David Harvey at LSE Thursday 10th May
Harvey explores the contemporary reality of cities as the arenas for revolutionary politics. To what extent can current movements be described as 'calss struggle'? How do these movements draw on 'right to the city' discourse in thier attempts to tranform societies as well as the streets?
See also
'For Harvey, the left must be modern and urban or it will remain powerless.'
Article by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, published in The Financial Times.
The Church of England and the Church Universal have a proper interest in the ethics of the financial world and in the question of whether our financial practices serve those who need to be served – or have simply become idols that themselves demand uncritical service.
Tuesday 28th September British Library
The idea that economics is morally neutral or that finance should be above ethical scrutiny deserves to be challenged.
In a new book, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Larry Elliott, Economics Editor of The Guardian, have brought together a collection of leading commentators to examine the role of morality and ethics in business. At this event, both discuss these fundamental themes together with Zac Goldsmith MP, Editor of The Ecologist, and Robert Skidelsky, professor of political economy, politician and historian.
Anna Minton on supermarket-led development
While the economic downturn has hit many parts of the development industry hard, Tesco recorded profits of nearly £3.4bn last year. Its plans for expansion are reflected by a growing tide of what are described as "supermarket-led mixed-use development proposals" – entire districts of homes, schools and public places built by the company.
26th April
Balancing Cars and Pedestrians: the case
SPEAKERS: Peter Hendy, Janette Sadik Khan
SPEAKER: Professor David Harvey
14th May
SPEAKERS: Professor Richard Sennett,
Dr Rowan Williams
25th May
Urban Culture in the Cities of the Mediterranean
SPEAKER: Hashim Sarkis
1st June
Climate Change: the city solution
SPEAKER: Ritt Bjerregaard
Edward Platt on Thames Gateway in New Statesman
The Thames Gateway development is the largest urban regeneration scheme ever attempted in Britain. If it fails, the area risks becoming a vast wilderness robbed of its rich natural landscape and cultural heritage.
"Regeneration is a long-term process - it does not happen overnight, and you have to accept that you will have to go through one or two economic cycles."
"So much attention and effort and money goes into these grand documents, but the people in the local communities know what they need and they don't need another high-profile architect or urban visionary to tell them. We go from one 'visioning process' to another and you're never quite sure what's going to come out of it at the end."
Cities Outlook 2010 finds that, as we move out of recession, the UK will face an uneven recovery. Already-robust city economies like Brighton are more likely to grow stronger, leaving others like Doncaster further behind. This raises tough questions about how they can carve out a future that's economically sustainable.
City Network and the School of Sociology at Kingston University guest lecture
'Architecture and affect: two shopping centres from the inside'
Professor Gillian Rose (The Open University).
The event will take place on Tuesday, 24th of November 2009, 5.30pm in
the C-Scaipe Debating Chamber of Kingston University (Penrhyn road campus).
Emblems first of empire, then post-industrial drift and rampant capitalism, London's docks are now in hock to a new power. [...] This unbecoming location on the Isle of Dogs has always told us a broader truth about the condition of Britain. In the Victorian era, the docks symbolised the prosperity and progress of empire.
Canary Wharf, an icon of modern capitalism, is now a totem of state-funded corporatism. The docks that once played host to the British empire and housed the finance titans of US imperialism are now in hock to a new power rising in the east.
Events open to the LSE community and the public
Tuesday 6 October, 6.30-8pm
Bringing the Penal State Back In
SPEAKER: Professor Loïc Wacquant
Monday 19 October, 6.30-8pm
Beijing Inside Out: Caochangdi
SPEAKERS: Robert Mangurian, Mary-Ann Ray
Tuesday 10 November, 6.30-8pm
The First Legacy Games: the physical and
socio-economic transformation of East London
SPEAKERS: Andrew Altman, Councillor Paul Brickell, Ricky Burdett
Tuesday 17 November, 6.30-8pmC
Cities, Design and Climate Change
SPEAKERS: Professor Saskia Sassen, Professor Richard Sennett
David Harvey: Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution
REBEL CITIES places the city at the heart of both capital and class struggles
Marcuse, Brenner & Mayer: Cities for People, Not for Profit: Critical Urban Theory and the Right to the City
An important volume promoting alternative, radically democratic and sustainable forms of urbanism.
Kunkel & Mayer: Neoliberal Urbanism and its Contestations: Crossing Theoretical Boundaries
This volume brings a plurality of approaches – from political economic/regulationist to Foucauldian governmentality and post-operatist subject theories – to bear on the broad range of contestations around urban neoliberalism.
Neoliberal Urbanism and its Contestations: Crossing Theoretical Boundaries
Matthew Gandy ed.: Urban Constellations
This collection explores themes such as new forms of political mobilisation, the effects of economic instability, the political ecology of urban nature and the presence of collective memory.
Mark R Gornik: Word Made Global: Stories of African Christianity in New York City
An insightful and prescient portrait of the emerging face of Christianity as it enters its third millennium.
Gareth Millington: 'Race', Culture and the Right to the City: Centres, Peripheries, Margins
Linking debates in 'racial' and ethnic studies to wider concerns with the city and urbanism.
Atherton, Baker & Reader: Christianity and the New Social Order: A Manifesto for a Fairer Future
Is Britain a broken society? Three contributors tackle the question in this easy-to-read manifesto aimed at the Church, public sphere and academia. They examine the values and direction of British/Western society in view of current political, economic and civil debates, and propose a new Christian agenda for change.
Baker & Beaumont eds: Postsecular Cities: Religious Space, Theory and Practice (Continuum Resources in Religion and Political Culture)
Rapidly diversifying urban locations are the best places to witness the emergence of new spaces in which religions and spiritual traditions are creating both new alliances but also bifurcations with secular sectors.
G. Myers & M.Murray: Cities in Contemporary Africa
Explains how and why cities on the African continent have grown at such a rapid pace, and how long-time urban residents and new-comers interact, negotiate, and struggle over access to limited resources through religion, culture and politics.
Garth Myers: African Cities: Alternative Visions of Urban Theory and Practice
Engages with the vibrancy and complexity of African cities with fresh eyes
Mendieta and Butler: The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere (Columbia / SSRC Book)
a rare opportunity to experience a diverse group of preeminent philosophers confronting one all-encompassing contemporary concern: what role does or shouldreligion play in our public lives?
David W Smith: Seeking a City with Foundations
Outlines key urban trajectories alongside theological and biblical themes to develop a new vision for urban mission.
Edward Glaeser: Triumph of the City
Triumph of the free market?
Daniel Dorling: Bankrupt Britain: An Atlas of Social Change
a unique atlas giving a comprehensive picture of the effect of the recession on Britain
Laurence Smith: The New North: The World in 2050
The world in 2050 will be radically different from today; Northern countries – notably Canada, Russia and Scandinavia – will rise at the expense of southern ones.
Ricky Burdett: Living in the Endless City
This book will give the reader access to a wealth of ideas and data about Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Istanbul and, by extension, urban life across the globe.
Danny Dorling: So You Think You Know About Britain?
Exploring the key issues that make the headlines Dorling will change the way you think about the country and explain just why you should feel positive about the future.
Michael Symmons Roberts & Paul Farley: Edgelands
A book about the blank spaces on the A-Z, the hinterlands of Britain that are not urban and not yet country: the lost, the liminal and the unloved.
Nigel Copsey (ed): British National Party: Contemporary Perspectives
Recent developments in the far right in Britain, are covered by a range of commentators with a particular focus on the British National Party (BNP).
Claire Freeman: Children and their Urban Environment: Changing Worlds
The book seeks to embrace childhood as a time of freedom, social engagement and environmental adventure and to encourage creation of environments that better meet the needs of children. The authors argue that in doing so, we will build more sustainable neighbourhoods, cities and societies for the future.
Tim Butler: Ethnicity, Class and Aspiration: Understanding London's New East End
a compelling analysis of the importance of aspirations and education in understanding social class and ethnicity in contemporary Britain.
Wesley Howard-Brook: Come Out My People!: God's Call Out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond
A remarkable offering for those who care about the interface of power and faith . . . . I could not put it down, and expect to continue to be instructed by it. --Walter Brueggemann
Nezar AlSayyad: The Fundamentalist City?: Religiosity and the Remaking of Urban Space
This book attempts to establish a relationship between two important phenomena: the historic transition of the majority of the world’s population from a rural to an urban existence; and the robust resurgence of religion as a major force in the shaping of contemporary life in many parts of the world.
Simon Parker: Cities, Politics and Power (Routledge Critical Introductions to Urbanism and the City)
combines a concern with how the cities in which we live are organised and run with a broader focus on cities and urban regions as multiple sites and agents of power.
Susan Fainstein: The Just City
Fainstein draws on the work of John Rawls, Martha Nussbaum, Iris Marion Young, Nancy Fraser, and others to develop an approach to justice relevant to twenty-first-century cities.
Owen Hatherley: A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain
Hatherley maps the derelict Britain of the 2010s
Andrew Walker: Discovering the Spirit in the City
a wide-ranging exploration of the practical applications of spirituality in an urban environment.
