TACT is moving to a new homepage!

After starting this blog in 2013, many things have changed. During the years, we have grown bigger, we have participated in more and more projects, and we have become more conscious about our aims. At this point, we feel the need for renewal. We will no longer use this blog, but check out our new TACT blog at https://tactcity.wordpress.com/blog/. Visit us and follow us!

PANEL SEARCH (UHA '16): Citizens Working out the Urban Future

Urban History Association 2016 Conference

Chicago, IL

October 13-16, 2016

http://uha.udayton.edu/conf.html

We’re seeking two panelists for a session on citizen engagement in planning and re-imagining the city at UHA 2016. Our papers look at citizen-led attempts to promote new visions of two Canadian cities—Montréal and Toronto—in the 1960s and 1970s. Both were rooted in a period of change in municipal politics; both were influential at the level of ideas but experienced significant obstacles to implementation.

In keeping with the conference theme of “the working urban,” the panel will explore these and other examples of citizens working out alternative urban futures. What other historical contexts have been receptive to citizen-led urbanisms? What visions of the city have been promoted in the name of participatory democracy, and what has their relation been to government and urban expertise? What strategies—appeals to rights, personal influence, creation of new mechanisms of consultation— have citizens used to promote their visions of the urban future?

Valérie Poirier (Université du Québec à Montréal) will present a paper examining the Citizens’ Commission on the Future of Montreal, set up at the instigation of the heritage group Save Montreal in 1976-1977. 

Daniel Ross (York University) will present on Toronto’s citizen-led Central Area Plan (1976) and the larger debates over development and the future of downtown that gave rise to it.

To encourage a comparative discussion we welcome papers dealing with other time periods and regions. Also happy to discuss joining or merging with another panel on a similar topic. Please submit abstracts to Daniel Ross (dgratyork@gmail.com) and Valérie Poirier (valerie.poirier1@gmail.com) by February 15th (sooner if possible!).

Open call: Funding the Cooperative City

Please find below our call for innovative cases of Community-Led Urban Development. With the call we collect good practices of community-led real estate development, new economic models of building, renovating or running community spaces and maintaining the commons. The selected initiatives will be part of our upcoming book and will be invited to workshops held this Spring in Budapest, Madrid, Rome and Rotterdam, to engage in a Europe-wide exchange around civic economy and spatial development.

We would be happy if you could spread the call among your colleagues and the initiatives in (and beyond) for whom it could be interesting. Please find here a link to the call:
http://eutropian.org/share-your-story/

We are looking for stories about the economic organisation of community spaces (including social centers, cooperative businesses, co-working spaces, cultural venues in storefronts, buildings or open areas) developed and run by citizens with a social-cultural impact on their neighbourhood. Send us your story, describing the economic and organisation model, funding and human resources and development process of your space. Join us at our upcoming workshops and help other initiatives to learn from you!

Selected initiatives will take part in:

WORKSHOPS in Budapest (April 7-9), Madrid (April 21-23), Rome (May 5-7) and Rotterdam (May 28) to meet your fellow practitioners from across Europe, share your experience and learn how to develop your project further.

THE BOOK collecting emerging models of community-led real estate development for the first time in Europe.

Tell us your story by sending to info@eutropian.org by 15th February 2016.

More details at http://eutropian.org/share-your-story/

“Funding the Cooperative City” explores, promotes and assists experiments in community-led real estate development in European cities. Through workshops (Rotterdam, Berlin and Paris in 2014 and Budapest, Madrid, Rome and Rotterdam in 2016) as well as investigative reports, video portraits and a publication, the project brings together protagonists from various cities to help shaping a new European culture of urban development based on community-driven initiatives, civic economic models and cooperative ownership.

For more info about the Funding the Cooperative City series, please visit

http://eutropian.org/funding-the-cooperative-city/

CfP: Cities Beyond City Limits

Urban History Association Conference (Chicago, 13–16 October 2016)

Organizers: Garrett Dash Nelson (Geography, University of Wisconsin–Madison) and Samuel Kling (History, Northwestern University)

Comment: Prof. Jon C. Teaford (History, Purdue University)

Scholars are well aware of the geographic problem of defining the city as an object of analysis. Research on urban topics often begins by defining what exactly is meant by the city at hand: a municipality defined by administrative jurisdiction, a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area defined by commuter and economic circulation, a bio-ecological region defined by metabolic interactions, or something else entirely.

However, the challenge of determining the city's edges is not just a descriptive and interpretive problem. It is also a problem with its own history, the subject of considerable contestation as cities have grown, shrunk, and transformed across different temporal and geographic contexts. Historical debates over the city’s physical extent can therefore best be understood as carriers of politics, ideology, and power, rather than as the dispassionate products of empirical analysis.

This panel seeks to explore historical accounts of cases in which definitions of the geographic limits of cities (both specific cities and cities in general) have been deployed in the service of ideological aims—whether radical, reformist, or reactionary. What are the different political, social, cultural, and intellectual interests that have motivated such attempts to conceive of a city beyond the simple lines of the city limits? How can historical debates about urban borders offer new perspectives on developments such as suburbanization, metropolitan fragmentation, and regional governance? What broader currents in cultural and political history can we detect in discussions of cities’ boundaries?

We welcome papers that take a historical approach to such themes as annexation; metropolitan institution building; regionalism; core-periphery relations; the politics of federalism; theories of "global urbanism"; transportation, housing, and parks planning; the production of statistics and geographic data; mapping and representation; centralization and decentralization; metropolitan administration; and other topics.

To propose a paper, please submit a 250-word abstract and a CV to Garrett Nelson and Samuel Kling by 19 February 2016.

More information about UHA 2016 may be found at http://uha.udayton.edu/conf.html.

SHARE YOUR STORY! Are you running a space with your local community?

We are looking for stories about the economic organisation of spaces like storefronts, buildings or open areas, developed and run by citizens with a social-cultural impact on their neighbourhood. Send us your story, describing the economic and organisation model, funding and human resources and development process of your space. Join us at our upcoming workshops and help other initiatives to learn from you!

Selected initiatives will take part in:

WORKSHOPS in Budapest (April 7-9), Madrid (April 21-23), Rome (May 5-7) and Rotterdam (May 28) to meet your fellow practitioners from across Europe, share your experience and learn how to develop your project further.

THE BOOK collecting emerging models of community-led real estate development for the first time in Europe.

Tell us your story by sending to info@eutropian.org by 15th February 2016 the following materials:

Filled out questionnaire (text file here or word file here)

3-5 images in high resolution (300 dpi)

Existing project documentation – flyers, reports (max 5 pages )

If you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact us: info@eutropian.org

About Funding the Cooperative City

“Funding the Cooperative City” explores, promotes and assists experiments in community-led real estate development in European cities. Through workshops (Rotterdam, Berlin and Paris in 2014 and Budapest, Madrid, Rome and Rotterdam in 2016) as well as investigative reports, video portraits and a publication, the project brings together protagonists from various cities to help shaping a new European culture of urban development based on community-driven initiatives, civic economic models and cooperative ownership. For more info about the Funding the Cooperative City series, visit http://eutropian.org/funding-the-cooperative-city/

SUMMER SCHOOL: Sewing a small town - Environmental networks and strategic places

Gassino Architecture Summer School: Sewing a Small Town

Located 15 km from Turin, in the center of Piedmont, a region internationally known for prestigious wine (such as Barbera, Moscato, Barolo and many others) and the slow food concept, one hour by train from Milan, two hours from the town of Genoa, in Liguria, and only an hour and a half by plane from Paris, Gassino Torinese is characterized by a medieval historic center waiting for a new reuse, because of its geographical position: in fact, Gassino Torinese acts as a barycenter for the settlements along the river Po, in the stretch between San Mauro Torinese and Chivasso.

The summer school's design themes will focus on the renovation, reuse and re-utilization of old and valuable buildings located in this region to be transformed in strategic places to be integrated into a contemporary territorial context to create a smart, opensource system of cities, that makes everything circular: it will be a territory of the hybrid and of former structures to be transformed into poles for the creation of a network of public transport and social exchanges today nonexistent. Projects to connect former factories, former bus and tramway stations, former agriculture structures and former other things, are the main goals of the projects developed by the participants during the two-week workshop.

Period: From July 18 to 30, 2016.

Eligibility: Gassino Summer School is open to a maximum of 25 participants, students or graduates in architecture (Bachelor or Master), Ph.D. students and architects less than thirty years old on July 30, 2016. These 25 participants will be selected through the evaluation of portfolios and curriculum vitae by a scientific committee.

For information and registration:

summerschool@comune.gassino.to.it

http://www.bit.ly/sewingasmalltown2016

 

Summer Institute in Urban Studies - Manchester 2016

We are delighted to announce the next Summer Institute in Urban Studies (SIUS 16). The event will take place at the University of Manchester from the evening of Sunday 26 June to the evening of 30 June 2016 and the application process is now open.

SIUS 16 provides an opportunity to investigate leading-edge theoretical and methodological questions, along with a range of associated career development issues, in the field of urban studies. The Institute will feature contributions from internationally renowned figures in urban studies, from inside and outside of Manchester.

Format

Open to doctoral students (usually post-fieldwork), postdoctoral researchers, and recently appointed faculty/lecturers (normally within three years of first continuing appointment), the Institute comprises an intensive, week-long programme of activities.  

It is designed to provide participants with an in-depth understanding of the innovatory developments and enduring controversies in urban studies, as well as mentoring and support in the different aspects of the academic labour process - from applying for grants to designing courses, from editing books and special issues of journals to writing book proposals, and from publishing in journals to working at the academic/non-academic interface. It will consist of panels, lectures and reading groups with participants involved in shaping the final programme.  

Fees

The fee for the Institute is £275 GBP. This amount covers the organisational costs and includes accommodation for five nights (26 June to 1 July inclusive), a welcome reception (26 June), a walking tour, lunches, and an institute dinner (29 June).

Speakers

Confirmed speakers:

• Tim Bunnell (National University of Singapore)
• Andrew Jonas (University of Hull)
• Stephanie Pincetl (University of California Los Angeles)
• Fran Tonkiss (London School of Economics)

Speakers from the University of Manchester will include: Stefan Bouzarovski, Jonathan Darling, James Evans, Graham Haughton, Andrew Karvoven, William Kutz, Melanie Lombard, Ruth Lupton, Andrew Miles, Stephen Milner, Diana Mitlin, Chris Phillipson, James Scorer, Erik Swyngedouw, Kevin Ward, Helen Wilson, Cecilia Wong, and Albena Yaneva.

Scholarships

Funding from the University of Manchester allows us to offer three scholarships to those attending from countries classified as B or C by the ISA. Scholarships will cover the cost of travel and the £275 Institute registration fee. The scholarships will not cover daily subsistence expenses (meals, local transportation costs etc.).

View the list of eligible countries on the ISA webpage

Deadline

To apply for SIUS 16 download an application form via the link below. The deadline for applications is midnight (UK time) on Sunday 31 January 2016.

Apply for the Summer Institute in Urban Studies 2016

Further information

If you have any questions regarding the 2016 Summer Institute in Urban Studies please email cities@manchester with SIUS 16 in the subject field of your email.