Niamh Moore-Cherry

Inclusive partnership: enhancing student engagement in geography

Partnership is currently the focus of much work within higher education and advocated as an important process to address a range of higher education goals. In this paper, we propose the term inclusive partnership to conceptualise a non-selective staff–student relationship. While recognising the challenges of inclusive partnership working for institutions, staff and students, this paper outlines the opportunities it offers and provides detailed case studies of inclusive partnerships within the geography curriculum. We conclude with some guiding principles to inform the development of inclusive partnerships in a range of settings.

Investigating urban transformations: GIS, map-elicitation and the role of the state in regeneration

The value of mixed-methods research has recently re-gained impetus among geographers interested in the production of knowledge (Elwood, 2010). Key conversations have centred on efforts to blend traditionally viewed quantitative tools such as GIS with more qualitative practices and data. While discussions in qualitative GIS have demonstrated the value of merging the qualitative in GIS, we highlight the unexplored potential of GIS in the enactment of qualitative research, specifically as visual method. Our argument is based on research which explored the role of the state in urban change in Dublin City. We conclude that there is significant potential to better incorporate GIS into visual methods, particularly through photo-elicitation style interviews. Contrary to some of the existing literature, the persuasive power of the map as visual resource can prove particularly successful in engaging elite stakeholders. Further, we conclude that the methodological approach we took, facilitated the production of different kinds of knowledge around processes of urban governance.

Beyond Art in ‘Meanwhile Spaces’: Temporary Parks, Urban Governance and the Co-production of Urban Space

Since the 1980s, city governments have increasingly focused on the adaptive reuse of brownfield sites to address urban dereliction through top-down policy guidance and funding initiatives. Since the onset of the economic and banking crisis in 2008, this approach has become more difficult and one response has been the encouragement of ‘meanwhile uses’ through the introduction of temporary activities on brownfield sites, as short-term alternatives. Much of these activities have been influenced by creative city debates centred on artists, the arts and creativity as important economic tools and agents. However this focus ignores the wider contributions to urbanism of such activities, often in marginal locations. Focusing on the city of Dublin, this chapter examines the pop-up Granby Park. This park was developed on a site formerly targeted for social housing but a victim of the crisis and collapse of the property market. The development of this park by a creative collective, Upstart, challenged how we think about vacancy in the city and highlights the potential and challenges of more informal but creative types of urban governance.

Debating Temporary Uses for Vacant Urban Sites: Insights for Practice from a Stakeholder Workshop

Abstract Temporary land uses have become the focus of much debate within academic and policy circles in recent years. Although the international literature contains numerous case studies of temporary interventions, little attention has been paid to the dynamics of the interactions among different stakeholders. This paper reports on a stakeholder workshop that used a participatory research approach to collectively define the issues facing those interested in the potential of vacant urban sites. The paper outlines the goals, design and evaluation of the workshop and concludes with a discussion of suggested lessons for practice that emerged from the workshop sessions.

The 1911 Census and Dublin city: A spatial analysis

One hundred years ago, a complete census of Ireland was taken as part of a larger census of the UK. The information gathered included details on every person compiled by household and by house address. This data included the name, sex, age, religion, place of birth and relationship to others in the household. As it transpired, this was the last census of the population for the entire island; the next census took place in 1926 and was of the newly formed Irish Free State. The original forms, which consisted of individual records compiled into tables for each house address, were digitised recently by the National Archives of Ireland. This provided an opportunity to undertake a geographical study of the 1911 Census in its centenary year. This research uses the records available for inner city Dublin to describe its social and demographic make-up 100 years ago. The paper highlights the variations that existed within the urban core and identifies four distinct ‘Dublins’ that existed at the time.

A crisis of crisis management? Evaluating post-2010 housing restructuring in Nanjing, China

Abstract In less than 20 years the housing system in China has been transformed from one based predominantly on the public provision of housing to a market-based system, to the extent that more than 80% of households in urban China are homeowners. The sheer scale of this change, compressed into such a short time, is impressive. However, the move to a commodified system has not been problem free. Indeed, the twin issues of displacement and, more generally, affordability are coming increasingly to the fore, resulting in significant policy shifts since 2010 toward the promotion of low-end housing for lower middle- and low-income groups. This article examines these issues through a detailed analysis of the implementation of the indemnificatory housing policy in Nanjing, and highlights the complex and often contradictory nature of this policy in practice.

Spatial planning, metropolitan governance and territorial politics in Europe: Dublin as a case of metro-phobia?

The growing concentration of production and population in capital cities in Europe is accompanied by metropolitan governance reform with two policy objectives in mind. Firstly, capital cities are promoted as ‘national champions’ in the context of global territorial competition. Secondly, metropolitan regions are characterised by recurrent crises of ‘governability’ as economic, social, environmental and infrastructural interdependencies escape existing jurisdictional scales. However, this process is highly uneven, reflecting the ways in which cities are embedded in their national contexts. Drawing from the literature on varieties of capitalism, and in particular O’Riain’s perspective on the Irish case, we suggest that in an era when cities are claimed to be acting as ‘national champions’, territorial politics need to be more strongly foregrounded in these discussions. Through an in-depth qualitative case-study of Dublin (Ireland), we argue that while government power may be strongly centralised in the city of Dublin, the spatial entity of Dublin is relatively powerless. Despite a number of recommendations since the 1970s, there has been little will or action to meaningfully devolve power to the city-regional level in any way, contrary to comparative European experiences. The paper illustrates how a central state stranglehold over the Dublin metropolitan area is hampering the efficient governance and sustainable development of the city. These governance constraints at the sub-national level with significant planning implications indicate a reluctance to engage with the metropolitan as a particular territorial scale in Ireland – and a profound fixity in the architecture of the state. We term this metro-phobia.

Playing with time in Moore Street, Dublin: Urban redevelopment, temporal politics and the governance of space-time

ABSTRACT Whether urban redevelopment is considered a “success” or “failure” is dependent on the temporal framings that we privilege. Until relatively recently, geographers have neglected the temporal politics that underpin urban redevelopment despite space-time being a crucial aspect framing the urban experience under capitalism. In this paper we argue for a focus on temporal politics or the politics associated with how time is experienced. Drawing on a case study of a market streetscape from Dublin (Ireland), we argue that cities need to be understood as shaped by multiple, fluid and contingent temporal framings and temporalities. Secondly, despite attempts by various stakeholders to control time and timeframes for particular ends, our case study highlights the impotence of planning and the challenges both time and urban temporalities raise for urban governance. Both space and its temporal framings are fraught with contestation, complicating any potential analysis of urban policy success and failure.