Clara Irazábal and her contributors explore the urban history of some of Latin America’s great cities through studies of their public spaces and what has taken place there. The avenues and plazas of Mexico City, Havana, Santo Domingo, Caracas, Bogotaì, SaÞo Paulo, Lima, Santiago, and Buenos Aires have been the backdrop for extraordinary, history-making events. While some argue that public spaces are a prerequisite for the expression, representation and reinforcement of democracy, they can equally be used in the pursuit of totalitarianism. Indeed, public spaces, in both the past and present, have been the site for the contestation by ordinary people of various stances on democracy and citizenship. By exploring the use and meaning of public spaces in Latin American cities, this book sheds light on contemporary definitions of citizenship and democracy in the Americas.

Clara Irazábal and her contributors explore the urban history of some of Latin America’s great cities through studies of their public spaces and what has taken place there. The avenues and plazas of Mexico City, Havana, Santo Domingo, Caracas, Bogotaì, SaÞo Paulo, Lima, Santiago, and Buenos Aires have been the backdrop for extraordinary, history-making events. While some argue that public spaces are a prerequisite for the expression, representation and reinforcement of democracy, they can equally be used in the pursuit of totalitarianism. Indeed, public spaces, in both the past and present, have been the site for the contestation by ordinary people of various stances on democracy and citizenship. By exploring the use and meaning of public spaces in Latin American cities, this book sheds light on contemporary definitions of citizenship and democracy in the Americas.

This book is about understanding, contextualizing and carrying out critical analyzes of the policies intended and/or implemented by the various public and private actors in urban public spaces, as well as the daily, or eventual, politics exercised by the organized civil society and by citizens. It presents a collection of contributions about the public space in different theoretical, conceptual and methodological approaches. Coming from different disciplines, the authors share an understanding about the need to analyze the uses and appropriations of the city by social subjects and groups as they represent difference and see the city as a place to share life experiences; as such, they argue, through their cases studies, that places of public use should be thought of and understood as concept and as social practice. As an analytic tool, the book offers a five-dimension model to explore how people relate to daily life activities and confront imposed inequalities in their meeting places, how they engage in individual and collective manifestations and/or how they symbolically appropriate public spaces in face of the late capitalism led by large corporations and globalization. Together the authors seek to contribute to a city of utopia, where all differences can be seen and dealt with in public spaces and where free individuals can present themselves and engage in a vita activa.

The essays in this collection present communities beset by unexpected social and physical events. Some outline immediate responses that soon pass and some that will not go away. Who would have foreseen that Elvis would be a phenomenon apparently as lasting as the faces on Mount Rushmore? Cultural history will not allow us to forget the H. G. Wells account of the Martian attack, nor can we ever forget the continued terror of the Chernobyl explosion. Ordinary Reactions to Extraordinary Events catalogues on the Geiger counter of human emotions societal reactions to events both earthshaking and culture-disturbing.

Stephen Hamnett and Dean Forbes have brought together some of the region’s most distinguished urbanists to explore the planning history and recent development of Pacific Asia’s major cities. They show how globalization, and the competition to achieve global city status, has had a profound effect on all these cities. But how resilient are these cities to the risks that they face? How can they manage continuing pressures for development and growth while reducing their vulnerability to a range of potential crises? And, given the tradition of top-down, centralized, state-directed planning which drove the economic growth of many of these cities in the last century, what prospects are there of them becoming more inclusive and sensitive to the diverse needs of their populations and to the importance of culture, heritage and local places in creating liveable cities?

This book examines transborder Latin American sociocultural and spatial conditions across the globe and at different scales, from gendered and racialized individuals to national and transnational organizations. Gathering scholars from the "spatial sciences"—architecture, urban design, urban planning, and geography—as well as sociology, anthropology, history, and economics, the volume explores these transbordering practices of place making and community building across cultural and nation-state borders, examining different agents (individuals, ethnic and cultural groups, NGOs, government agencies) that are engaged in transnational/transborder living and city-making practices, reconceiving notions of state, identity, and citizenship and showing how subjected populations resist, adapt, or coproduce transnational/transborder projects and, in the process, help shape and are shaped as transborder subjects.

This volume provides an overview of the changing relationship between cities and the Olympic Games, starting from the year 1896. Blending critical conceptual insight with grounded case studies, this book, divided into three parts, explores the historical experience of staging the Olympics from the point of view of the host city.