Unsettled Urban Space: Routines, Temporalities and Contestations

While urban life can be characterized by endeavors to settle stable and safe environments, for many people, urban space is rarely stable or safe; it is uncertain, troubled, imbued with challenges and perpetually under pressure. As the concept of unsettled appears to define the contemporary urban experience, this multidisciplinary book investigates the conflicts and possibilities of settling and unsettling through open and speculative analysis. The analytical prism of unsettled renders urban space an indeterminate ground unfolding through routines, temporalities and contestations in constant tension between settling and unsettling. Such contrasting experiences are contingent on how urban societies confront, undergo and overcome turbulence and difficulties in time and space. Contributions drawing on theoretical reflections and empirical accounts—from Argentina, Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, the UAE, the UK, the USA and Vietnam—give insights into plural occurrences of the unsettled, which might tie down or unleash transformative, liberatory and emancipatory potentials. This book is for students, professionals and researchers interested in the uncertainties, foundations, disturbances, inconsistencies, residuals and blind fields, which constitute the urban both as lived space and as social, cultural and political ideal. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Table of Contents:
1. Urban Space Unsettled: The Unravelling of Routines, Temporalities and Contestations in Urban Studies Tihomir Viderman, Sabine Knierbein, Sybille Frank, Elina Kränzle, Nikolai Roskamm and Ed Wall Part I: Urban Routines 2. Urban Routines: An Introduction Tihomir Viderman and Sybille Frank 3. Vietnamese Hip Hop Don’t Stop: Unsettling Normative Ideas of Gender around the Block Sandra Kurfürst 4. Unsettled ‘Publicness’ and the Embodied Appropriation of Iktinou Street in Thessaloniki Evangelia Athanassiou 5. Unsettling Planning Practices: From Accommodation to Dwelling in Hamburg Dominique Peck, Anna Richter, Christopher Dell and Bernd Kniess 6. (Un)Settling Remembrance in Public Space: The Performance of a Heroic National Narrative in the Austrian National Holiday Celebrations at Vienna’s Heldenplatz Elina Kränzle 7. Berlin’s Neighborhoods in the Tourist Trap? Local Routines Unsettled by New Urban Tourism Stefan Brandt, Sybille Frank and Anna Laura Raschke 8. Disrupted, Unsettled, Contested: Working Homelessness in Silicon Valley Rafael Essl Part II: Urban Temporalities 9. Urban Temporalities: An Introduction Ed Wall and Sabine Knierbein 10. (Un)Settling Home in Dubai Racha Daher 11. Aging in Cities: Everyday Unsettling, Planning and Design Angelika Gabauer 12. From Cleaning to Cleansing: Maintenance as an Urban Development Practice at Paddington Waterside, London Ed Wall 13. The Gentrification of Chicago’s Cabrini Green and the Temporalities of Urban Change Judit Bodnar 14. ‘And the Straw Cottage to a Palace Turns’: The Foundation of Birmingham Library as Civic Ground Michael Dring 15. Property as Practice: The Collective Landholding Patterns of Black Churches Gabriel Cuéllar Part III: Urban Contestations 16. Urban Contestations: An Introduction Elina Kränzle and Nikolai Roskamm 17. ‘Ni Una Menos’: Practices, Aims and Achievements of a Grassroots Women’s Movement Against Femicide and Patriarchal Relations in Argentina María de la Paz Toscani, Paula Rosa and Regina Vidosa 18. Setting, Setzung, Sedimentation: Political Conflict and Radical Democracy in Urban Planning Gabu Heindl 19. (Un)Settling Urban Cultural Politics: New York’s People’s Cultural Plan and the Dislocation of Ghosts Friederike Landau-Donnelly 20. From Dispute, to Controversy, to Crisis: Conceptualizing Unsettling Dynamics in The Hague Nanke Verloo 21. Served but Unsettled: The Contentious Side of Services for the Homeless Massimo Bricocoli and Simon Güntner 22. The Challenges of Consensus, Conflict and Democratic Participation in Turbulent Waters Sophie Watson

About the Author :
Tihomir Viderman is a Research Associate at the Chair of Urban Management of BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg and a doctoral candidate at TU Wien. Sabine Knierbein is a Professor at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Urban Culture and Public Space, TU Wien. She was Visiting Professor for Urban Political Geography at the University of Florence. Elina Kränzle is a Senior Scientist at the Social Design Studio, University of Applied Arts Vienna and a doctoral candidate at the TU Wien. Sybille Frank is a Professor for Urban Sociology and Sociology of Space at TU Darmstadt. She was Visiting Professor for Urban Solidarity and European Crisis at TU Wien. Nikolai Roskamm is a Professor of Planning Theory, History of Urbanism and Urban Design at the FH Erfurt. He was Visiting Professor for Urban Peace and National Welfare at TU Wien. Ed Wall is the Academic Lead of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Greenwich. He was Visiting Professor for Urban Equity and the Global Agenda at TU Wien.

Review :
"Drawing together insights from a diverse range of cities, this rich collection explores both the precarity and the potential of the always unsettled nature of our urban settlements." Fran Tonkiss, Professor of Sociology, LSE, London, UK "Unsettled Urban Space adds insight on urban dwellers' shock at the rising contingency of their lives, the lived sense of 'permanent temporariness' and the embodied tensions of migrancy. The book addresses the loss of the assurance and tranquility that the European and other colonial conceptions of 'settling' and 'settlement' had assumed." Rob Shields, H.M.Tory Chair and Professor of Human Geography and Sociology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada