David L. Prytherch

‘Vertebrating’ the Region as Networked Space of Flows: Learning from the Spatial Grammar of Catalanist Territoriality

For decades theoretical debates about political restructuring have resorted to and coconstructed geographical concepts of territory and scale, interpreting ‘new’ and ‘Euro’ regionalisms as processes of reterritorialization and rescaling (and the politics thereof). But nested and hierarchical theories of scale have been severely critiqued, and bounded notions of territory opened to question. How then to develop a more relational understanding of the region without trading one limiting theoretical master narrative for another? Drawing inspiration from recent attempts to do just this, in this paper I ask: what can we learn about the complex and relational spatiality of the region, and thus scale and territory, through the spatial vocabularies of regionalists themselves? Using the case study of the Northwestern Mediterranean, I explore the imaginaries and stratagems of Catalan regionalism and transboundary macroregionalism, particularly in the neighboring regions of Catalunya and the Comunitat Valenciana and their proposed integration in a Euroregion called the Arc Mediterrani. While Catalanists increasingly emphasize networked economic relationships and flows, they do so within a structured, territorial, and in many ways bounded understanding of Mediterranean spatial relations. How Catalanists vertebrar territori (articulate or structurate territory, in Catalan) offers an alternative spatial grammar for thinking about how various spatialities—including network and geographical scale—are distinct yet co-implicated in the social production of regional and macroregional territory.

Narrating the Landscapes of Entrepreneurial Regionalism: Rescaling, ‘New’ Regionalism and the Planned Remaking of València, Spain

Abstract This paper analyses the instrumental role of cultural landscape in the regionalisation of European states and identities through a case study of the planned redevelopment of València, capital of the Spanish autonomous region the Comunitat Valenciana. Briefly articulating recent theories of state rescaling and ‘new regionalism’ to cultural landscape this paper poses the question: how may landscapes be planned by ‘new’ regional states to rescale regionalist territories and imaginaries? The planning and promotion of the cultural entertainment complex the City of Arts and Sciences demonstrates how one regional state—the Generalitat Valenciana—sought to redefine an historically contested and historicist regionalism through landscapes of modern, entrepreneurial regionalism. Paying more attention to the cultural landscape enriches our theories of how state rescaling and ‘new’ regionalism are narrated discursively and represented materially.

Rights and Duties of Circulation on American Streets: To ‘Proceed Uninterruptedly’ or ‘with Reasonable Care?’

Abstract Critical mobility studies increasingly focus on legal geographies of the public street. Extending such work, we explore how statutory and case laws construct everyday circulation as right or duty, and implications for social justice. Using Ohio as case study, we analyze the ways legislative statutes define streets, mobile bodies, and ‘right of way.’ We then review how judges weigh statutory rights (and rights-based claims) against a ‘duty of ordinary care’ when assigning liability for accidents. Assessing the distribution of legal rights and duties among transport modes and spaces illuminates power asymmetries on American streets, in statutory theory and judicial practice.

It's Not About Big or Small, It's How You Play the Game: A Rejoinder to Woodward, Jones, and Marston

In 2002, 10,500 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, engaged in heated contract negotiations, slowed work at 29 ports on the U.S. West Coast. Port officials of the Pacific Maritime Association responded with a lockout. With no crane operators and clerks, shipping between the U.S. and Asia was suddenly crippled: from San Diego to Seattle freighters waited offshore, laden with intermodal containers that could not be unloaded. Because these ports funnel half of all U.S. imports/exports, each lockout day cost the nation’s economy an estimated

INTRODUCTION--DIGRESSION ANALYSIS: A DECIDEDLY EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE SYMPOSIUM ON THE STATE OF URBAN GEOGRAPHY; DISPATCHES FROM THE FIELD

1 billion. To importers of the West Coast Waterfront Coalition such as Wal-Mart, the event was a “major economic disaster” (Greenhouse, 2002a). For a week trans-Pacific trade paused until a federal order forced the longshoremen back to work. How are we to best theorize the city’s spatiality vis à vis geographical processes and the social actors/practices behind them? In this case, how might we grasp the relationship between the size of ports, the volume and extensiveness of their trade networks, and the bargaining power of longshoremen? Answering these and other questions would seem to require a well-honed theory of geographic proportionality, that is to say scale. Yet, in their reply (2008, this issue), Keith Woodward, John Paul Jones III, and Sallie Marston continue to promote a “flat ontology” by sustaining their argument that scale be purged from our geographical vocabulary (Marston et al., 2005; Jones et al., 2007). In “Urban Geography With Scale: Rethinking Scale Via Wal-Mart’s ‘Geography of Big Things’,” I cautioned against hastily discarding scale, suggesting we rethink scale more relationally as a volumetric, networked, space of flows (Prytherch, 2007). However, Woodward et al. (2008, this issue) remain unconvinced and criticized my effort to rethink scale through Wal-Mart’s big-boxes and commodity chains, which to them pays too little attention to “the grounds on which practices take place or social relations are constituted” (p. 82, their emphasis). But isn’t scale also distinctly useful for analyzing and differentiating the constitution of geographically uneven “complex(es) of bodies engaged in endlessly different and variable practices” (p. 83)? The longshoremen made that point. Their spatial tactics understood volume: Huge container ships could not be unloaded without gantry cranes, nor could they fit through the Panama Canal to reach Atlantic and Gulf ports. They understood the network: Slowdowns at key nodes like ports disrupt commodity chains linking Chinese manufacturers and American retailers. And they understood flows: By slowing

The (Block-by-Block) Fight for a More Just American Street

This is a time that poses numerous challenges to urban geographers and the cities they study. As it happens, 2004 was a period of disciplinary reflection marking the centennial of the Association of American Geographers (AAG). As graduate student members of the board of the AAG’s Urban Geography Specialty Group, we capitalized on a confluence of events to organize a panel entitled “The state of urban geography: What is it and where is it going?” for the AAG’s 2004 annual meeting in Philadelphia. This year of disciplinary celebration also coincided with the torment of our own early professional lives as newly-minted, so-called urban geographers. Drawn into collaboration through these circumstances, we chose to organize a session in which we invited urban geographers at various stages in their careers to reflect on the subdiscipline and its practice. To initiate dialogue, we asked: What is the significance of the subdiscipline to the production and application of geographic knowledge? What—or who—defines urban geography? Is urban geography what urban geographers do or is it something more? To be sure, the forward-looking spirit of the day fulfilled our initial hopes. We were fortunate to assemble an impressive set of urban geographers with diverse interests and experiences, including Larry Bourne (University of Toronto), Winifred Curran (DePaul University), Michael Dear (University of Southern California), Sarah Elwood (University of Arizona), Robert Lake (Rutgers University), and Sallie Marston (University of Arizona). Some panelists were close to retirement and others were equally close to the start of a new job. The group spoke to a standing-room-only crowd about their accomplishments, their hopes for, and their disappointments with urban geography at the turn of the millennium. When invited to assemble and introduce the panelists’ reflections as a symposium for this journal, we relished our own opportunity to ponder the state of the subdiscipline. But

Legal Geographies of the American “Right-of-Way”

Prytherch shows how the struggle for more equitable and inclusive streets is unfolding across the US, in arenas including policy, infrastructure engineering, and on-the-ground protest. First, it begins with broad national movements to promote complete streets policies and transform how streets are planned and engineered, as well as innovative efforts to remake streets safer through “Vision Zero” planning. Second, it focuses on efforts to physically transform street spaces, including freeway removal, retrofitting of vehicular corridors for Bus Rapid Transit, creative placemaking, and green alleys. Third, it concludes with more ephemeral but symbolically powerful efforts to take over streets through critical mass rides, “ghost-bike” memorials, and the transformation of parking spots into pop-up parks. These movements are illustrated through case studies from cities across the US. This chapter highlights the pursuit of mobility justice and complete streets through both broad policy reform and intense local street fights.

Engineering the Roadway as Space of Flow

Prytherch explores the legislative frameworks that create and define streets, and how particular assumptions about mobility give shape to street spaces. The chapter traces changing legal and design assumptions about what roadways are for and whom they should serve, set in context of the historical evolution of the American street as physical and legal space for cars. It provides a critical review of the Uniform Vehicle Code, which defines the nature and purpose of the public roadway, legitimate users, and the allocation of street spaces for particular modes of travel. He analyzes diverse state statutes modeled on the Uniform Vehicle Code. Critical analysis of traffic codes in relation to mobility justice reveals how such statutes codify the asymmetrical and unjust power geometries of automobility. Mobility injustice on the American roadway is, Prytherch suggests, built upon a very firm statutory foundation.

“Creating Real Spaces for People”: Emerging Standards for Intermodal Design

Prytherch explores the evolving principles and practices guiding roadway planning, construction, and maintenance. He traces the role of the AASHTO and other national organizations like the TRB in setting design standards used by federal, state, and local engineers. Reviewing for non-engineers the basics of “geometric design,” he analyzes how social and legal assumptions about proper users—so-called design vehicles—are manifested and reinforced in guidance for the three-dimensional design of streets. The chapter also explores how the Highway Capacity Manual defines the quality of roadways as “capacity,” formalized in standards like level of service (LOS) that grade streets and intersections in terms of uninterrupted flow. This analysis highlights the central role of such design practices in literally constructing everyday roadways as spaces of vehicular speed and throughput, often to the detriment of wider place functions and livability.

Controlling the Roadway: Signs, Markings, and Signals

Prytherch explores how principles of “Complete Streets” are increasingly matched by intermodal design practices, which provide alternatives to traditional engineering manuals. The chapter first reviews American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) bicycle and pedestrian guidance, and then the new bicycle-specific signage, markings, and signals in the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). But the most profound reimagining of the street can be found in the emergence of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), which has developed its own bicycle and Urban Street Design Guide as an alternative to “highway engineering,” which is both more intermodal and sensitive to urban, community context. And it surveys new pedestrian- and bicycle-specific approaches to the measurement of roadway performance. This chapter argues for the power of new intermodal and context-specific design to produce a more just street.