Boris Michel

‘Stop Being a Tourist!’ New Dynamics of Urban Tourism in Berlin-Kreuzberg

Berlin is witnessing a massive tourism boom, and parts of it can be described as ‘new urban tourism’, which shows a preference for off the beaten track areas and ‘authentic’ experiences of the city. This form of tourism seems especially salient in Kreuzberg. It is here that an openly articulated critique of tourism attracted national attention in 2011 and has not ceased to do so since. This article aims to better understand the conflictive potential of (new urban) tourism in Kreuzberg. We argue that the readily expressed negative attitudes against tourists and the easily accepted link between tourism and gentrification have to be explained against the backdrop of certain housing-market dynamics. Rising rents and a diminution in the number of flats available for rent are fuelling fears of gentrification in Kreuzberg, while the interest shown in new urban tourism and the comparatively low-priced real-estate market in Berlin result in a growing number of holiday flats. Although adding only slightly to the tightening of the housing market, holiday flats render complex processes of neighborhood change visible and further sustain an already prevalent tourism critique.

Learning from failed policy mobilities: Contradictions, resistances and unintended outcomes in the transfer of “Business Improvement Districts” to Germany

This paper contributes to the debates on policy mobilities by examining Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) in Germany as examples of contested, failed and unfinished travelling policies. Recent debates on policy mobilities opened a fruitful discussion on how policies are transferred from one place to another and the complex processes that rework places and policies in heterogeneous ways. While we are sympathetic to this literature, there are theoretical and empirical gaps to be addressed. It is frequently stated that processes around the transfer and grounding of policies are complex, and that outcomes are far from secure. However, the empirical focus in most cases is on transfers that are more or less “successful”, or at least portrayed as being successful by their advocates. In contrast to this “success bias” in research and public discourse, we argue that it is helpful to focus more closely on failures, resistances and contradictions. Judging from work on the transfer of BIDs – an almost classical example of successfully mobilized urban policies – we argue that it is helpful to reflect on unfinished policy mobilities, that is, the failure of mobilized urban policies.

Reclaiming the European City and Lobbying for Privilege Business Improvement Districts in Germany

Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) are an increasing global phenomenon. In diverse places, they are established and sought of as helpful means to improve urban places. BIDs are frequently seen as a showcase for new forms of globalizing urban policies. This paper contrasts and broadens the frequent examples from the United States and the United Kingdom with experiences from Germany. We argue that this presents not just another example of BIDs as a mode of global neoliberal urban governance in yet another country. Instead, our case study highlights the elasticity and resilience of said concept and the impact of local trajectories on the mobilization of modes of urban governance. Compared with other places, BIDs in Germany remain relatively weak in terms of financial power. Nonetheless, the case of Hamburg shows how they are made suitable for discourses and practices of a neoliberalized “European City.”

SEEING SPATIAL STRUCTURES: ON THE ROLE OF VISUAL MATERIAL IN THE MAKING OF THE EARLY QUANTITATIVE REVOLUTION IN GEOGRAPHY

Abstract This article examines the role that visual material played in the early years of the quantitative revolution in Anglophone geography. It is part of a larger project that attempts to write a history of geographys scopic regimes in the twentieth century and draws on post‐positivist approaches to the history of science. It is argued that there are a number of strategic as well as theoretical reasons for such a reliance on images in the quantitative revolution. Some reasons are unique to the quantitative revolution in geography, some resemble a more general way in which paradigm shifts take place in science and some are located outside of academia. This article is primarily interested in the internal view on the geography of the quantitative revolution and its rationalities. The paper departs from Christallers hexagon, as one of the most influential and iconic. It then broadens the view to include a much wider range of visual material, arguing for some more general observations on the use of images in geography during the early quantitative revolution. It is argued that there was a significant shift of forms and functions of visual material. Overall, it is argued, visual material gained in importance and while geography was getting “thinner” and more abstract, its role in making visual arguments became stronger. From being merely an aid for seeing, visual material became a prime carrier of knowledge.

Qualitative Geographische Informationssysteme

Qualitative geographische Informationssysteme (GIS) bezeichnen methodische Ansatze, die qualitative Informations- und Datenformen in GIS-Anwendungen integrieren und anhand von verstehenden und interpretierenden Verfahren analysieren. Vielfach werden qualitative GIS mit dem Ziel verwendet, marginalisierten und subalternen Perspektiven in Politik und Planungsprozessen Gehor zu verschaffen. Sie konnen als eine praktische Umsetzung der Kritiken an GIS verstanden werden, die die scheinbare Objektivitat und Aussagekraft von GIS-Analysen mit abstrakten und standardisierten quantitativen Datensatzen in Zweifel zogen. Anstelle von positivistischen Grundannahmen betonen qualitative GIS daher die Widerspruchlichkeit, Perspektivitat und Situiertheit raumlichen Wissens und streben, haufig durch Einbeziehen verschiedenartiger empirischer Daten, eine grostmogliche kontextuelle Tiefe an. Dieses sich dynamisch entwickelnde Methodenfeld hat verschiedenste Verfahren hervorgebracht, um qualitative Informationen in einem GIS darzustellen und zu analysieren. Dabei spielen insbesondere Techniken der Geovisualisierung eine grose Rolle.

Partizipatives Kartieren als Praxis einer kritischen Kartographie

Methoden des partizipativen Kartierens begreifen Karten und die Praxis des Kartierens als wirkungsvolle Instrumente, um nicht nur raumliches Wissen zu visualisieren, sondern auch neue Wege der Wissensproduktion und Kommunikation zu gehen. Partizipatives Kartieren bringt Ansatze der partizipativen Sozialforschung mit Kartographie und Geographischen Informationssystemen (GIS) zusammen. Kartographie und GIS sind zwei der zentralen Visualisierungs- und Analyseinstrumente in der Geographie. Dieser Beitrag gibt einen einfuhrenden Einblick in das Feld partizipativer Kartographie bzw. partizipativen Kartierens.

Das Dekonstruieren der web2.0 Karte. Vorschläge zur Analyse dynamischer und interaktiver Karten multipler und diffuser Autorenschaften

Mit der Etablierung des geoweb nimmt die Bedeutung einer raumlichen Verortung von Informationen im Internet zu. Das Internet wird raumlicher und Raumlichkeit wird zunehmend zu einer ubiquitaren Dimension von Internetdaten. Dies koinzidiert mit einer Veranderung der Moglichkeiten der Visualisierung dieser Daten. Zu den gangigsten Formen der raumlichen Visualisierung von Daten bzw.