Sensing Urban Values: Reassessing Urban Cultures and Histories Amidst Redevelopment Agendas

Abstract

Introduction to Sensing Urban Values. This special issue assembles a set of papers that respond to a neglected, undertheorized yet crucial question relating to spatial politics and urban renewal: How do economic and non-economic values depend on and co-constitute each other in different urban contexts? In response, the contributors to this special issue build on recent critical reassessments of value; they explore how the spatial and cultural politics of value unfolds in contemporary urban environments globally. They examine cases that traverse Poland, South Africa, Malaysia, Germany, and The Netherlands. The papers demonstrate a theoretical and empirically engaged concern with themes such as the cultural dimensions of place-making processes in contemporary cities; how identity, memory, heritage, and value-making processes may matter for the production of urban spaces today through sensing; aesthetic reorganizations of places, movements, and interactions with urban matters; and through storytelling. Taking up the theme of urban valuation with a multisensory approach has prompted the contributors to explore the multiple and translocal ways through which urban valuations unfold, are performed, and are experienced. This approach reveals the multiple valuations of spaces—not only economic but also symbolic—that inform the struggles for social and spatial justice in cities across the world as well as their scholarly examinations.

#Detroit Music City: Analyzing Detroit’s Musical Urban Imaginary Through a Cultural Justice Lens

“…A central concern in discussions on the notion of the “right to the city” is how exactly the complex urban interplay of power relations and socio-economic inequalities can be analyzed, with regard to which groups of people and in what specific spatial contexts (see also Iveson, 2013; Marcuse, 2009; Soja, 2011). Moreover, as pointed out by Birdsall, Halauniova, and Van de Kamp, the emphasis in much research on urban development is on the socioeconomic value of (re-)development, while issues of social and spatial justice revolve around “multiple valuations of spaces—not only economic but also symbolic” (Birdsall et al, 2021). Contributing to the challenge of an analysis tool that includes attention to this symbolical dimension, for this project I adapted the cultural justice toolkit as developed by Cantillon et al (2020).…”

“…“Symbologies of place” —as Birdsall et al remark, “while a focus on economic value and valorization offers a powerful lens to understand the multiple workings of urban development today, it is necessary to acknowledge that this material transformation interlocks with and relies on a symbolic transformation” ( Birdsall et al, 2021, p. 349). Therefore, an analysis of cultural justice starts with an analysis of the symbolic dimension of the material aspects of cultural goods and cultural work.…”

“…Moreover, the content and meaning of murals are increasingly shaped and changed by digital media (MacDowall & de Souza, 2018), offering a prime way to analyze the politics of public space in the context of mediatization. Finally, as will be argued in this article, street art refocuses attention on the symbolic dimensions of gentrification and public space, connecting with research that highlights the multiple kinds of ways urban development processes are valued, beyond the economic (see, for example, Birdsall et al, 2021;Van der Hoeven & Hitters, 2019).…”

How Valuable is Architectural Heritage? Evaluating a Monument’s Perceived Value With the Use of Spatial Order Concept

“…More recently this knowledge gap gaining attention which initiated the broad discussion on how do multiple values of architectural heritage depend on and co-constitute each other in different urban environment and how these values linked to processes of place-making (Avrami et al, 2019; Birdsall et al, 2021). While the perception of urban environment and further its evaluation can vary among people (Pretto, 2021; van der Hoeven, 2020), we may also expect that people perceive the cultural heritage, such as the monument, as more/less valuable according to its harmony and completeness (or their lack) in the given urban environment.…”