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Hey there, my name is Danial. I’m a second-year Joint PhD student at the Universities of Manchester & Melbourne where I research cities, technology and sustainability. I convene City Riffs: a weekly collection and evaluation of 3 urban thoughts from me to you.
❌ 🚗 Incentivise Public Transport
This article explains how Barcelona’s metropolitan government has issued more than 12,000 tickets to residents who have chosen to give up their car for free public transport use. This scheme has ran since 2017 and, along with similar intervention, has led to a 66% petrol private car reduction.
ANOTHER VIEW: More and more cities are using digital platforms to (dis)incentivise certain travel modes, Sydney is one of them.
🏙️ The Vertical City
This video creatively experiments with the changing look of Hong Kong’s skyline. Through providing an immersive experience, the film attempts to juxtapose the buildings with a sense of living and liveability.
ANOTHER VIEW: As cities continue to take up aerial space, some consideration is being given to underground alternatives.
👑 Royal Urban Experiments
This article tells the story of how Prince Charles created Poundbury in Dorset as a solution city to the urban deprival of the 1970s and 1980s in the UK. Amidst mixed critical reviews of this attempt at urban planning, the author of the piece visits the town and seeks to evaluate how it’s really done.
ANOTHER VIEW: Prince Charles is onto Kent now, here’s an initial look into his plans for a town outside of Canterbury.
Urban Thread of the Week
❓How did certain ancient cities become abandoned ruins?(Quora)
Weekly Download
How to Bound a City
I’m in Manchester this week. My first time seeing my PhD supervisors and other colleagues in person. It’s disorienting and still now, as I write this, I find myself doubting a lot of what I’ve experienced. However, I had a supervision and an interesting topic emerged. How do you bound a city? Whether for research or for understanding what counts as the city. This matters because, as many of us know but don’t fully appreciate, administrative and legal processes and systems are socially constructed (to a point). Meaning that they were set up by people for a certain purpose and reflect the agendas, interests and needs at the time. Therefore, what we mean by the city actually might differ. Do we mean just the actors inside? Do they not benefit/suffer from external influence, especially in the global city movement? What’s the role of national, international and supranational bodies (like the EU and UN) in how a city is made, governed and understood? I contest this question as I start to get into the meat of the PhD (exciting!). I find it interesting because many will default to the administrative boundary (say Greater Manchester or Greater London); however, interests are not contained there, so what can we say? Be interested to hear your thoughts whether you’re an ‘expert’ or an interested party. Get in touch.
End Note
Find this month’s content database here.
That’s it for this week. Hope you liked and loved in equal measures.
Danial