Tagged: Urban Development

Political & Economic Sociology / Population & Demography / Research Brief / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Urban Sociology

Earthquakes in Turkey: reflections from past experience

On 6 February, at 04.17 in the morning, an earthquake of magnitude 7.7 on the Richter Scale hit eastern Turkey, caused by the rupture in the East Anatolian fault. Scientists have been warning about the seismic gap in Kahramanmaras province and the vicinity, and an earthquake in the area was expected sooner or later. The earthquake hit 10 provinces and affected approximately 16 million people. Nine hours later there was a second earthquake of magnitude 7.6. The scale of the...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture

Mass Exodus

  Sociologists are frequently interested in how communities are imagined, built, developed, and restructured.  Studies of how communities are destroyed, abolished, or evicted are typically associated with scholarship on genocide, war, natural disaster, or gentrification.  These studies often equate the termination of a community with trauma, personal loss, and inequality.  In some cases, communities dissolve in less dramatic ways.  In some cases, as the needs of a population change, people and the communities they created travel from one space to...

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change

The Necessity of Disorder in a Soft City: De Certeau vs Foucault (Part 2)

 This is the second in a two-part guest post by Bea Moyes, who is an independent researcher based in East London. Having completed a Masters in Research at the London Consortium, Bea is working on ongoing research into the history of East London since the 1970s. Her work has often considered histories and narratives of urban space, particularly through the act of walking the city, and with dynamic and creative interactions which are generated in public spaces. She tweets @BeaMoyes The first post can be found...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Building Answers into Physical Spaces

While venturing around today’s modern city-scape, it appears new design principles have been employed. Perhaps the construction of the contemporary urban environment has been increasingly swayed by social, economic, political, and environmental factors. Scholars, also recognizing the changing face of urban environments, have noted the rise of “New Urbanism” (Bohl, 2000). Consider the following: New Urbanism has been described as the most influential movement in architecture and planning in the United States since the Modernist Movement – Bohl New Urbanism...