Synopses & Reviews
For most, the term andldquo;public spaceandrdquo; conjures up images of large, open areas: community centers for meetings and social events; the ancient Greek agora for political debates; green parks for festivals and recreation. In many of the worldandrsquo;s major cities, however, public spaces like these are not a part of the everyday lives of the public. Rather, business and social lives have always been conducted along main roads and sidewalks. With increasing urban growth and density, primarily from migration and immigration, rights to the sidewalk are being hotly contested among pedestrians, street vendors, property owners, tourists, and governments around the world.
With Sidewalk City, Annette Miae Kim provides the first multidisciplinary case study of sidewalks in a distinctive geographical area. She focuses on Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, a rapidly growing and evolving city that throughout its history, her multicultural residents have built up alternative legitimacies and norms about how the sidewalk should be used. Based on fieldwork over 15 years, Kim developed methods of spatial ethnography to overcome habitual seeing, and recorded both the spatial patterns and the social relations of how the cityandrsquo;s vibrant sidewalk life is practiced.
In Sidewalk City, she transforms this data into an imaginative array of maps, progressing through a primer of critical cartography, to unveil new insights about the importance and potential of this quotidian public space. This richly illustrated and fascinating study of Ho Chi Minh Cityandrsquo;s sidewalks shows us that it is possible to have an aesthetic sidewalk life that is inclusive of multiple publicsandrsquo; aspirations and livelihoods, particularly those of migrant vendors.
Review
"Sidewalks may be at the margins of streets but this broad-ranging book demonstrates how central they are to any sophisticated understanding of contemporary public space. Loukaitou-Sideris and Ehrenfeucht effectively show how sidewalks shape the design politics of everyday life in American cities. The volume commendably transcends too-simple and romanticized celebrations of diversity and encounter to view sidewalks in their full complexity: as places of contestation, sites of moral judgment, sources of economic livelihood, barometers of societal inequality, spaces of performance and display, legal and regulatory battlegrounds, and contributors to both arboreal beauty and desolation. Combining rich observation with interviews and archival research, this fine book shows how sidewalks are designed, how they are governed, how they are shared, and why all of this matters to the future of urbanity."
—Lawrence Vale, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT"One of the most overlooked public spaces, the sidewalk, deserves serious consideration for its social, cultural, and political importance. Sidewalks now take their rightful place as contested sites that offer opportunities for both democracy and oppression. Loukaitou-Sideris and Ehrenfeucht provide the guidance and balance needed to defend one of the last public spaces."
—Setha M. Low, Professor of Environmental Psychology, Anthropology, and Geography, The Graduate Center, City University of New York"Design of public space to encourage pedestrian life is an urgent need in neighborhoods and cities. As a major part of the public city, sidewalks are more than simple paths of circulation and can be settings for casual social interchange, promenading, and celebration, as well as many types of recreation, from jogging and games to roller skating. This book presents exciting new research on the social dimensions of public sidewalk space that urban planners and designers need to understand."
—Michael Southworth, Professor of Urban Design and Planning, University of California, Berkeley"We walk along them everyday. We depend upon them to serve so many very different purposes. Their design, use and regulation shape so much of urban public life. But do we, citizens or social scientists, ever notice or appreciate them? Fortunately Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Renia Ehrenfeucht have, bringing historical research, insightful analysis and advocacy to this essential but often undervalued element of urban form. I had hoped for such a book for many years, one that portrayed the full complexity as well as the conflicts surrounding sidewalks, just as this book does. Perhaps this is the best time for Sidewalks as cities and even suburbs in the US begin to acknowledge their importance while, at the same time, they are threatened by forces of privatization and sanitization and concerns over security."
—Karen A. Franck, Professor, School of Architecture, New Jersey Institute of Technology
Review
Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris is Professor and Chair of UCLA's Department of Urban Planning. She is the coauthor of Urban Design Downtown: Poetics and Politics of Form. Renia Ehrenfeucht is Assistant Professor in the Department of Planning and Urban Studies at the University of New Orleans.
"One of the most overlooked public spaces, the sidewalk, deserves serious consideration for its social, cultural, and political importance. Sidewalks now take their rightful place as contested sites that offer opportunities for both democracy and oppression. Loukaitou-Sideris and Ehrenfeucht provide the guidance and balance needed to defend one of the last public spaces." --Setha M. Low, Professor of Environmental Psychology, Anthropology, and Geography, The Graduate Center, City University of New York --Setha Low
Review
"Sidewalks may be at the margins of streets but this broad-ranging book demonstrates how central they are to any sophisticated understanding of contemporary public space. Loukaitou-Sideris and Ehrenfeucht effectively show how sidewalks shape the design politics of everyday life in American cities. The volume commendably transcends too-simple and romanticized celebrations of diversity and encounter to view sidewalks in their full complexity: as places of contestation, sites of moral judgment, sources of economic livelihood, barometers of societal inequality, spaces of performance and display, legal and regulatory battlegrounds, and contributors to both arboreal beauty and desolation. Combining rich observation with interviews and archival research, this fine book shows how sidewalks are designed, how they are governed, how they are shared, and why all of this matters to the future of urbanity."--Lawrence Vale, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT --Larry Vale
Review
"Design of public space to encourage pedestrian life is an urgent need in neighborhoods and cities. As a major part of the public city, sidewalks are more than simple paths of circulation and can be settings for casual social interchange, promenading, and celebration, as well as many types of recreation, from jogging and games to roller skating. This book presents exciting new research on the social dimensions of public sidewalk space that urban planners and designers need to understand." --Michael Southworth, Professor of Urban Design and Planning, University of California at Berkeley --Michael Southworth
Review
"We walk along them everyday. We depend upon them to serve so many very different purposes. Their design, use and regulation shape so much of urban public life. But do we, citizens or social scientists, ever notice or appreciate them? Fortunately Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Renia Ehrenfeucht have, bringing historical research, insightful analysis and advocacy to this essential but often undervalued element of urban form. I had hoped for such a book for many years, one that portrayed the full complexity as well as the conflicts surrounding sidewalks, just as this book does. Perhaps this is the best time for Sidewalks as cities and even suburbs in the US begin to acknowledge their importance while, at the same time, they are threatened by forces of privatization and sanitization and concerns over security."--Karen A. Franck, Professor, School of Architecture, New Jersey Institute of Technology --Karen A. Franck
Review
andldquo;Sidewalk City is an important book which takes a big step forward in our understanding of that key public spaceandmdash;the sidewalk. Mixing urban theory, ethnography, observation, and innovative mapping, Kim has produced a new conceptual and representational paradigm. Both scholarly and readable, Sidewalk City should interest anyone who thinks about cities, public spaces, and people.andrdquo;
Review
andquot;Using critical cartography and spatial ethnography, Sidewalk City brings to life an unwritten realm of claims and practices. Kim brilliantly persuades us with her theoretical framework which identifies a particular type of rights not associated with shared sidewalks: property rights negotiated in public space.andquot;
Review
andldquo;Sidewalk City is visually powerful, socially explanatory, and politically revealing. Kim delivers an exceptionally rich contribution to the emerging domain of urban humanities with her multilayered close analysis of a seemingly prosaic socio-spatial environmentandmdash;the sidewalks of Ho Chi Minh City. As such, she provides as much creative clarity to those interested in photography, multi-media art, and critical cartography as she does to those who care about economic development, property rights, urban planning, public policy, and ethnographic method.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Opening with an exciting ethnography of sidewalk life in Ho Chi Minh City, Kim goes on to unfurl a revolutionary collection of mapping subjects, techniques, and strategies that let her, as she says, map the unmapped. As Kevin Lynch did in 1960, Kim inaugurates an utterly new fork in the history of mapmaking, enabling her to return at bookandrsquo;s end to the sidewalk both reconsidered and reimagined. Sidewalk City is essential reading!andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;This just-published work flips our usual understanding of public spaceandmdash;large communal swaths of green in the middle of a cityscapeandmdash;and focuses on its most humble incarnation: the sidewalk. Sidewalk design isnandrsquo;t going to win any prizes. In fact, it is scarcely noticed. But more than ever, Kim suggests, in places of rising urban density, this is where people meet, loiter, exchange information, sell wares and stage neighborhood festivals. Sidewalks are also a kind of urban nervous system, wiring connective paths from one corner of the city to another. But this sort of public space also bumps up against property rights. Who ultimately has power over this public-private space? The beautifully designedandnbsp;
Sidewalk City examines how this tension is negotiated day to day in Vietnamandrsquo;s Ho Chi Minh City.andrdquo;
Synopsis
Examines the evolution of an undervalued urban space and how conflicts over competing uses--from the right to sit to the right to parade--have been negotiated.
Synopsis
Urban sidewalks, critical but undervalued public spaces, have been sites for political demonstrations and urban greening, promenades for the wealthy and the well-dressed, and shelterless shelters for the homeless. On sidewalks, decade after decade, urbanites have socialized, paraded, and played, sold their wares, and observed city life. These many uses often overlap and conflict, and urban residents and planners try to include some and exclude others. In this first book-length analysis of the sidewalk as a distinct public space, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Renia Ehrenfeucht examine the evolution of the American urban sidewalk and trace conflicts that have arisen over its competing uses. They discuss the characteristics of sidewalks as small urban public spaces, and such related issues as the ambiguous boundaries of their public status, contestation over specific uses, control and regulations, and the implications for First Amendment speech and assembly rights.
Synopsis
andlt;Pandgt;Examines the evolution of an undervalued urban space and how conflicts over competing uses--from the right to sit to the right to parade--have been negotiated.andlt;/Pandgt;
Synopsis
andlt;Pandgt;Urban sidewalks, critical but undervalued public spaces, have been sites for political demonstrations and urban greening, promenades for the wealthy and the well-dressed, and shelterless shelters for the homeless. On sidewalks, decade after decade, urbanites have socialized, paraded, and played, sold their wares, and observed city life. These many uses often overlap and conflict, and urban residents and planners try to include some and exclude others. In this first book-length analysis of the sidewalk as a distinct public space, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Renia Ehrenfeucht examine the evolution of the American urban sidewalk and trace conflicts that have arisen over its competing uses. Drawing on historical and contemporary examples as well as case study research and archival data from five cities--Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and Seattle--they discuss the characteristics of sidewalks as small urban public spaces, and such related issues as the ambiguous boundaries of their andquot;publicandquot; status, contestation over specific uses, control and regulations, and the implications for First Amendment speech and assembly rights.andlt;/Pandgt;
Synopsis
For most, the term and#147;public spaceand#8221; conjures up images of large, open areas where people congregate, socialize, and exchange thoughts and goods: the ancient Greek agora; modern town community centers; vast, green parks for festivals, games, and meetings. In many of the worldand#8217;s major cities, however, public spaces like these are not woven into the urban fabric. In urban areas, business and social lives have always been conducted along main roads, and when vehicles overtook the roads, the essential public spaces were relegated to sidewalksand#151;which has led to clashes over the hotly contested rights of pedestrians, street vendors, tourists, and governments to use sidewalks.
and#160;
Despite their important sociocultural role, sidewalks have been studied by remarkably few scholars. With Sidewalk City, Annette Miae Kim provides the first multilayered case study of sidewalks in a distinctive geographical area. She focuses on Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, a rapidly growing and evolving city. Throughout its history, the cityand#8217;s sidewalks served as areas for communityand#151;talking, eating, playing, and selling. Today, however, thousands of street vendors trek continuously with their wares on shoulders or carts, struggling to eke out a living since police began enforcing laws that bar non-pedestrians from sidewalks for the sake of traffic flow, public health, and cosmopolitan status.
and#160;
In her fascinating study of how Ho Chi Minh Cityand#8217;s society is re-negotiating sidewalk space, Kim shows how itand#8217;s possible to successfully share the vital public space of sidewalks and meet the needs of diverse populations.
About the Author
Urban sidewalks, critical but undervalued public spaces, have been sites for political demonstrations and urban greening, promenades for the wealthy and the well-dressed, and shelterless shelters for the homeless. On sidewalks, decade after decade, urbanites have socialized, paraded, and played, sold their wares, and observed city life. These many uses often overlap and conflict, and urban residents and planners try to include some and exclude others. In this first book-length analysis of the sidewalk as a distinct public space, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Renia Ehrenfeucht examine the evolution of the American urban sidewalk and trace conflicts that have arisen over its competing uses. Drawing on historical and contemporary examples as well as case study research and archival data from five cities--Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and Seattle--they discuss the characteristics of sidewalks as small urban public spaces, and such related issues as the ambiguous boundaries of their "public" status, contestation over specific uses, control and regulations, and the implications for First Amendment speech and assembly rights.