URBLOG

LSE Autumn Public Lectures

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

Legacy of the docks

Questions at 'the very centre of globalisation'

It is time to rethink the London Docklands development as simply a struggle between powerless locals and 'yuppie' colonisers.

The monumental Canary Wharf is central to the story of the Docklands and its success, but it is not the whole story. Beyond it there remain pockets that still await regeneration and renewal. The current interest in its evolution should be a reminder that 30 years on it is no less a work in progress than the Thames Gateway or the London Olympics.

Migrant workers in UK construction

Building a New Home: Migration in the UK construction sector

This IPPR report investigates the role of migrant workers in UK construction, and the impact that their migration into this industry is having on its existing construction workforce, on the development of the next generation of UK construction workers, and on the performance of the industry as a whole.

UN focus on Africa, India and China

 UNHabitat's  The State of African Cities 2008 proviudes a state of the art guide to issue facing urban communities across the continent.

'A worrying trend with the African urbanization process is that it is a process rooted in poverty rather than an industrialization-induced socio-economic transition as in other major world urban regions. Africa’s escalating urban problems have received less attention than warranted and now, at the dawn of Africa’s urban age, these need to be addressed.'

 

UNHabitat have also launched URBAN WORLD  The inaugural edition covers urban development in India and China, the Olympic impact on the environment

Jenkins on the Olympic impact

Simon Jenkins in The Guardian

"What is not clear is who will win, China or its critics. It could be a photo-finish. [...] The Olympics area of Beijing has been destroyed and rebuilt with stadiums, office blocks and avenues: monuments to the cosmopolitan, modernising zeal of the Chinese communist party. Salivating western architects have lined up for work without a moral qualm."

"It is an open secret that both Athens and Sydney did not gain but lost on their tourist account through hosting the Olympics. Normal visitors avoid Olympic cities for fear of crowds. "

First city of the future

The Observer special features on Beijing

'I am Chinese but my life is westernised in a city in which history survives in isolated fragments, sporadic pieces of tradition ruptured by modernity. We want to preserve our traditions and promote our value systems but we don't know what either of them is. After 30 years of this explosion of power, there are no rules, no plan for this city. We are crossing the river by feeling the stones beneath our feet.'

 

 

Beijing has rebuilt itself faster than any city on earth, turning from a warren of alleys into a capital fit for a superpower. No wonder the world's top architects - from Foster to Koolhaas - have flocked to make their mark on it.  Deyan Sudjic:

"Very few architects say in public that they will not build in Beijing. The only notable dissident is Daniel Libeskind of Ground Zero fame, who has questioned the seemliness of building for an authoritarian and undemocratic regime, under which construction workers endure the most primitive of conditions, with minimal safety provisions and poor wages."

FOOL'S GOLD

2012 Olympics will break 'legacy' promise unless rules are changed quickly.

Fool's Gold, the new report from the New Economics Foundation, shows that unless cast-iron guarantees are built into plans for the 2012 Olympics, the Games will fail to leave the promised positive local legacy for the poorest residents of East London. The report identifies the ‘trickle down’ economics that underly the approach to regeneration at the heart of the Olympic bid as the root cause of the problem.

Travellers, land and home

Our view of house and home allows no place for Travellers

Libby Brooks in The Guardian:  considers the 'land grab  hysteria' and concerns of identity and home in the traveller community. "Settled people are told all they need is a house, and to encounter those who don't share that absolute can be baffling."

What legacy?

How will the claims made for the Olympic Park really play out in the lives of East Londoners?

The Olympics site is eating into east London's green spaces and few local residents will be around to benefit from the area's vast redevelopment, says Tony Lloyd-Jones.

'A new "green Olympics" site development will be of little more benefit to local residents than the current vast blue-fenced building site they will have to suffer until the Olympics is upon them, and for several years after as the legacy sites are redeveloped.'

MIGRANTS: mapping, marginality & the metropole

Mobile masculinities: Men, migration and low paid work in London

The latest paper from the Global Cities at Work programme.

Also available online:  Brazilians in London. A report for the Strangers into Citizens Campaign.

Show Invisibles? migration / data / work

The latest edition of Mute examines invisibility, the campaign for a migrant amnesty, and the attempts to 'destroy the legal and informational grey zones in which the poor shelter and organise'.

A controversial and stimulating read!

"An amnesty might represent a real and substantial gain for migrant communities and a limited number of individuals, but at the cost of the re-inscription of life into the state and the legitimisation of the state's role in managing the tension between, and circulation across, borders and boundaries."