Open City
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Warwick
Department Name: Sociology
Abstract
For urbanists such as Saskia Sassen and Richard Sennett, the open city is incomplete, errant, conflictual, and non-linear. Unlike the closed city, which is full of metaphorical and literal boundaries and walls. This project explores these dimensions of city life, not as a dichotomy, but as a series of lived problematics, both social and political. The central dilemmas we will research relate to this overarching concern: what are the limits of the open city? This prompts specific issues. How open has the city been? How do people negotiate the open and closed aspects of their lives? What are the politics of living with others in the city?
This project is concerned with the ways that the turbulent micro- and macro-politics of city life enables people to live together. It explores older questions of social cohesion and newer questions of neighbourliness by exploring the ways that people move back and forward between everyday civility or indifference to forms of hospitality and community as well as the everyday issues that make a difference to patterns of co-existence and dwelling in the city.
As a city that is constantly being remade by its inhabitants, as well as experiencing considerable and on-going development, with pressures on public services and resources in housing, education and employment, London is an exemplary place to examine how people dwell or co-exist and even thrive in the city. In London, constant change affords people the opportunity to make different temporal and spatial claims over belonging to the city while also providing many everyday and structural sites of friction. This is arguably unique, yet London is comprised of ordinary places and ways of living, situated in unexceptional wider social and spatial arrangements, that enable wider lessons to be drawn.
Given this, the key research questions are: (1) In what ways has the city enabled or circumscribed practices of welcoming, generosity and solidarity within it? (2) in what ways does the city shape urban dwelling in times of perceived rapid social change? (3) How do people negotiate the variable (building, street, neighbourhood, city, national and transnational) geographies of settlement and mobility in their everyday lives? (4) How do old and new social cleavages play out in these social and spatial arrangements - and how can city government, and other civic actors, manage those cleavages?
Using a multi-scalar, mixed methods approach, the project will be able to explore the dynamics of London life at the city-wide, borough and street / tower block scales, using a blend of historical, qualitative, quantitative and online techniques. This will enable the project to understand the specificity of each case study site in ways that address the unique histories and geography of each location, while also drawing together the ways that the issues which emerge in each site around housing and other resources (e.g. the diverse and competing claims to belonging and ownership or the different space-times of city life) cut across specific locations. The project will draw on and utilise social media and digital methods to understand the relationship between physical, virtual and imagined spaces.
The project has been designed in collaboration with a range of stakeholders in London, including the Greater London Authority, Camden Council, and social movements such as City of Sanctuary. These stakeholders have all identified the question of migration into, and within, the city as a critical issue that urgently needs to be rethought. This project seeks to go beyond the various policies and politics of migration by looking at population churn, transformations in old and new forms of ethnic and racial difference, and spatial mobility to address the contemporary politics of the city. More, it builds on historical analysis to engage and synthesise a number of strands of social science disciplinary thinking to analyse and inform developments in policy and urban theory.
This project is concerned with the ways that the turbulent micro- and macro-politics of city life enables people to live together. It explores older questions of social cohesion and newer questions of neighbourliness by exploring the ways that people move back and forward between everyday civility or indifference to forms of hospitality and community as well as the everyday issues that make a difference to patterns of co-existence and dwelling in the city.
As a city that is constantly being remade by its inhabitants, as well as experiencing considerable and on-going development, with pressures on public services and resources in housing, education and employment, London is an exemplary place to examine how people dwell or co-exist and even thrive in the city. In London, constant change affords people the opportunity to make different temporal and spatial claims over belonging to the city while also providing many everyday and structural sites of friction. This is arguably unique, yet London is comprised of ordinary places and ways of living, situated in unexceptional wider social and spatial arrangements, that enable wider lessons to be drawn.
Given this, the key research questions are: (1) In what ways has the city enabled or circumscribed practices of welcoming, generosity and solidarity within it? (2) in what ways does the city shape urban dwelling in times of perceived rapid social change? (3) How do people negotiate the variable (building, street, neighbourhood, city, national and transnational) geographies of settlement and mobility in their everyday lives? (4) How do old and new social cleavages play out in these social and spatial arrangements - and how can city government, and other civic actors, manage those cleavages?
Using a multi-scalar, mixed methods approach, the project will be able to explore the dynamics of London life at the city-wide, borough and street / tower block scales, using a blend of historical, qualitative, quantitative and online techniques. This will enable the project to understand the specificity of each case study site in ways that address the unique histories and geography of each location, while also drawing together the ways that the issues which emerge in each site around housing and other resources (e.g. the diverse and competing claims to belonging and ownership or the different space-times of city life) cut across specific locations. The project will draw on and utilise social media and digital methods to understand the relationship between physical, virtual and imagined spaces.
The project has been designed in collaboration with a range of stakeholders in London, including the Greater London Authority, Camden Council, and social movements such as City of Sanctuary. These stakeholders have all identified the question of migration into, and within, the city as a critical issue that urgently needs to be rethought. This project seeks to go beyond the various policies and politics of migration by looking at population churn, transformations in old and new forms of ethnic and racial difference, and spatial mobility to address the contemporary politics of the city. More, it builds on historical analysis to engage and synthesise a number of strands of social science disciplinary thinking to analyse and inform developments in policy and urban theory.
Planned Impact
Impact through co production and knowledge exchange; partnership with GEM
Open City will curate and collaborate in research with a coordinated and properly resourced programme of knowledge exchange generated impact in partnership with the COMPAS Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity (GEM). GEM shares expertise and ideas among academics, policy makers, civil society, lawyers, foundations, school students amongst others. Interdisciplinary in approach, GEM actively seeks new means of conveying ideas and knowledge, creating the space to think differently and support the development of social change.
Proposed activity and outputs
The knowledge exchange impact activity will be divided into two sections - public engagement facilitated in partnership with the Migration Museum, Counterpoint Arts and Tate Exchange and targeted workshops and briefings aimed at policy makers in London local government. Both strands aim to support the overarching aims of the Open City project - to interrogate the urban dynamics of hospitality, dwelling and co-existence amongst diverse communities in 21st century London through a rich mix of dynamic knowledge exchange activity which will iteratively co-produce both research input and engagement. These activities will be supported and enhanced by the creative practices of the CFs.
Public and NGO engagement
With the Migration Museum, Tate Exchange/Counterpoint Arts to develop accessible and stimulating new cartographies of the city. We will work with the Migration Museum in particular on the work developed in WP1, which illuminates deeper histories of migration by garnering archival material that contextualises practices of dwelling and hospitality. Our work with Counterpoint develops an existing partnership to coproduce some of the research generated by WP2 and WP3 focusing on differentiated mobilities through the city. The outputs will include:
A series of standalone education workshops with local schools, community groups and universities - co-producing education materials based on the research and engaging both within the museum and potentially in community settings. The programme will build onto, supplement and advance an existing Migration Museum programme
Developing a 'migration walk' through Camden which will use the mental maps produced as part of the research. The walk will make this resource available to support communities to gain an understanding of the open city co-produced in Camden with Global Generation (based at the King's Cross redevelopment). The proposed walk will generate impact particularly from WP3 and also be linked with Migration Museum.
These outputs will be synthesised with newly generated archival material from WP1 in a pop-up exhibition through Tate Exchange building on existing relationships and working with Counterpoint.
Policy orientated knowledge exchange
Through a series of facilitated workshops with London policy makers. GEM will work with the Open City project to maximise the research impact of WPs 2, 3 and 4. The specific aim of these facilitated workshops will be to bring together policy makers/ practitioners from diverse teams within the council (policy/ social integration, economic regeneration, planning, housing, and specific teams) to look at the issues such as hospitality in the context of 'churn', acting in a holistic way in terms of planning and the ways that communities and sanctuaries are built within the city and how these can be forged or facilitated. The outputs will include three facilitated workshops with key policy makers through the life of the project:
A policy briefing for local government officers, available in print and online;
A high-profile major Westminster Breakfast Briefing event for a wider cohort for London policy makers and practitioners; and,
A 'sense checking' virtual steering group of policy makers for the project who will iteratively feed into the emerging research and support the dissemination of outputs.
Open City will curate and collaborate in research with a coordinated and properly resourced programme of knowledge exchange generated impact in partnership with the COMPAS Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity (GEM). GEM shares expertise and ideas among academics, policy makers, civil society, lawyers, foundations, school students amongst others. Interdisciplinary in approach, GEM actively seeks new means of conveying ideas and knowledge, creating the space to think differently and support the development of social change.
Proposed activity and outputs
The knowledge exchange impact activity will be divided into two sections - public engagement facilitated in partnership with the Migration Museum, Counterpoint Arts and Tate Exchange and targeted workshops and briefings aimed at policy makers in London local government. Both strands aim to support the overarching aims of the Open City project - to interrogate the urban dynamics of hospitality, dwelling and co-existence amongst diverse communities in 21st century London through a rich mix of dynamic knowledge exchange activity which will iteratively co-produce both research input and engagement. These activities will be supported and enhanced by the creative practices of the CFs.
Public and NGO engagement
With the Migration Museum, Tate Exchange/Counterpoint Arts to develop accessible and stimulating new cartographies of the city. We will work with the Migration Museum in particular on the work developed in WP1, which illuminates deeper histories of migration by garnering archival material that contextualises practices of dwelling and hospitality. Our work with Counterpoint develops an existing partnership to coproduce some of the research generated by WP2 and WP3 focusing on differentiated mobilities through the city. The outputs will include:
A series of standalone education workshops with local schools, community groups and universities - co-producing education materials based on the research and engaging both within the museum and potentially in community settings. The programme will build onto, supplement and advance an existing Migration Museum programme
Developing a 'migration walk' through Camden which will use the mental maps produced as part of the research. The walk will make this resource available to support communities to gain an understanding of the open city co-produced in Camden with Global Generation (based at the King's Cross redevelopment). The proposed walk will generate impact particularly from WP3 and also be linked with Migration Museum.
These outputs will be synthesised with newly generated archival material from WP1 in a pop-up exhibition through Tate Exchange building on existing relationships and working with Counterpoint.
Policy orientated knowledge exchange
Through a series of facilitated workshops with London policy makers. GEM will work with the Open City project to maximise the research impact of WPs 2, 3 and 4. The specific aim of these facilitated workshops will be to bring together policy makers/ practitioners from diverse teams within the council (policy/ social integration, economic regeneration, planning, housing, and specific teams) to look at the issues such as hospitality in the context of 'churn', acting in a holistic way in terms of planning and the ways that communities and sanctuaries are built within the city and how these can be forged or facilitated. The outputs will include three facilitated workshops with key policy makers through the life of the project:
A policy briefing for local government officers, available in print and online;
A high-profile major Westminster Breakfast Briefing event for a wider cohort for London policy makers and practitioners; and,
A 'sense checking' virtual steering group of policy makers for the project who will iteratively feed into the emerging research and support the dissemination of outputs.
Organisations
Publications
Yazici E
(2023)
'London is avocado on toast': The urban imaginaries of the #LondonIsOpen campaign
in Urban Studies
| Description | The Open City is a utopian ideal, but one that is arguably under explored empirically. The Open City is one that is incomplete, errant, conflictual, and non-linear. A closed city on the other hand is full of metaphorical and literal boundaries and walls. This project explores these dimensions of city life by asking how the city can be both open and closed. The open and closed city is not seen as a dichotomy, but as a series of lived problematics, both social and political. The central research question asks: what are the limits of the open city? This prompts specific issues such as how open has the city been? How do people negotiate the open and closed aspects of their lives? What are the politics of living with others in the city? To explore these questions, we look at the ways that the turbulent micro- and macro-politics of city life enable people to live together. The project explores older questions of social cohesion and newer questions of neighbourliness by considering the ways that people move back and forward between everyday civility or indifference to forms of hospitality and community as well as the everyday issues that make a difference to patterns of co-existence and dwelling in the city. We focus on London because its constant change at a time of heightened pressures on public services and resources in housing, education, employment and the cost of living means that those who dwell there make different temporal and spatial claims over belonging to the city while also providing many everyday and structural sites of friction. This is arguably unique, yet London is comprised of ordinary places and ways of living, situated in unexceptional wider social and spatial arrangements, that enable wider lessons to be drawn. The project looks at four key issues that we synthesise at different intersecting scales. These are: How the city enables or circumscribes practices of welcoming, generosity and solidarity over time How urban dwelling is shaped at a time of rapid social change How people navigate the variable geographies of settlement and mobility in their everyday lives How old and new social cleavages play out in the city and are managed by city government and other civic actors Three scales London At the London scale, we explore: how people move through, make their lives in and move across the city. We do this by: • Using new datasets to explore population churn in London • Exploring the everyday mobilities of new arrivals in the city through participatory arts work • Analysing GLA led campaigns that promote London as an Open City using interviews and social media analysis • Conducting interviews with GLA Assembly Members to understand how they imagine and represent the open city Camden At the Camden scale we explore how histories of arrival, everyday acts of solidarity and welcoming have shaped the city. We do this by: • Uncovering the archival histories of welcoming and arrival in and through Camden • Exploring how histories of landownership and infrastructure influence the architectures and the built environment that shape how we live through arts based work • Conducting interviews with Camden councillors to understand how they imagine and represent the open city Estates At the estate and block scale, how the micro-spaces of our everyday lives connect us to the wider world. We do this by: • Exploring nano-churn at the estate scale using a survey • Considering everyday neighbourly practices using a survey and ethnography of Hilgrove Estate • Mapping subjective neighbourhood boundaries • Exploring what is meant by inclusivity in public space through participatory arts • Exploring everyday micro-conflicts in space and connections to spaces beyond using participatory mapping and ethnography |
| Exploitation Route | See https://opencitywarwick.co.uk/ |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | https://opencitywarwick.co.uk/ |
| Description | The Open City project has produced reports, briefings and delivered presentations with the aim of influencing policy, sharing our findings and provoking new ways of thinking about life in the city. These have been shared with policy makers, third sector organisations and research participants. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2022 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Policy & public services |