Exploring the Production of Urban Space: Differential Space in Three Post-Industrial Cities
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Exploring the Production of Urban Space: Differential Space in Three Post-Industrial Cities, Michael Edema Leary-Owhin, Bristol, Policy Press, 2016, 380 pp-, £70 ISKN978i447305743Lefebvre's theories around space and politics have been drawn on extensively in human geography. Of particular note is the work of David Harvey (2009), and Edward Soja (1989) in extrapolating their relevance to the current state of the world. What has perhaps been missing from the literature, however, is a comprehensive exploration of Lefebvre in relation to planning and urban regeneration. By starting from Lefebvre's original theories (Lefebvre and Nicholson-Smith, 1991), Exploring the Production of Urban Space develops the implications of his spatial triad (spatial practice, spaces of representation and representations of space) and then focuses on three of Lefebvre's other types of space (abstract space, differential space and counter projects). It then applies these understandings through intricate case study analysis of three post-industrial city districts, focusing on the often unexplored concept of 'differential space'. This denotes places that are often in transition, and which prioritise human-use value over economic value. This emphasises the complexities of public and private interests on space, and asks how social struggles contribute to urban development. What results is an optimistic view of the potential for cities to adapt and evolve to changing social and political circumstances.Leary-Owhin takes the reader on a journey from the 1960s through to 2010, setting out the actors and processes that contributed to three urban regeneration processes in Vancouver, Lowell and Manchester. These are explored in meticulous detail through a mixture of interview and document analysis to bring together the, often surprising, history of how certain spaces came to be, and continue to evolve. These case studies vary across geography, but all have something in common - a heritage that during the 1960s was undervalued and at risk from private commercial interests. Chapter 1 explores the meaning of Lefebvre's spatial triad and introduces the three case studies. Each city is then dealt with in turn over the course of two chapters, before Chapter 8 draws some comparisons, explores the differences and provides some deliberately general observations of how these insights could influence practice.In my own research I have brushed up against Lefebvre's neo-Marxist take on space, but cannot claim I was fully familiar with its implications before I read this book. By applying Lefebvre's theory to his empirical findings, Leary-Owhin elucidates some of the more challenging points of the theory, and develops them over a strong empirical narrative. This means the author's efforts contribute significantly to current debates in the governance of space, and the variety of community participation that takes place in cities; from the formal lobbying of residents' groups to street protest. …
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.018 | 0.018 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.014 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".