US contributions to the construction of the modern city: Five women (original) (raw)

Jane Jacobs's DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES as a Phenomenology of Urban Place (2011)

The published version of this presentation (in JOURNAL OF SPACE SYNTAX) is available in "papers" above.

"This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of Jane Jacobs’s seminal 1961 Death and Life of Great American Cities (Jacobs 1961/1993), a book that helped shift Americans’ understanding and treatment of their cities (Klemek 2011, p. 76). Though her work has never been associated with phenomenology, I argue in this presentation that, in terms of method, focus, and discoveries, Jacobs (1916—2006) can fairly be described as a phenomenologist of urban place. In claiming Jacobs as a phenomenologist of the city, I examine the following themes: • Jacobs’s mode of seeing and understanding as phenomenological method; • Her claim that citiness is a phenomenon in its own right and has the power to draw and hold people to particular urban places; • Her portrait of urban experience and place as they are founded in environmental embodiment; • Her pointing toward a constellation of place relationships and processes that potentially strengthen or weaken citiness. key words: Jane Jacobs, city, urban lifeworld, place, urban place, Jane Jacobs as phenomenologist, urban phenomenology, Death and Life of Great American Cities"

Re)constituting the urban through women's life histories

Urban life creates spaces in which women can experiment in new roles, challenge the natural order, determine and voice demands, step out of commonplace representations and material constraints. Women's life histories reveal the coexistence in the city, of spaces of exclusion and survival in the interstices but also spaces of mobilisation, dissidence, rupture. As a methodological tool, they presuppose an approach of the city as both peopled and gendered and bring to the foreground of enquiry women's perspectives, practices, contributions and meanings of/in urban development and everyday life in the city. In this context, they raise questions not only about researchers and respondents or researcher/respondent relations, but also about the subject matter. The paper aims to reflect on the possibilities and limitations of (re)constituting urban life and urban development through women's life histories, using examples from field work in Athens. Résumé La vie urbaine constitue des espaces dans lesquels les femmes peuvent experimenter dans des roles nouveaux, défier " l'ordre naturel " , déteminer et vindiquer des démandes, écarter des representations communes et des contraintes matérielles. Les récits de vie des femmes révèlent la coexistence dans la ville des espaces d' exclusion et de survie dans les interstices, mais aussi des espaces de mobilisation, de dissidence, de rupture. Comme outil méthodologique, ces récits présupposent une approche à la ville comme en même temps peuplée et " gendered " et introduisent dans la recherche urbaine les perspectives, les pratiques, les contributions et les significations des femmes sur/dans la vie quotidienne et le développement urbain. Dans ce contexte, les récits de vie posent des questions non seulement pour les chercheurs/euses et les narratrices ou pour le rapport entre les deux, mais aussi pour l' objet de recherche, c'est à dire la ville. Cet article est une reflection sur les possibilités et les limitations de (re)constituer la vie urbaine et le développement urbain à travers les récits de vie des femmes, utilisant des examples de recherche à Athènes.

The Women of Chicago Public Housing. Architects of their Own ‘Homeplace’

ZARCH

The story of public housing in Chicago, and the rest of the United States for that matter, tends to fixate on negative images of housing projects built between c. 1940-1960, like Cabrini-Green or Wentworth Gardens. Now that so many of the buildings have been demolished (or “redeveloped”) and scholars, institutions, and the general public have begun to untangle the complexity of the history of public housing in the U.S., it is time to move beyond the damaging narratives and negative imagery to better understand how women persevered and adapted to ensure they and their families not only had basic needs met, but also had access to safe spaces, key facilities, and opportunities for community-building, joy, and pride in their home. This paper explores connections between issues of architecture and the impact of women on the design and reform of Cabrini-Green, Wentworth Gardens, and other key examples, to demonstrate how women residents helped shape the built environment of public housing...