Roman Cybriwsky

Changing patterns of urban public space: Observations and assessments from the Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas

Abstract This paper looks at new, high-profile redevelopment projects in Tokyo and New York City and their surroundings for examples of trends in the design of urban public spaces and changing patterns in how they are used. This includes new parks and other open spaces, landscaped plazas or public squares associated with new office towers, shopping centers and other large-scale commercial developments, and various popular “festival sites” such as those along recreation waterfronts. A comparison indicates that both cities have quite a few new public spaces that enhance the quality of urban life and add aesthetic appeal, but that also reflect certain social problems and divisions. We see the following common trends: (1) increasing privatization of spaces that were once more clearly in the public domain; (2) increasing surveillance of public spaces and control of access to them in order to improve security; and (3) increasing use of design themes that employ “theme park” simulations and break connections with local history and geography. In the Tokyo area there is also a curious trend to create large, landscaped open areas near new development projects that few people use. They can be called “planned wastelands” or “new urban deserts”. New York City, on the other hand, has succeeded in having more people come together for enjoyment in parts of the city that were once all but abandoned. The paper is illustrated with photographs, and draws on the examples of Times Square, South Street Seaport and Battery Park City in New York, and Yebisu Garden Place, Teleport–Daiba, Makuhari New Town and Minato Mirai 21 in the Tokyo–Yokohama area.

City profile: Jakarta

Abstract With a metropolitan population of more than 20 million and rising, Jakarta is one of the worlds largest cities, the biggest city by a wide margin in Southeast Asia, and the commanding urban center of Indonesia, the worlds fourth most populous country. It is also an outstanding example of an overburdened Third World metropolis struggling with problems of overpopulation and inadequate housing, employment, transportation and environmental quality. At the same time, the city aspires for recognition in its Asian region and the world more widely as an emerging leader among the worlds great metropolises. Yet, the city has received comparatively little attention in English-language literature in urban studies and urban planning, and is not particularly well understood beyond Indonesia outside a circle of specialists. Two notable exceptions are special-focus profiles of Jakarta that appeared in recent years in this journal, one in 1994 by Hadiwinoto and Leitmann (Cities 11(3) (1994) 153) about the citys environmental problems and the other in 1998 by Firman about economic restructuring and land use. This profile adds to those studies by reviewing Jakartas history of growth and development, its social geography, and its major challenges for urban planning and management.

The Spatial Ecology of Stripped Cars

An inclination toward the analytical and topical rather than the synthetic and global sometimes obscures from our view parsimonious regularity in the outside world. As an example, consider the geography of crime. Every crime has fixed spatial coordinates, a location. The scale of the location varies widely, from the specific site of a block mugging to broad tracts of territory which may remain under the hold of lawless bands for decades. But, despite this range of scales, might there be particular types of locations amenable to crime? Might there exist a common set of spatial ecological conditions favorable to deviant behavior?

Shibuya Center, Tokyo

Gigantic commercial centers exist at principal transportation nodes in several large Japanese cities. A model generalizes characteristic components of these centers: a transportation hub, a staging area, zones for department stores and office towers, an area of restaurants, bars, and coffee shops, specialized shopping streets, an amusement quarter, and a love-hotel zone. These places attract huge crowds, and Shibuya is a representative center that is popular with students and young company employees. THE purpose of this article is to describe the internal spatial structure of a large commercial center in Tokyo, Japan, and to examine its characteristics in the context of contemporary Japanese society. The emphasis is on the role of the center as a place for after-school and after-work socializing and recreation. Many commercial centers in the largest Japanese cities contain facilities for these functions, which are expressed most clearly in the mixture of businesses that surround railroad stations at key commuter interchanges. Each workday hundreds of thousands of riders transfer from one railroad or subway line to another at these centers. They provide outstanding opportunities for observation of daily routines of the urban middle class and for commentary on numerous themes about Japanese customs of work and leisure. This article also is in the tradition of efforts by foreigners to understand Japanese material culture and behavioral patterns. In other words, the text reflects the fascination that foreigners in Japan often display for societal details and distinctive attributes of the built environment.1 The methodology assumes that the built environment reflects societal context and that analyses of spatial patterns and physical morphology at a place offer insight into the complex interplay of cultural traits, historical circumstances, political and social systems, and other factors that shape the characteristics of a place. As an essay in landscape interpretation, this article follows a long-standing tradition in geography, but with a focus on relationships between society and urban environment.

Kyiv’s Maidan: from Duma Square to sacred space

The word ‘Maidan’ is shorthand for Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kyiv, Ukraine, as well as a term that in Ukraine has come to signify a large protest gathering, such as the Euromadian protests that overthrew the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych on 22 February 2014. This paper traces the history and changing meaning of the square that is today Maidan Nezalezhnosti, from czarist Kyiv to the present, and then traces protests that began in November 2013 in response to Yanukovych’s announcement to abandon Ukraine’s quest for admission to the European Union and that resulted in his ouster and war with Russia. Because protestors were killed, the square has now become sacred space. Even as war rages in Ukraine’s east, memorials to the fallen, the Nebesna Sotnya, are being designed for the square.

Whose City? Kyiv and its River After Socialism

Abstract This article looks at changing land use along the banks of the Dnipro River (formerly Dnieper River) in Kyiv, Ukraine (formerly Kiev) as an example of rising social inequality since the collapse of Soviet socialism. A working assumption is that tangible symbols of power and privilege such as lavish private housing and land development for profit are more evident in post-socialist society than they were during Communism, and that the amenity-rich river zone in the center of Kyiv is ripe for gentrification of beaches, parks, and high hills with river views. The research is based on detailed field work along the Dnipro and study of maps and air photographs. Our data indicate that prime space along the river is being appropriated by private interests for profit or personal use, often without respect to environmental considerations, treasured historic landscapes, and the rule of land use law. In this way, the historic character of Kyiv is being eroded, and public access to the river and its resources is reduced.

Ihor Stebelsky. Placing Ukraine on the Map: Stepan Rudnytsky’s Nation-Building Geography.

Ihor Stebelsky. Placing Ukraine on the Map: Stepan Rudnytsky’s Nation-Building Geography . Kingston, Ontario: Kashtan Press, 2014. iii, 50 pp. Foreword. Illustrations. Endnotes. References. Afterword. Cloth.

A Review of “Reconstructing Kobe: The Geography of Crisis and Opportunity”

2009), which includes only a brief section on urban climate change impacts for each region in the United States, as well as providing a more global analysis than volumes dedicated to only one region or nation. This volume should be viewed as a call for more in-depth studies on the varied subtopics that the essays address related to climate change impacts on urban areas and human adaptation and mitigation responses.

A Review of “Making Competitive Cities”

of writing might seem as intimidating as the streets of Kensington themselves, Fairbanks largely succeeds in his goal of unpacking the emergence and proliferation of the recovery house movement in Philadelphia. With their grounded accounts, both books represent considerable advances that move beyond narrowly conceived and remote accounts of homeless cities and welfare state restructuring. But when compared to Cloke et al., Fairbanks is far more pessimistic about the lives of the poor, which is perhaps more a function of the setting. In effect, the typical British homeless person in Swept Up Lives does not face the near-insurmountable obstacle of concentrated poverty found in Kensington, nor must they deal with a far more residual and meanspirited welfare state. As such, both state neglect and stigmatizing place-based poverty weigh more heavily in Philadelphia. When taken together, the books do more to reinforce a divergence, rather than a convergence, between the United States and United Kingdom in terms of the welfare state and the role of urban space. These differences serve to flout the supposed recent rapprochement between American and British liberal welfare state regimes in an era marked by fast policy transfers and purported transatlantic convergence.

Bangkok: Place, Practice and Representation

not fail to commend Ford’s writing, a supple, unstuffy prose, sometimes almost conversational in tone, and a delight to read. Along with the elegant marshaling of fact and argument, the transparent language makes for a work that should appeal to a wide array of general readers as well as the most learned of urban scholars. Is anything missing? Yes, but usually intentionally so. Thus, Ford has almost nothing to say about the recent dynamics of the metropolis as a whole, or the suburbs and their edge cities, or the remainder of the city proper. He also makes a conscious decision to ignore politics and personalities, the ‘‘movers and shakers’’ who have been so instrumental in reshaping the urban scene. There is almost no sociology here, and a minimum of demography. Although Ford comments repeatedly on the recent repopulating of downtowns, the only figures offered are approximate totals of residents as of 2000, without any clue as to previous numbers. We are left totally in the dark as to just who the newcomers might be and from whence they come. Incidentally, gentrification is discussed from time to time, but since the phenomenon may occur as often as not in neighborhoods well beyond the downtown, it matters here only marginally. I must also question the wisdom of using that subtitle, ‘‘Revitalization or Reinvention?’’ It makes us wonder whether the ‘‘New Downtowns’’ are really new, a qualitative departure from their predecessors, or simply an elaboration of what has gone before. Unfortunately, our author never comes to grips with this central question. We are left to infer a process of parallel evolution within the constellation of American metropolises, one fueled by grander social, cultural, and economic forces—very much like what happened to them with much different results a few generations ago. But coming at last to the bottom line, I must declare that this highly readable, unabashedly empirical work, with its fascinating manifesto of a transformed downtown with magnetic appeal to visitors and members of the larger metropolitan community, is a major contribution to our understanding of contemporary American life. File it under ‘‘Required Reading.’’