the clutter of smart city definitions: A reading into the smart city perceptions in India Publication date: Available online 4 June 2019 Source: City, Culture and Society Author(s): Sarbeswar Praharaj, Hoon Han Abstract Smart city development has emerged as a favoured response to the 21st-century urbanisation challenges. A wide range of definitions surfaced over the last decade characterising the smart city, primarily pushed by the global elite corporations and influential academics. Simultaneously, a series of urban development expressions, such as digital city, knowledge city, eco-city is used interchangeably with the smart city, significantly mystifying the reading of the concept. This paper, first argue that smart city interpretation needs and requires the input and contribution of the local stakeholders. The aim of this research is to provide an evidence-based framework to capture the perception of local urban actors in India vis-à-vis their interpretation of smart cities given the existing urban conditions and the proposed developments under the 100 Smart Cities Mission. This research also examines the underlying linkage between the smart city and its conceptual relatives and highlights the ones with a significant convergence with the emerging urban agenda in India's Smart Cities Mission. The analysis presented in this paper show that to emerge as a holistic concept, smart cities definition models should engage with the sustainability and community issues, beyond the use of digital technology. The research reveals that the Indian urban stakeholders strongly associate the smart city concept with sustainable city and eco-city, much more than the technology-loaded phrases such as ubiquitous city and digital city. The first-of-its-kind inclusive approach developed in this paper to define smart city takes on the monopolies of top-down smart city definitions and support the democratisation of the rapidly proliferating concept.

Worlding through gendering: Female agency, artistic practices and spatio-aesthetic dynamics in and for cities Publication date: Available online 16 April 2019 Source: City, Culture and Society Author(s): Minna Valjakka Abstract The aim of this paper is to examine the emergent practices of worlding by shifting the focus to the varied forms of female agency taking place in contemporary graffiti, street art and muralism. Given that the position of women has been underestimated in existing scholarships of worlding, (post)subcultures and contemporary art in East Asia, the questions of multiple roles of female agency, signifiers of femininity, and a more nuanced understanding of their impact to the spatio-aesthetic dynamics of public space are becoming ever more relevant. While contemporary graffiti is mainly seen as the domain of masculinity, the diversified manifestations of street art and muralism are more accepting for female participation and self-expression. Through critical analysis of the complexities of female agency and feminine aesthetics, the paper demonstrates how the transformation of contemporary graffiti into acknowledged forms of contemporary art has provided unseen possibilities for women to engage with what I call "worlding through gendering". I posit that even if feminine signifiers or feminist aspirations might not be a dominating strategy in these artistic practices amidst the ever-growing transcultural urban environment, women protagonists are contributing towards new forms of worlding through aesthetic strategies and forms of female agency. They create situated experiments how to be global in cities in East Asia and worldwide.

Farmers and the city: Urban sprawl, socio-demographic polarization and land fragmentation in a mediterranean region, 1961–2009 Publication date: Available online 10 April 2019 Source: City, Culture and Society Author(s): Luca Salvati Abstract Southern European cities experienced important transformations toward a more fragmented socio-demographic structure in recent decades. Under the hypothesis that farm characteristics were influenced by the local context where holders live, long-term patterns of socio-demographic polarization in a Mediterranean city were assessed using diachronic data on basic characteristics of farms held by residents in urban and rural districts of the Athens' metropolitan region, Greece (1961–2009). Evidence of this study indicates that the spatial distribution of farms according to the holder's place of residence reflects both traditional and new social gradients linked with the dominant phase of urban expansion. As a result, the local context was related to farmers' preferences and long-term strategies, influencing decisions toward a (more or less) sustainable management of peri-urban land. Results of this study aliment the debate on future development of contemporary cities, shedding further light on the (evolving) socioeconomic relations with the surrounding (rural) regions.

Making the city smart from the grassroots up: The sustainable food networks of Bristol Publication date: March 2019 Source: City, Culture and Society, Volume 16 Author(s): Matthew Reed, Daniel Keech Abstract Smart cities are known for their top-down focus on technology. This paper argues that emergent aspects of food policy in the UK can be understood as a social movement, which sustains development by way of bottom-up, horizontal networks of urban groups, and business associations. It suggests that as platforms of food provision, such on-line food networks offer a counter-point to top-down smart city development predicated on high-tech infrastructure. Such complex arrangements demonstrate how the city needs to be understood as a networked field of action, not simply an administratively bounded construction. Within the field of action movements emerge, whose activism is successful in influencing policymaking, and in shaping the municipal strategies assembled to build the regional structure of food provision. The caveat this paper highlights is that, although successful in influencing policy and municipal strategies, the activism of these movements has not been as effective as might have been anticipated from such a democratic impulse. This lack reflects the limited power of cities in the UK over the structure of food provision, but also the troubled extension of public participation into a territory marked by corporate and agricultural policy. The paper bases its claims about the nature of urban food policies in cities on a case study of networks in Bristol, including interviews with key activists, analysis social media networks and documents. The evidence supports claims that urban food developments represent a form of social movement, whose activism is democratic in its attempts to be both sustainable and inclusive.

The governance of a smart city food system: The 2015 Milan World Expo Publication date: March 2019 Source: City, Culture and Society, Volume 16 Author(s): Mark Deakin, Davide Diamantini, Nunzia Borrelli Abstract Studying the governance of a smart city food system, this paper offers a critical synthesis of the literature on the governance of smart cities and goes on to use the insights it offers as a basis to examine the claim made about the food system emerging from the 2015 World Expo in Milan. In particular, the claim made about the infrastructure developments underlying this urban and regional innovation as doing nothing less than building a smart city food system from the ground up. In going some way to qualify this claim, the paper suggests that while such a statement does reflect much of what is currently understood about the infrastructure developments underlying this urban and regional innovation, the claim made about the World Expo building a smart city food system from the ground up, offers more of an insight into the state-of-the-art on the governance of smart cities than it does into the critical nature of the food system surfacing from the Expo in Milan. The paper suggests the reason for the partial synthesis of smart cities as food systems, rest with the claims made about the Expo in Milan failing to recognise the: (1) need for the governance of smart cities not to be in strictly technical, but wider social, cultural and environmental terms; (2) requirement for the infrastructure developments underpinning this urban and regional innovation to also support the sustainable growth of food systems; (3) pressure there is to re-direct the participatory governance agenda of smart cities towards urban policies whose management of natural resources is wise in meeting the human expectation of and social need for food and requirement there is for the municipal strategies and capacity-building exercises underpinning food systems, to be systematic in cultivating an environment able to support the inclusive growth of them across regions; (4) call for the resilience of any such sustainable and inclusive growth to constitute a material condition of the infrastructure developments underlying this urban and regional innovation and surfacing as a smart food system in the City of Milan.

City Food Governance: Editors' Introduction to the Special Issue Publication date: March 2019 Source: City, Culture and Society, Volume 16 Author(s): Mark Deakin, Nunzia Borrelli, Davide Diamantini

Editorial Board Publication date: March 2019 Source: City, Culture and Society, Volume 16 Author(s):

Beyond feeding the city: The multifunctionality of urban farming in Vancouver, BC Publication date: March 2019 Source: City, Culture and Society, Volume 16 Author(s): Will Valley, Hannah Wittman Abstract This article explores the development of municipal policy and planning processes related to urban agriculture, and more specifically to urban farming in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. We examine the extent to which Vancouver's food and sustainability-related policies align with the commitments of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, a set of commitments and action framework that emerged as a key legacy from the 2015 World Expo: Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life. The article highlights the challenges and policy constraints of urban farming as a market-based food security and sustainability mechanism through a comparison of four urban farming organizations in Vancouver. This study contributes to the development of emerging value frameworks that move beyond market-based and supply-oriented rural replacement models for urban farming. We conclude by calling attention to issues of food literacy, equity, and inclusion within municipal food system policy and planning, and the opportunity to frame support for urban farming as a mechanism to orient urban citizens towards issues of peri-urban and rural food production.

Governing Bangkok's city food system: Engaging multi-stakeholders for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth Publication date: March 2019 Source: City, Culture and Society, Volume 16 Author(s): Piyapong Boossabong Abstract This article aims to understand the governance of city food systems in Bangkok by drawing attention to: the participatory aspect of Bangkok's city food governance; the food production that emerges from the sustainable growth and inclusive nature of this governance system; and civil society's use of this as an activism able to empower communities and for such movements to be smart in bridging territorial divisions, by way local government strategies, secured through capacity-building exercises. The multitude of stakeholders involved in governing Bangkok's food system is not just inter-related, but also linked and connected from top-to-bottom. These stakeholders include central and local governments, large food corporations, civil society organizations and even the daily life practices of street food venders and mobile markets. As a result, the article suggests, the governance of the city food agenda in Bangkok is both empowered and participatory, because organizations from the top and the middle are unable to sustain the development of food systems without including ordinary people in the actions taken to create them. This suggests legal frameworks, plans and related infrastructure development, are insufficient for Bangkok be smart in sustaining the development of cities food systems. As while the public sector facilitates food production and distribution through the regionalization process (including the conservation of the peri-urban agriculture, irrigation systems development, and central fresh food markets establishment), the smart city food agenda still requires operations from below to sustain such technical innovations.

Alexandros Sfakianakis
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