| Unbuilding Cities: Obduracy in Urban Sociotechnical Change Contributor(s): Hommels, Anique (Author) |
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ISBN: 0262582821 ISBN-13: 9780262582827 Publisher: MIT Press OUR PRICE: $29.70 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: September 2008 Annotation: Applying the tools of STS to explore why the "unbuilding of cities"--the reconfiguration and redesign of existing urban structures--becomes a contested and time-consuming process. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Technology & Engineering | Social Aspects - Social Science | Sociology - Urban |
| Dewey: 303.483 |
| LCCN: 2005041686 |
| Series: Inside Technology (Paperback) |
| Physical Information: 0.7" H x 6.9" W x 8.9" (1.25 lbs) 292 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: City planning initiatives and redesign of urban structures often become mired in debate and delay. Despite the fact that cities are considered to be dynamic and flexible spaces--never finished but always under construction--it is very difficult to change existing urban structures; they become fixed, obdurate, securely anchored in their own histories as well as in the histories of their surroundings. In Unbuilding Cities, Anique Hommels looks at the tension between the malleability of urban space and its obduracy, focusing on sites and structures that have been subjected to unbuilding--redesign or reconfiguration. She brings the concepts of science and technology studies (STS) to bear on the study of cities. Viewing the city as a large sociotechnological artifact, she demonstrates the usefulness of STS tools that were developed to analyze other technological artifacts and explores in detail the role of obduracy in sociotechnical change. Her analysis distinguishes three concepts of obduracy: interactionist, in which actors with diverging views are constrained by fixed ways of thinking and interacting; relational, in which change is difficult because of technology's embeddedness in sociotechnical networks; and enduring, in which persistent traditions influence the development of technology over time. Hommels examines the tensions between obduracy and change in three urban redesign projects in the Netherlands: a renovated city center that fell into drabness and disrepair; a highway system that runs through a densely populated urban area; and a high-rise housing project, designed according to modernist precepts and built for middle-class families, that became a haven for unemployment and crime. Unbuilding Cities contributes to a productive fusion of STS and urban studies. |
Contributor Bio(s): Hommels, Anique: - Anique Hommels is Associate Professor at Maastricht University and author of Unbuilding Cities: Obduracy in Urban Sociotechnical Change (MIT Press).Bijker, Wiebe E.: - Wiebe E. Bijker is Professor at Maastricht University and the author of Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change (MIT Press) and other books.Pinch, Trevor: - Trevor Pinch is Goldwin Smith Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University and coeditor of The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (anniversary edition, MIT Press). |