Seminar Four: Contested Cities - Social Process and Spatial Form

Hey guys and girls, I'm back again. Just another delayed response to a seminar however today I'll be reviewing seminar four's Contested Cities: Social Process and Spatial form by David Harvey. Harvey, in this article, urges us current and future planners to make a more malleable approach in the way we plan to make cities "more flexible and adjustable" so that future generations can alter their surrounding based on 'their' current social, economical and environmental climate. He also discourages design as a means for solving social-related issues. He emphasizes the need for tuition in the terms that cities be seen as an exertion of process rather than simply just 'things'. One of Harvey's most elaborate themes in this text is the need to place further importance on communities. I have to agree on some of the aspects provided to us here by Harvey such as the importance to build communities that less 'alienate' people from amongst each other. I have never believed in gated communities (one of the examples provided by Harvey) because of the vast implications, albeit both socially and economically. One example of a gated community is based on my own experience where in the Sydney south-west area of Campbelltown (area of Sydney with very low socio-economic status) a large gated community exists where its surroundings are simply small wooden homes and large factories (half of them highly decayed). I've been inside this gated community and immediately realized the obvious difference between the inside and the outside. House are much larger, locals driving in BMW's and Mercedez and people are more acquainted with each other, where as on the outside, houses are much smaller, utes and Holdens dominate the automobile scenery and the most working people are dressed in fluro-coloured tradies shirts. It is these segregations and alienation which demoralizes the sense of community. Cities have a much lesser sense of community which needs to be addressed so that future generations yet unborn may experience that sense of community within their own cities and not the alienation in which we have and are currently experiencing. Process is the epitome of planning theory for us planners (well my opinion anyway) because short term plans which are adjustable and well sustained produce much better outcomes. Spacial form and social processes need to be better understood by planners in better light so that cities can become more functionable and well sustained.