Inner City

Respond to each numbered item in the short list here as either True or False for you. A “True” response may identify a potential area for training. Reflect on whether an item identifies a problem or issue in the way you manage your anger. Anger requires boundaries, and a moral value (e.g. OK or not OK) can be assigned to ways of expressing anger.

Since the origins of Rome, Beijing, and Edo (Tokyo) 2,000 years ago, children have grown up in high-density, mixed-use central cities. However, during the nineteenth century period of rapid industrialization and urbanization in Europe and North America, growing up downtown became seen as morally and physically unhealthy and unsafe. Recently, the possibilities of child-friendly central city living have been rediscovered. This chapter reviews recent literature on the
risks and possible rewards of growing up downtown, then discusses design approaches to maximize benefit and minimize harms at the unit, building, and precinct level. The chapter concludes by giving examples of child-friendly city planning by and with children, from Toronto, Vancouver, Singapore, and London.

The informal justice system of garrison constituencies undermines the rule of law in Jamaica but this has not received much scholarly attention. The counter society framework is used to explain garrisons as informal governance units that challenge the state. Society abhors a governance vacuum. People will replicate polices when these polices are inadequate. Governments have reduced public spending in the inner city. The criminal dons have replaced the state as the major patrons of residents and replicated state services including an informal justice system. Participant observation and focus groups revealed that the dons tried the “cases” reported and the shooters meted out punishment. A man was shot in the leg for kicking a pregnant woman. Two women were warned not to fight. Perpetrators of physical assaults and domestic abusers were beaten. Police informers, renegade shooters and borrowers who refuse to repay the dons were executed. Switching party allegiance led to expulsion from the community. Since the demise of the Western Kingston dons by law enforcement, some residents have formally reported crimes. The state must use this opportunity to support these residents, reassert its authority in the other eleven garrison constituencies and outperform the dons with effective public policies thereby making them redundant.

This paper contributes to a critical understanding of the production of space through an exploration of notable spatial moments in the 1990s work of the Central Manchester Development Corporation (CMDC), particularly its role in the creation of new public space. Henri Lefebvre's ideas regarding the production of urban space provide rigorous theoretical grounding for the empirical research. Two chronologically overlapping 20th century discourses: the inner city urban policy discourse from the 1960s and the modernist city planning discourse that peaked in the era of technological optimism after World War Two are shown to be vital for a critical understanding of the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) regime. The paper unravels the as yet unproblematised origins of UDCs and CMDC and shows how the reorientation of the 1960s Urban Programme by the Labour government laid the ground for some of the subsequent Conservative government's urban policy shifts. New evidence from archival sources, supplemented by interviews with key informants, is presented which challenges and disrupts some conventional wisdoms regarding UDCs and CMDC. Research findings point to the crucial role of CMDC in stimulating the creation of significant new public spaces akin to differential space, which remain of great importance for Manchester. CMDC's deployment of large scale resources compounded the spatial practice of the previous decade leading to the production of unanticipated public space potentials and the politicised appropriation of urban space. In closing, the paper highlights the unintended and inadvertent legacies of the CMDC for public space in the 2000s.

David Hugill and Owen Toews

Abstract

This paper examines the controversy that emerged as the City of Winnipeg debated committing public funds to an evangelical Christian group seeking to build a youth centre in an urban neighborhood with a large Aboriginal population. It traces the emergence of a coordinated opposition to the project and demonstrates why many felt that municipal and federal support was not only inappropriate but also worked to recapitulate longstanding patterns of disregard for the needs and aspirations of Aboriginal peoples. In an era where it has become common for Canadian governments to speak of “reconciliation” we demonstrate how such ambitions continue to be impeded by pervasive logics of governance that work against genuine processes of decolonization. We argue that events in Winnipeg reveal the persistence of longstanding colonial dynamics and demonstrate how such dynamics are exacerbated by the regressive tendencies of the city’s neoliberal orientation. We insist that colonial practices and mentalities not only permeate the present but also that they interact with, and are shaped by, the exigencies of actually existing political economies. Ours is an attempt to show how insights about the form and content of urban neoliberalism can be productively engaged with insights about how colonial relations have been reproduced and transformed in the contemporary moment. It is also an effort to demonstrate how such mentalities and practices are being resisted and challenged in important ways in contemporary Canada. Our observations are based on a range of interviews with local activists,  politicians and service providers as well as a close reading of a range of political documents available on the public record.
Key Words: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Aboriginal Peoples of Canada, Urban Neoliberalism, Settler Colonialism, Evangelical Christianity, Aboriginal Non-Aboriginal Relationships, Postcolonialism.

Urbanismo renaciente: Nuevas Incursiones Misioneras, Resistencia de los Pueblos Originarios y Barreras a la Reconstitución de Relaciones en el Noreste de Winnipeg

Este artículo analiza la controversia surgida del debate acerca del financiamiento con fondos del Municipio de Winnipeg de un grupo evangélico cristiano que planeaba construir un Centro para Jóvenes en un barrio con una numerosa población aborigen. Acá se rastrea el surgimiento de una oposición coordinada al proyecto, y se demuestra por qué muchxs argumentaron que el apoyo municipal y federal no solo era inapropiado sino que además reinstituía viejos patrones de indiferencia hacia las aspiraciones y necesidades de los pueblos originarios. En una era en la que es común que los gobiernos canadienses hablen de ‘reconciliación’, acá demostramos cómo estas ambiciones continúan siendo incitadas por lógicas de gobernanza que en realidad funcionan en contra de los procesos genuinos de decolonización. En nuestra visión, los hechos en Winnipeg revelan la persistencia de viejas dinámicas coloniales y demuestran cómo esas dinámicas son exacerbadas por las tendencias regresivas de la orientación neoliberal de la ciudad. Insistimos en que existen prácticas y mentalidades coloniales que permean el presente pero también interactúan con (y son moldeadas por) las exigencias de las economías políticas realmente existentes. El nuestro es un intento de mostrar cómo los aportes acerca de la forma y el contenido del urbanismo neoliberal pueden ser relacionados con los aportes acerca de cómo las relaciones coloniales han sido reproducidas y transformadas en la actualidad. Se trata también de un esfuerzo por demostrar cómo esas mentalidades y prácticas son fuertemente resistidas y desafiadas en Canadá. Nuestras observaciones se basan en una serie de entrevistas con militantes locales y con políticos, así como también en la lectura detallada de numerosos documentos políticos de acceso público.
Palabras clave: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Pueblos Originarios de Canadá, Neoliberalismo Urbano, Colonialismo, Cristianismo Evangélico, Postcolonialismo."

Background: Residents of a single room occupancy (Jjok-bang) in Seoul are at high risk of having mental health issues. The majority of residents live in single households with past traumatic experiences including self-deprivation and social exclusion. This study was to investigate the association between mental health and socio-ecological factors at the intrapersonal and community levels.
Methods: We conducted face-to-face surveys in Dongja-dong Jjok-bang area in June, 2014. Of 78 participants, 76% were male and the mean age was 60 years (SD=11.53). A multiple regression and a logistic regression were used to analyze the association among depression, a sense of well-being, and socio-ecological factors supported by perceived empowerment and community solidarity.
Results: Perceived empowerment (β=0.83; 95% CI=0.40-1.26) and community solidarity (β=0.82; 95% CI=0.04-1.01) were positively associated with a sense of well-being respectively. Participants with empowerment (OR=0.21; 95% CI=0.07-0.59) and those with community solidarity (OR= 0.31; 95% CI=0.10-0.94) were at low risk of being depressed, respectively.
Conclusion: Mental health of the residents in Jjok-bang was more influenced by empowerment and community solidarity than socio-demographic factors. It is necessary to improve public health infrastructures that can enable the residents to enhance empowerment and community solidarity utilizing socio-ecological perspectives. 

Keywords: Mental health, Single room occupancy, Jjok-bang, Socio-ecological model, Social determinants of health

Issues of intense suburbanization and urban sprawl have been the most discussed threads in the recent debate on urban development in Poland. Meanwhile in numerous cities of Western Europe signs of inner-city revival have been observed and investigated. Led by demographic and lifestyle changes alike, such reurbanization trends are found to be closely related to household transformations. Results of undertaken studies indicate that residential preferences of non-traditional households, such as singles, cohabitations, childless couples or flatsharers, gravitate to inner-city living. The aim of this paper is to reveal similar tendencies in a postsocialist city, using the example of Gdańsk. Presented results of statistical and qualitative data analyses point towards confirmation of incipient reurbanization, although with several distinctions following from the postsocialist context.

The paper deals with residents' perceptions of crime and safety using the example of two Prague inner city neighbourhoods - Žižkov and Jarov. Main focus is placed on the identification of crime hot spots and types of high-risk environments from the perspective of local residents. Attentions is also paid to reasons that people associate with the existence of crime hot spots, and to a comparison of the perceived and real dangers of these places. The differences in the perceptions of various groups of residents are also noted. The paper thus continues a wider debate in scholarly literature discussing the impacts of demographic and environmental characteristics on perceived fear of crime.

The informal Garbage City founded by the Christian minority of Copts, who recycle waste, as a spatially and culturally separated “inner city” is an architectural phenomenon of contemporary urbanised spaces. The strong division into the sacrum zone, with churches carved in the rock, and the worker’s profanum zone filled with perfectly sorted rubbish, determines the spatial separation, but also the cultural symbiosis between them.