Simone Tulumello

Reconsidering neoliberal urban planning in times of crisis: urban regeneration policy in a “dense” space in Lisbon

In this article, I contribute to recent debates about the concept of neoliberalism and its use as an explanatory concept, through the analysis of urban planning and regeneration policy in Lisbon amidst crisis and austerity. Suggesting a look at neoliberalization from a threefold perspective—the project, governmentalities, and policymaking—I analyze how current austerity-policy responses to the European economic crisis can be understood as a renewed and coherent deployment of neoliberal stances. The article presents implications for urban planning in Lisbon and thus suggests an exploration of the negotiations and clashes of hegemonic neoliberal governmentalities and policies with the local social and spatial fabric. For this exploration, I select a “deviant” case—the Mouraria neighborhood, a “dense” space in which the consequences of policies diverge sharply from expectations. In conclusion, I suggest that neoliberalization (in times of crisis) should be understood as a coherent project compromised by a set of highly ambiguous governmentalities, which bring about contradictory policymaking at the local level.

Questioning the Universality of Institutional Transformation Theories in Spatial Planning: Shopping Mall Developments in Palermo

Abstract Theories about institutional transformation in spatial planning, although mainly based on the Anglo-Saxon context, have assumed a dominant role in planning research and theory as means to understand the transformations that have been restructuring planning systems in recent decades in the Western world and beyond. The article, looking at transformations of planning practice through the lenses of the concept of planning cultures, debates the utility of building ‘universal’ theories for spatial planning and advocates for the need for a de-provincialization of planning theories. This is done through a case-study approach applied to the history of the transformation of the retail system in a context characterized by the specificities of the Italian planning context and Southern European cities, namely: the planning processes for, and power relationships underlying, the first shopping malls opened in Palermo, Italy, since 2009 — some decades later than most of Western cities.

From “Spaces of Fear” to “Fearscapes”: Mapping for Reframing Theories About the Spatialization of Fear in Urban Space

The article engages with theory about the processes of spatialization of fear in contemporary Western urban space (fortification, privatization, exclusion/seclusion, fragmentation, polarization) and their relation to fear of crime and violence. A threefold taxonomy is outlined (Enclosure, Post-Public Space, Barrier), and “spaces of fear” in the city of Palermo are mapped with the aim of exploring the cumulative large-scale effects of the spatialization of fear on a concrete urban territory. Building on empirical evidence, the author suggests that mainstream theories be reframed as part of a less hegemonic and more discursive approach and that theories mainly based on the analyses of global cities be deprovincialized. The author argues for the deconstruction of the concept of “spaces of fear” in favor of the more discursive concept of “fearscapes” to describe the growing landscapes of fear in contemporary Western cities.

A Territorial Contradiction

Spatial planning and environmental restoration are essential corollaries to the management of protected natural areas; however, without a sound awareness of the evolutionary consistency of biocoenoses, the harmonious integration between human activities and ecosystem preservation remains an unattainable utopia. The theorisation of a balanced welfare, inspired by the universal tendency of ecosystems to reach a steady state, has to go along with the defection from any economic greed.

Panopticon sud-europeo: (video) sorveglianza, spazio pubblico e politiche urbane

Soprattutto nell’ultimo decennio, i sistemi di videosorveglianza sono divenuti una presenza costante nello spazio pubblico urbano. Molto e stato detto a riguardo di questi processi e delle loro relazioni con le pressioni globali per la sicurezza: manca, invece, un dibattito sul ruolo dell’urbanistica e delle micro-politiche urbane. In questo articolo, l’autore muove dalla lettura foucaultiana del panopticon di Jeremy Bentham per discutere la consistenza dei sistemi di sorveglianza in due citta del sud Europa, Lisbona e Palermo, e lo spazio della pianificazione urbana nei processi in corso.

The Multiscalar Nature of Urban Security and Public Safety: Crime Prevention from Local Policy to Policing in Lisbon (Portugal) and Memphis (the United States)

The article contributes to recent discussions on convergence/divergence of local policies for urban security and public safety amid globalization, exploring comparatively local approaches to crime prevention and explaining differences/similarities through multilevel connections. I analyze situational prevention, social policy, and proximity/community policing in two “not-so-global” metropolises: Lisbon, where security is the goal of a wide set of policies in many fields, and Memphis, where social problems have become security issues and policing the only game in town. Differing approaches are explained on the grounds of political traditions, neoliberalization of policy, and multilevel relations among polities. I discuss implications for the relation between policy and policing: Police attempts at social outreach amid coupling/decoupling of security with/from urban policy, and the “mission creep” of policing when it is expected to lead prevention. Conclusions advocate that policy reform is necessary at many levels to deal with the intersection of crime, retrenching welfare, and aggressive policing in U.S. cities such as Memphis.

Dinâmicas sociogeográficas e políticas na Área Metropolitana de Lisboa em tempos de crise e de austeridade

Este artigo, reconhecendo a relevância das dimensoes territoriais e urbanas para uma melhor interpretacao da atual crise e seus principais impulsionadores, bem como das suas consequencias e reaccoes sociopoliticas, analisa a evolucao recente da Area Metropolitana de Lisboa, perante tempos de crise economica e de politicas de austeridade. O artigo propoe duas conclusoes, a merecer estudo adicional com o objectivo de uma sua possivel teorizacao mais alargada: 1) podem distinguir-se fases distintas da crise e uma correlacao entre estas, as politicas de austeridade implementadas e a correspondente ampliacao dos efeitos da crise nos tecidos socioeconomicos territoriais; 2) verifica-se o aumento de um confronto de natureza estruturante entre politicas top-down de escalas europeia e nacionais e as dinâmicas sociopoliticas de escalas mais locais e mesmo bottom-up, redesenhando-se os quadros geopoliticos territoriais por formas crescentemente distintas e mais complexas; de divergencias, aproximacoes e interseccoes de base multi-escalar.

Toward a Critical Understanding of Urban Security within the Institutional Practice of Urban Planning: The Case of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area:

Urban security (or public safety), rather than a “social problem” tackled neutrally, is an issue of political contestation, owing to its threefold gist as right to not be victims of crime, policy goal, and social demand. This article, highlighting how planning research has neglected to engage with contemporary paradoxes of security, makes the case for a critical approach to crime prevention and explores the embeddedness of urban security in planning practice in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. We debate the relations of urban security with changing planning paradigms and political approaches around the vertical (multilevel/multiscale) and horizontal distribution of planning practices.

Differences and connections: beyond universal theories in planning, urban, and heritage studies

The annual Young Academics network of the Association of European School of Planning (AESOP YA) conference, entitled Differences and Connections, was held for the first time in a Southern Italian c...

Us and Them: Otherness and Exclusion

Urban fear is imbued with rational and irrational dimensions, some interlinked with, others independent from, urban life or the discourses of fear analysed in the previous chapter. This chapter, acknowledging that fear is not a simple ‘effect’ of specific ‘causes’, deepens the understanding of fear: it looks at the way fear is generated at the intersection of urban space and otherness, to build a theoretical framework supported by the work done by David Sibley on the geographies of exclusion and Iris Marion Young on the politics of difference. Diversity in urban (and especially public) space is debated, exploring encounters within contemporary, multicultural cities, with the aim of unpacking the role of feelings in the creation of relations between identity and otherness. Then, the chapter debates that the way the creation of such relations is necessary for the self-representation of societies and how the politics of exclusion are embedded in the construction of dichotomies such as ‘we’ versus ‘the others’ and the misrepresentation of (minority) groups. In conclusion, the chapter links such themes with urban studies and policy: it critiques Jane Jacobs’ theories on urbanism and exemplifies the processes of stigmatisation/removal through the case of ‘nomad camps’ in Italy.