Politics of Urban Knowledge

This book uses 'politics of urban knowledge' as a lens to understand how professionals, administrations, scholars, and social movements have surveyed, evaluated and theorized the city, identified problems, and shaped and legitimized practical interventions in planning and administration.

Bert De Munck is full professor at the History Department at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, teaching 'Early Modern History', 'Theory of Historical Knowledge', and 'History of Science and Society'. He is the Director of the interdisciplinary Urban Studies Institute and the international Scientific Research Community (WOG) 'Urban Agency: The Historical Fabrication of the City as an Object of Study'. Jens Lachmund is a sociologist and senior lecturer in science and technology studies at Maastricht University, Netherlands. He has conducted research on the historical sociology of medicine, and on the politics of (urban) environmental knowledge. His publications include Greening Berlin: The Co-Production of Science, Politics, and Urban Nature (Boston, 2013).

Part 1: WAYS OF URBAN KNOWING 2. The emergence of cartographic reasoning in a long-term perspective: Urban knowledge, craft corporations and body politics Jasna Serši- & Bert De Munck 3. The epistemological fields of urban intervention: Urban reform, surveys and historic centres, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Pieter Uyttenhove & Wouter Van Acker 4. From the 'scientized' to the 'sociocratic' city: The politics of knowledge and norm change in post-war urban planning in the Netherlands Tim Verlaan & Stefan Couperus Part 2: TRAJECTORIES OF URBAN KNOWING 5. Urban populations and urban problems in Quetelet's population statistics of the mid-nineteenth century Kaat Louckx 6. Knowledge appropriation in Belo Horizonte: Intertwining the urban, the suburban and the rural Patricia Capanema Alvares Fernandes & Viviana D'Auria 7. Decoding zoning: Categorisation and commonality in land-use planning knowledge Julio Paulos & Marko Marskamp 8. Between straight lines and winding alleys: Streets as boundary objects in the transnational modernization of urban planning in Iran Pouya Sepehr & Erik Aarden 9. Counting and caring for urban trees: Street tree surveys and citizen protest in twentieth-century West Berlin Sonja Dümpelmann 10. Knowledge-making and the quest for a sustainable city: Promoting community food growing in London Jens Lachmund 11. Smart cities, knowledge generation and the enduring pursuit of urban innovation Andrew Karvonen