Embodied geographies of liveability and urban parks

Abstract

Urban parks are currently enshrined within liveable forms of sustainable urban planning for highdensity city living. This article draws on Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's idea of territory to critically explore the embodied geographies of liveability. The concept of territory draws attention to the emplacement of subjectivities constituted not only through the discursive but also the emotional and affectual forces or flows between and through bodies and proximate objects. We argue that the embodied geographies of liveability are both performed and folded through the emotional and affectual circulations flowing through the body. To investigate these performances, flows and connections, an affective mapping exercise of urban park visits was conducted with 18 apartment dwellers in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. We address the concerns about social exclusion raised by the agenda of liveable cities and how the concept of 'territory' offers policy-relevant conclusions.

The refeudalisation of parks: subduing urban parks in Bucharest

“…The case of Bucharest links to a broader surge of concerns over urban parks. Numerous analyses have signalled how neoliberal capitalism has driven the political and economic forces shaping urbanisation and the effects this has had on parks (Madden 2010;Loughran 2014;Gould and Lewis 2017;Krinsky and Simonet 2017;Loughran 2017;Waitt and Knobel 2018). Anchored in the Western Marxist tradition, studies have detailed the scales of transformation and practice performed to recreate the urban by re-imagining the green and the grey.…”

“…Anchored in the Western Marxist tradition, studies have detailed the scales of transformation and practice performed to recreate the urban by re-imagining the green and the grey. In the course of rethinking urban-nature relations (Keil 2003) park scrutiny intensified (Gandy 2003; Madden 2010; Gabriel 2011; Byrne 2012; Loughran 2018) with a focus on agency (Gandy 2012) and subjectivity (Grove 2009;Waitt and Knobel 2018).…”

Lurking in the bushes: informality, illicit activity and transitional green space in Berlin and Detroit

“…Waitt and Knobel found that high-rise apartment dwellers walking and sitting in parks in New South Wales, Australia, experienced them as restorative, anthropic, or misanthropic territories depending on the particular assemblages of people and structures they encountered there. 21 A sense of fear was especially strongly associated to encounters with 'bums', 'men cruising for sex', and 'loiterers'. 22 In the context of a poor urban community in New Haven, Connecticut, Blokland 23 has described how ostensibly middle-class values and practices associated with gentrifying homeowners, specifically those directed at fostering gardens, also functioned to limit and constrain the activities of low-income groups and illicit economies: 'Turning the muddy grounds between the low-rise blocks into flowerbeds reduces the multiple economic uses of trading drugs, stolen goods, unlicensed DVD copies, and sex.…”

Housing Indicators for Sustainable Cities in Middle-Income Countries through the Residential Urban Environment Recognized Using Single-Family Housing Rating Systems

“…They are also considered as useful resources to help in promulgating sustainable political decisions [6]. It is important to consider these indicators during the planning process of cities because the qualities of residential urban environments (RUEs) can seriously affect their livability [11][12][13][14][15].…”