The logics and politics of circulation: exploring the urban and non-urban spaces of Amazon.com

in Ward, Kevin; Jonas, Andrew E.G.; Miller, Byron (Eds.) et al The Routledge International Handbook on Spaces of Urban Politics (2018)

The digital economy is a catalyst for the circulation of people, goods and information, affecting both urban and non-urban realms. This chapter uses the empirical case of Amazon.com to discuss the digital ... [more ▼]

The digital economy is a catalyst for the circulation of people, goods and information, affecting both urban and non-urban realms. This chapter uses the empirical case of Amazon.com to discuss the digital and physical arrangement of production, labour, distribution, advertising, purchasing, and consumption as a means of creating particular spaces of politics. What started as mail order retail for books about 20 years ago can now be understood as an all-encompassing platform for performing a variety of socio-economic practices. These practices evolve from disruptive innovation and are backed by venture capital as well as an aggressive market strategy, leading to a compartmentalized organisation of value chains. The related implications on place, space and territory reveal a certain “logics of dislocation” (Barnes 1996), creating particular spaces of circulation both in urban centres and peripheries. The abstract system’s imperative not only steers the orchestration of the firm’s network but also, given its hegemony in online-markets, threatens to assume an almost totalitarian form. It thus also performs as a powerful agent of policy-making. Against this background, the chapter explores the spaces of circulation and related politics that are produced and reproduced by Amazon.com. [less ▲]

Offshore

in Local Environment (2018)

Suburbanisation and Suburbanisms – Making Sense of Continental European Developments

in Raumforschung und Raumordnung (2018), 76(2), 97-108

This paper provides a brief overview of recent developments and debates concerned with suburbanisation in continental Europe. While current discourses in urban research and practice still focus on ... [more ▼]

This paper provides a brief overview of recent developments and debates concerned with suburbanisation in continental Europe. While current discourses in urban research and practice still focus on processes of reurbanisation and the gentrification of inner-city areas, suburbia continues to exist and thrive. Depending on the definition applied, suburban areas still attract a large share of in-migration and employment growth in cities of the developed countries. Given that popular meta-narratives on suburbia and suburbanisation are often spurred by, or refer to, North American suburban studies, we take a different perspective here, one based on continental European trajectories of development in and across city-regional areas that are considered to be suburban, and on social processes that are associated with suburbanisation (suburbanisms). Thus, we aim to avoid a biased understanding of suburbia as a spatial category, which is often considered mono-functional, non-sustainable, or in generic decline. Instead, we observe that suburban variety is huge, and the distinction between urban core and fringe seems to be as ambiguous as ever. The paper, which also introduces the theme of this special issue of “Raumforschung und Raumordnung | Spatial Research and Planning”, bundles our findings along four themes: on suburbia as a place of economic development, on the shifting dynamics of housing between core and fringe locales, on the life-cyclic nature of suburbanisation, and on strategies for redevelopment. Finally, we discuss certain topics that may deserve to be addressed by future research, particularly on the European variant of suburbanisation and suburbs. [less ▲]

Landesplanung noch nicht im Griff

Article for general public (2018)

Suburban Planet

in Local Environment (2018)

Spatially Differentiated, Temporally Variegated: The Study of Life Cycles for a Better Understanding of Suburbia in German City Regions

in Raumforschung und Raumordnung (2017), 76(2), 149-163

Widersprüchlich, ungeduldig, selbstbezogen? Anmerkungen zum Verhältnis zwischen Luxemburg und seiner Universität

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A Negotiated Landscape. The Transformation of San Francisco’s Waterfront since 1950

in Local Environment (2017), 22(6), 784-785

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