Urban Studies

The papers in this Special Issue of Urban Studies consider, in their contrasting ways, the spatialities of disability and disabled people's barriered and bounded lives. The papers provide a range of insights into geographies of identity formation, while seeking to (re)assert the power of territoriality by putting "the place (and historical specificity) back into displacement" (Bammer, 1994, p. xiv; quoted in Pratt, 1998, p. 27). This introduction describes the main themes of the Special Issue and develops the argument that geographers and scholars of urban studies ought to develop a more active interest in the diverse and multiple geographies of disability.

The characterisation of the Western city through binary classifications seems increasingly inappropriate, first, because cultural fusions produce 'thirdspaces' which can only be captured in a more complex spatial language and, secondly, because a thirdspace politics is needed to resist the oppressions associated with binary oppositions. In this paper, it is suggested that the thirdspace arguments promoted by Soja neglect a history of resistance and academic critiques of binaries loosely associated with anarchism. Drawing on the 'British school' of object relations in psychoanalysis, it is also argued that the failure to think beyond binaries and to realise a thirdspace politics may be connected with the construction of the 'Western self' in a culture which is suffuse with oppositions of desire and disgust.

For at least three decades, the issue of physical accessibility has been a focus of analysis amongst some spatial scientists, including geographers, urban planners and architects. Whilst such 'conventional' access studies have assumed an important role as policy evaluation/ critique, their theoretical significance has been extremely limited. The understanding of accessibility, and the highly contested set of policy fields that regulates this, would be deepened if a wider range of socio-political theory was used to examine these issues. This paper contributes to the social theorisation of access by critically exploring how the 'reflexive modernisation' thesis of Ulrich Beck might be applied to the geographical understanding of disablement. The paper demonstrates how Beck's theoretical framework can be used to enrich understanding of the genesis and mediation of inaccessibility.

Since 1994, the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) has been one of the British government's main policy tools in tackling inequality within Britain's cities. SRB partnerships seek collaboration between public, private and community sectors but, for some minority groups, such inclusionary intentions have proved to be more rhetoric than reality. Drawing on a questionnaire sent to 200 SRB partnerships across Britain, this paper addresses disabled people's involvement in SRB partnerships. As people who experience multiple forms of exclusion from contemporary society, it would seem imperative that they should have a stake in local regeneration initiatives. The paper explores the extent, form of and barriers to, disabled people's involvement and consultation in the SRB, and challenges the notion that SRB partnerships are inclusive to all sectors.

This paper examines the rights of disabled people to access public spaces in Western societies through an analysis of the provision of accessible public toilets in Ireland. Providing a critical analysis around the themes of social justice and citizenship, the investigation is based on an examination of present-day planning legislation, interviews conducted with 35 disabled people-19 in the Republic of Ireland and 16 in Northern Ireland—and a case study of one particular town, Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland. These data reveal that in Ireland and the UK, planning legislation is weak and often not enforced. Accessible public toilets are few and far between; those that do exist are often poorly designed; and, this lack of provision severely delimits the daily spatial behaviour of disabled people. This lack of provision, it is argued, is expressive of a wider set of ableist power geometries and signifies that disabled people do not, as yet, have the same civil rights as non-disabled people.

The greatest barriers to disabled people's inclusion in Western urbanised societies are often in the human-constructed environment which serves to exclude those whose bodily forms do not accord with specific conceptions of the normal body. This is particularly the case for people whose faces are negatively defined as being visibly different or categorised as 'facially disfigured'. This paper seeks to understand the (urban) geographies of people marked out by their perceived facial differences, specifically those defined as having acne. Drawing on original empirical material, the paper begins with a discussion of spatialities of disfigurement and how these are constitutive in the marginalisation of people with facial disfigurements from mainstream encounters and social relations. In the second section, it is demonstrated, through the use of narrative material, that problems of exclusion often arise from the attitudinal environment or those places which emphasise people's looks. A discussion follows of how feelings of shame and embarrassment about disfigurement often result in the withdrawal of individuals from mainstream spaces. The paper concludes by exploring the possibilities and problems in developing a politics of facial disfigurement.

Many groups within society continue to experience, and be subjected to, what can only be termed 'transport disadvantage'. Traditionally, recognition of the barriers experienced by these groups has been overlooked. The paper explores the reasons why this is the case with reference to the problematical perspectives and methodologies of transport policy-makers and planners. Personal accounts of individuals are used to demonstrate that 'transport disadvantage' is experienced by many different groups within society and is a social concern that must be included as a priority target for public policy. The importance of considering such travel experiences becomes apparent and is paramount to the development of barrier-free living.

This paper explores the attitudes and practices of property developers and related agents in facilitating or constraining disabled people's access in the built environment. While acknowledging that the development process is characterised by a range of socio-institutional structures and relations which are insensitive to and ignorant of the needs of disabled people, we develop the proposition that developers' responses to disabled people are not necessarily invariant, predictable or reducible to a cost calculus. Rather, our evidence is illustrative of a heterogeneity of developers' attitudes and responses to the needs of disabled people. We conclude by commenting on practical and political possibilities for changing the social relations of the development process in ways which will incorporate access as an integral element of the design and development of the built environment.

Architecture is made by use and design. To use a building is to make it, either by physical transformation, such as moving walls or furniture, by inhabiting it in ways not previously imagined or by conceiving it anew. With a role equal in the formulation of architecture to that of the architect, the creative user either creates a new space or gives an existing one new meanings and uses contrary to established behaviour.

The paper investigates how far the state-of-the-art technology of the internet can contribute to the creation of a barrier-free city. The paper begins with a discussion of the general possibilities and potential of the internet for disabled people. This discussion is followed by a presentation of the significance of internet technologies for disabled people and urban development. The practical application of the approach will then be illustrated by means of a case study: the KOMM project in Muenster, Germany. The paper concludes with an evaluation of the potential and the limits of the internet for a barrier-free city.