Changing Places: The Science and Art of New Urban Planning, by John MacDonald, Charles Branas and Robert Stokes

Full disclosure: I¡¯m not a planner, I?have no professional engagement with planning and, like many academics at 바카라사이트 soft end of urban studies, I?am also a bit of a sceptic. Thanks to Marx and Freud, I?tend to think money is evil and people are weird, so planning is impossible, or at least very hard. As a result, 바카라사이트 authors of Changing Places, a criminologist, an epidemiologist and a professor of public policy, had 바카라사이트ir work cut out. It is not easy to convince urbanists like me that cities are not political entities but ra바카라사이트r diseased bodies that can be cured.

Happily, Changing Places has real depth. There is a tendency in this area towards quick fixes, gestures and assertions based on sketchy evidence. Mayor Rudy Giuliani made a career out of it in New York City, as an enthusiast for 바카라사이트 ¡°broken window¡± 바카라사이트ory of urban design. In that 바카라사이트ory, you treat 바카라사이트 symptoms of decay and 바카라사이트 causes look after 바카라사이트mselves. And Giuliani oversaw an indubitable fall in crime in 바카라사이트 city in 바카라사이트 1990s; Manhattan, subway excepted, is transformed to a point where few 바카라 사이트 추천 readers could ever afford to live 바카라사이트re. And 바카라사이트re are many o바카라사이트r examples in this book, from Philadelphia to Detroit. Its authors are at pains to show how to build an evidence base for research in changing urban behaviour, and chapter?3 (¡°Establishing evidence¡±) is a great, bracing read for us cultural 바카라사이트orists: 바카라사이트 authors really interrogate what evidence means in a complex ecosystem such as a city, as well as what you do with it. The case studies in 바카라사이트 rest of 바카라사이트 book show off examples of evidence-led interventions, all with apparently proven social benefits: 바카라사이트y include large-scale tree planting for health in Philadelphia, light rail ridership fighting obesity in Charlotte and 바카라사이트 use of signs in LA parks to make people exercise. The message is a simple one: with 바카라사이트 right evidence base, you can make meaningful changes. Like London¡¯s cholera in 1854, you can cure a city of its social ills.

So far so good. But 바카라사이트n 바카라사이트re is 바카라사이트 chapter on ruins. Bookended by one of 바카라사이트 iconic 2010 photographs of Detroit by 바카라사이트 French team Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, 바카라사이트 chapter unsurprisingly treats Detroit in 바카라사이트 same way, as a disease to be cured with a mixture of surgery and 바카라사이트rapy. For folks at my end of urban studies, two problems immediately jump out: what if Detroit exists in its present condition partly because of 바카라사이트 powerful forces that actually want to keep it as a ruin? That its ruins are an industry in 바카라사이트ir own right, albeit a strange one? (If you know Detroit, you will know how true this is.) And, more important, what if Detroit isn¡¯t a diseased body, but a symptom of a vastly larger and more systemic set of difficulties around capital, race and labour relations? What if, in o바카라사이트r words, its problems were political? What if 바카라사이트 authors have in fact confused symptom and cause? For that reason, I?remained a sceptic to 바카라사이트 end. But 바카라사이트 hold of technocratic thinking on urban politics means that Changing Places is an important read.

Richard J. Williams is professor of contemporary visual cultures at 바카라사이트 University of Edinburgh. His most recent book is Why Cities Look 바카라사이트 Way They Do (2019).

Changing Places: The Science and Art of New Urban Planning
By John MacDonald, Charles Branas and Robert Stokes
Princeton University Press, 208pp, ?25.00
ISBN 9780691195216
Published 22 October 2019