Periodic Reporting for period 4 - DenCity (Density assemblages: intensity and the city in a global urban age)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-03-01 al 2024-02-29
The DenCity project developed a new approach for understanding density and its relationship to the city. Across the world, density is at the centre of policy agendas to build cities that are environmentally, economically, socially and politically sustainable. However, we lack an understanding of the different ways in which high densities are lived and perceived by residents themselves.
The project explored the ways in which residents differently understand and experience density of different kinds. This includes densities in the home, neighbourhood, on public transport, or in a busy urban area. DenCity examined cases of high density in major urban centres from Asia to Europe and Africa (Hong Kong, Mumbai, Manila, Dhaka, Tokyo, Taipei, London, & Dar es Salaam), and in relation to issues from transport, 'slums' & housing, to the the COVID-19 pandemic. The project identified density as a vital challenge for understanding life in the urban 21st century.
Understanding density from the perspective of those who live with and encounter it is an important addition how we build concepts and theories of density, as well as for policy and planning. DenCity advanced our understanding both of density itself and its relationship to the city and wider global urban condition.
The project explored the ways in which residents differently understand and experience density of different kinds. This includes densities in the home, neighbourhood, on public transport, or in a busy urban area. DenCity examined cases of high density in major urban centres from Asia to Europe and Africa (Hong Kong, Mumbai, Manila, Dhaka, Tokyo, Taipei, London, & Dar es Salaam), and in relation to issues from transport, 'slums' & housing, to the the COVID-19 pandemic. The project identified density as a vital challenge for understanding life in the urban 21st century.
Understanding density from the perspective of those who live with and encounter it is an important addition how we build concepts and theories of density, as well as for policy and planning. DenCity advanced our understanding both of density itself and its relationship to the city and wider global urban condition.
DenCity employed four postdoctoral researchers - Hung-Ying Chen, Romit Chowdhury, Vicky Habermehl, & Priyam Tripathy - to:
1.Research high density urbanism in seven cities globally. In Tokyo, it was commuting on trains. In Dar es Salaam and Manila, we selected one high density neighbourhood. In Hong Kong, we examined domestic overcrowding. In London & Taipei, we explored the impact and aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. In all cases, we were interested in how marginalised residents encountered high densities.
2: Deliver a large programme of research dissemination and engagement, from international conferences and 25 seminars globally, to public and keynote lectures, podcasts, media interviews & a comic book.
3: Publish in major interdisciplinary & international journals and book publishers, with more on the way: ten papers published in journals across Geography, Urban Studies, Housing Studies, and Sociology; two books published with leading US and UK presses (University of California, Verso), & a third in process; one edited journal collection; and a book chapter and seven commentaries published.
The main results so far:
(i): Focussing on residents can change how we understand density. Two key insights here. One, density is always multiple. Different people experience & perceive the same form of density (e.g. a busy commuting train, a dense neighbourhood square) in different ways, & people change their views over time. The project challenges claims that density is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for cities with a more nuanced account of how density matters in the city. Second, despite the differences, there are recurring concerns. In low-income neighbourhoods, for example, a key concern is often the provision of better housing and infrastructure so that density is more 'liveable';
(ii) The value of connecting different kinds of density – population, transitory, in-place, and in-transit – in order to understand it in the urban context, & connecting those forms of density to key urban challenges like sanitation, transport, housing, labour, and the pandemic;
(iii) The value of understanding density through international comparison, notwithstanding the impact of a pandemic on fieldwork.
1.Research high density urbanism in seven cities globally. In Tokyo, it was commuting on trains. In Dar es Salaam and Manila, we selected one high density neighbourhood. In Hong Kong, we examined domestic overcrowding. In London & Taipei, we explored the impact and aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. In all cases, we were interested in how marginalised residents encountered high densities.
2: Deliver a large programme of research dissemination and engagement, from international conferences and 25 seminars globally, to public and keynote lectures, podcasts, media interviews & a comic book.
3: Publish in major interdisciplinary & international journals and book publishers, with more on the way: ten papers published in journals across Geography, Urban Studies, Housing Studies, and Sociology; two books published with leading US and UK presses (University of California, Verso), & a third in process; one edited journal collection; and a book chapter and seven commentaries published.
The main results so far:
(i): Focussing on residents can change how we understand density. Two key insights here. One, density is always multiple. Different people experience & perceive the same form of density (e.g. a busy commuting train, a dense neighbourhood square) in different ways, & people change their views over time. The project challenges claims that density is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for cities with a more nuanced account of how density matters in the city. Second, despite the differences, there are recurring concerns. In low-income neighbourhoods, for example, a key concern is often the provision of better housing and infrastructure so that density is more 'liveable';
(ii) The value of connecting different kinds of density – population, transitory, in-place, and in-transit – in order to understand it in the urban context, & connecting those forms of density to key urban challenges like sanitation, transport, housing, labour, and the pandemic;
(iii) The value of understanding density through international comparison, notwithstanding the impact of a pandemic on fieldwork.
There are four notable advances to the research fields of Geography and Urban Studies:
1: A new approach to density. The project has demonstrated that in the context of people’s lives, high density is both multiple in form and nuanced in its interpretation. People ‘piece’ together perceptions of density as a series of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ experiences that connect home, neighbourhood, work, and leisure, & influenced by their individual circumstances. What this means is that for research, policy and practice it makes little sense, given that density is made meaningful in the city as a multifaceted experience in-and-beyond the home, to isolate density (e.g. by residential population). Instead, it helps to begin by learning from how density is encountered in the ‘lived city’. We can now show how that comes to matter according to social differences in income, gender, race, and disability, as well as cultural differences between cities/countries, and can use this to inform research and policy approaches. This is a significant advance on a research area that has usually defined density (1) in an isolated/narrow rather than integrated/expansive way, and (2) in advance of research rather than as a ‘bottom up’ result of it. This approach questions ideas that density is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in favour of a more nuanced approach, a theme that is being further developed in ongoing writing from the project, and does so with a genuinely international comparative scope across the world.
2: Repositioning density in relation to key urban challenges. The project has shown across several publications how density is both a challenge, especially in poor neighbourhoods or in busy commutes, and a resource, as residents and others pull together to alleviate and sometimes transform those challenges. This theme of density as both challenge and resource carries though DenCity publications on waste, everyday experiences in Dar es Salaam and Manila, housing & infrastructures (e.g. in Mumbai or Hong Kong, and in the pandemic (e.g. Taipei)), and travel (e.g. commuting in Tokyo). One of the book's, Fragments of the City (California, 2021), for example, focusses on poor neighbourhoods to show how the inequalities and politics of everyday urban materials both exacerbates the challenges of density while simultaneously being alleviated by organisations that emerge from and use urban density. This is significantly new way of conceptualising & researching urban density in relation to challenges in cities. It has also fed into rethinking the relationship between density and value, including in (and beyond) the pandemic, which we have argued in several of the papers.
3: The role of density in citylife. In Tokyo, Chowdhury and McFarlane demonstrated how people’s perception of the ‘crowd’ in the metro commute was not only about the experience of movement, but what it meant to live in the city. The crowd, we showed, can act as a symbol of citylife, including the identity of the city & the concerns/aspirations people attach to it. Connecting density to citylife is a new way of thinking about density in urban research, and has informed our research in other cities (e.g. Dar es Salaam, Manila, & London – four papers currently under review). Also related is the third monograph in progress, which connects density to the ‘good city’/‘good citylife’;
4: The importance of density for waste. In Waste and the City (Verso, 2023) and in arguments on the ‘perceptions of atmosphere’ in published pieces, the project demonstrated how understanding the inequalities and politics of urban sanitation – a DenCity Work Package that became an increasing focus of the project, including in research in London – depends on the relationship between waste and density. These set out new ways of thinking about density & waste.
1: A new approach to density. The project has demonstrated that in the context of people’s lives, high density is both multiple in form and nuanced in its interpretation. People ‘piece’ together perceptions of density as a series of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ experiences that connect home, neighbourhood, work, and leisure, & influenced by their individual circumstances. What this means is that for research, policy and practice it makes little sense, given that density is made meaningful in the city as a multifaceted experience in-and-beyond the home, to isolate density (e.g. by residential population). Instead, it helps to begin by learning from how density is encountered in the ‘lived city’. We can now show how that comes to matter according to social differences in income, gender, race, and disability, as well as cultural differences between cities/countries, and can use this to inform research and policy approaches. This is a significant advance on a research area that has usually defined density (1) in an isolated/narrow rather than integrated/expansive way, and (2) in advance of research rather than as a ‘bottom up’ result of it. This approach questions ideas that density is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in favour of a more nuanced approach, a theme that is being further developed in ongoing writing from the project, and does so with a genuinely international comparative scope across the world.
2: Repositioning density in relation to key urban challenges. The project has shown across several publications how density is both a challenge, especially in poor neighbourhoods or in busy commutes, and a resource, as residents and others pull together to alleviate and sometimes transform those challenges. This theme of density as both challenge and resource carries though DenCity publications on waste, everyday experiences in Dar es Salaam and Manila, housing & infrastructures (e.g. in Mumbai or Hong Kong, and in the pandemic (e.g. Taipei)), and travel (e.g. commuting in Tokyo). One of the book's, Fragments of the City (California, 2021), for example, focusses on poor neighbourhoods to show how the inequalities and politics of everyday urban materials both exacerbates the challenges of density while simultaneously being alleviated by organisations that emerge from and use urban density. This is significantly new way of conceptualising & researching urban density in relation to challenges in cities. It has also fed into rethinking the relationship between density and value, including in (and beyond) the pandemic, which we have argued in several of the papers.
3: The role of density in citylife. In Tokyo, Chowdhury and McFarlane demonstrated how people’s perception of the ‘crowd’ in the metro commute was not only about the experience of movement, but what it meant to live in the city. The crowd, we showed, can act as a symbol of citylife, including the identity of the city & the concerns/aspirations people attach to it. Connecting density to citylife is a new way of thinking about density in urban research, and has informed our research in other cities (e.g. Dar es Salaam, Manila, & London – four papers currently under review). Also related is the third monograph in progress, which connects density to the ‘good city’/‘good citylife’;
4: The importance of density for waste. In Waste and the City (Verso, 2023) and in arguments on the ‘perceptions of atmosphere’ in published pieces, the project demonstrated how understanding the inequalities and politics of urban sanitation – a DenCity Work Package that became an increasing focus of the project, including in research in London – depends on the relationship between waste and density. These set out new ways of thinking about density & waste.