Abstract
Cultural and economic globalization has ushered in immense changes that have affected the cultural geography of most large cities. With these transformations, ‘urban configurations are more and more and more supplemented by semiotic and psychological processes’ (p. 1).
Cities and Fascination is an initial foray to explain these changes, and let the readers understand how ‘fascination’ has transformed the ‘city-ness’ of cities and permeated urbanity and urban processes. With contributions coming from different academic fields such as anthropology, behavioral sciences, geography, philosophy, sociology, and urban planning, this collection presents a combination of perspectives and reveals how ‘intense processes of semiotization and emotionalization’ are indeed transforming cities globally (p. 1). In the introduction, the editors trace the evolution of the term ‘fascination’ then relate the ‘complex dimension and dimensions of complexity’ of fascination and urbanity (p. 5). Against this backdrop, they highlight that fascination and the city can be characterized by four pivotal dimensions, namely, ‘(1) aesthetics, (2) emotions, (3) lived experience, as well as (4) power structures and governance’ (p. 7). These dimensions, especially aesthetics and emotions, are essential analytic elements in operationalizing how fascination can be manifested as an urban phenomenon.
Cities and Fascination offers an opportunity to revisit concepts and principles that are being utilized in describing, analyzing, and understanding various urban phenomena. For example, Dear (‘The urban question after modernity’) develops a critique of the general usage of the term ‘sprawl’ depicting ‘uncontrolled suburbanization’; he points out that it is ‘an urban theoretical primitive’ and ‘reframing sprawl in this way positions environmental sustainability at the core of the urban question’ (p. 24, emphasis in original). In another instance, Levy (‘The city is back [in our minds]’) focuses on the use of ‘spatiality’; he stresses that ‘spatiality and societalness are the two necessary preconditions for a concept of society’ (p. 43, emphasis in original). With this, the author issues the challenge that ‘What is at stake now for social scientists is to overcome their traditional reluctance to the concept of city, and commit themselves to assess urbanity without prejudice as a heritage and a process’ (p. 33). Accordingly, attempts to challenge and dispute diverse views taken by different stakeholders (e.g., planners, ideologues, geographers, even theoreticians) further emphasize the author’s exasperated lament through the question: ‘Why is it so difficult to simply describe what happens in a city?’ (p. 34). As this question reverberates in one’s mind, the reader will agree with the contributors and realize that there is an inherent need to further understand and articulate how cities shape experiences to the point of stirring one’s aesthetic sense and emotional faculties.
Aside from the diverse conceptual and theoretical accounts, cases are also presented in the volume to further stress that the interrelationship of cities and fascination is a good contribution to the study of cities. From this analytical perspective, in the chapter ‘From dreamland to wasteland: The discursive structuring of cities,’ Gerhard and Warnke cite the ‘project of Heidelberg-Emmertsgrund’ in Germany as an exemplar of urban transformation focusing on ‘urbanity through density’ (p. 134, emphasis in original). However, because of the discursive structuring of cities, projects like the ‘Emmertsgrund project’ reveal diverse interpretations and meaning systems in determining what an ideal urban form is. They argue that urban space is a product of discursive negotiation where ‘purposes can be interpreted as the intended goals of communicative behaviour, while effects are the unintended but effective consequences of communicative action’ (p. 132); as a result, what constitutes an ideal city is never constant. Prossek (‘Re-designing the metropolis: Purpose and perception of the Ruhr district as European capital of culture 2010’) delves into the case of redesigning the Ruhr district from a former industrial region – which previously thrived because of its coal and steel industries – into a postindustrial metropolis called ‘Ruhr Metropolis’; this change is envisioned to be brought about by the ‘creative industries that will help to transform some urban neighbourhoods into areas with new homes for the much courted creative class’ (p. 149). This is easier said than done because, as Prossek concedes, it is difficult to organize ‘a capital of culture’ and it is challenging to take ‘responsibility for the organization and marketing of Ruhr Metropolis’ (p. 150). All 11 chapters in the collection stress that ‘fascination is a basic feature in numerous modern architectural and city planning debates, often correlated to the exaltation of size, elevation, recklessness or genuineness of architectural plans and their realizations’ (p. 130). Accordingly, Urry’s chapter (‘Excess, fascination and climates’) presents an appropriate and timely conclusion for the collection as it addresses ‘the emergent nature of societies of consumption, fascination and excess’ (p. 209). He makes a case for ‘emerging social contradictions that stem from such shifts within contemporary capitalism, from societies of discipline to societies of control, from specialized and differentiated zones of consumption to mobile, de-differentiated consumptions of fascination and excess, and more generally from low carbon to high carbon societies’ (p. 209). With cities at the core, the effects on climate by carbon use as ‘generated by creating constructed environments and by extensive growth in physical movement to and from such places’ (p. 212) should be examined and appropriately dealt with. Urry conveys the need to address this issue; moreover, he warns that ‘the many interdependent systems of fascination and excess are based upon high and expanding resource use … these economies and segmented societies of excess are moving “the world” in a seemingly inexorable fashion towards an abyss’ (p. 218).
The multitude of rich accounts and cogent descriptions in Cities and Fascination provides a demonstration of the editors’ and contributors’ capacity to present evident – yet not fully documented – dimensions of how ‘urban configurations are more and more and more supplemented by semiotic and psychological processes’ (p. 1). Indeed, it is possible to prove, in the context of city and fascination, that ‘spectacular urbanisms are intensely personal experiences’ (p. 28). What seems lacking is that – among the four pivotal dimensions presented by the editors – power structure and governance vis-a-vis their relationship with cities and fascination were not fully delved into; it would have been expedient if the collection had expounded on the overlapping networks of power and practices in cities in the context of aesthetics and emotions. These limitations notwithstanding, Cities and Fascination offers lucid analyses, as well as crisp and insightful interpretations that capture the ‘postmodern aestheticization of cities’ and how this constitutes ‘a dissuasive form of socialization, so that it is not arguments but immersive suggestions that influence city dwellers’ activities’ (p. 49). The collection will be certainly helpful for readers re-examining concepts used in fields like geography, urban planning, and urban sociology, and to synthesize these with newer concepts proposed by the contributors. It would also be highly instructive reading for other practitioners and those concerned with the development of cities.