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Railway Conjunctures: Postcolonial and Postsocialist Trajectories of Urban Renewal

In their newest open access article Wladimir Sgibnev, together with our colleagues Laura Kemmer, Tonio Weicker and Maxwell Woods showcase how postsocialism and postcolonial studies can be brought into dialogue and learn from one another. Their contribution is based on the comparison of the historical case studies of tramway lines construction in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Kharkiv, Ukraine.

The article further investigates specific historical trajectories of mobility development in the postsocialist urban context and thereby draws converse lines to western hegemonial narratives of the modern city.

Read the full article here.

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Dance with electrical traction for urban buses: the case of Leipzig

Battery bus in Leipzig | © Egor Muleev

Egor Muleev and Jonathan Wich discuss the historical as well as contemporary underpinnings in the city of Leipzig for favoring battery electric buses over trolleybuses. The authors initiate a debate about the possible trolleybus network, which could have been introduced to the city. It is a public matter, which never attracted significant attention in the past, and a trolleybus network which never came into being. Yet, the decisions taken by the administration and the multiple players involved, favoring one technology, namely the E-buses, instead of another – the Trolleybuses, have already their impact in the city of Wagner and Bach.

More details and the whole article can be found here in the newest entry on  the IfL-Blog.

The study was made during the internship of BA student Jonathan Wich within the CoMoDe project that is part of the Mobilities and Migration Research Group at the IfL.

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Neuer Kartenbeitrag in der online-Zeitschrift Nationalatlas: Endstation Grenze? Die aktuelle Situation des grenzübergreifenden ÖPNV

Lukas Adolphi, Wladimir Sgibnev und Tonio Weicker widmen sich dem grenzüberschreitenden ÖPNV:

Innerhalb Deutschlands gehört die Sicherstellung einer ausreichenden Bedienung der Bevölkerung mit Verkehrsleistungen im ÖPNV zur rechtlich verankerten Daseinsvorsorge. Doch wie sieht die konkrete Situation in den Grenzregionen aus? Bestehen genügend grenzübergreifende ÖPNV-Angebote zwischen der Bundesrepublik und Ihren Nachbarn? Mittels umfangreicher Recherchen konnten deutschlandweit 179 grenzüberschreitende Verbindungen per Regionalzug, S-Bahn, Straßenbahn, Fähre, Bus, Ruftaxi oder Taxibus ausfindig gemacht werden. Es gibt jedoch erhebliche regionale Disparitäten, wie die aktuelle interaktive Übersichtskarte verdeutlicht: Mit Hilfe des Tooltips kann jede Verbindung mit Verkehrsmittel, Taktung, Bedientagen und Sitzplätzen angezeigt werden.

Viel Vergnügen beim Schmökern.

Dipl.-Geogr. Volker Bode
Forschungsbereich Geovisualisierung
Redaktion Nationalatlas aktuell

 

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The missing link between climate action (SDG 13) and reduced inequalities (SDG 10): the urban dimension

On behalf of CESCAME (https://cescame.soc.cas.cz/), I would like to invite you to the hybrid lecture: “The missing link between climate action (SDG 13) and reduced inequalities (SDG 10): the urban dimension” by Lin Lerpold and Örjan Sjöberg.
The conceptual lecture will focus on the interlinkages between the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the possible conflicts between the social world and environmental goals.
The lecture will be held on 14 June, 15:30-17:30 CET in Prague (room 207) and on Zoom, where full participation in the discussion will also be possible. Only Örjan Sjöberg will be present.
Find the abstract and registration form here: https://cescame.soc.cas.cz/events/cescame-mini-series-2022-urban-practices-and-social-change Continue reading “The missing link between climate action (SDG 13) and reduced inequalities (SDG 10): the urban dimension”

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The Soviet city as a landscape in the making

Aerial view of Samarkand in 2020 showing the old city (yellow), the colonial city (green), and Soviet-era apartment blocks and micro-rayons (orange). The areas of the city that are not coloured feature a mix of private dwellings, commercial and administrative buildings. The white box indicates the boundaries of the map by Ernst Giese (see Figure 1). Numbers indicate the approximate location of respondents’ houses
(c) Copernicus Sentinel data 2020, modified by the authors.

Following the launch of the mass housing campaign under Nikita Khrushchev, the cityscape of Soviet Samarkand still remains some changes and continuities of it. This paper examines the planning, building, appropriation, and renovation of public and private housing on the level of practices rather than policies and discourses. It relates these practices to the specific temporalities of Samarkand’s landscape, such as the life cycles of inhabitants, the change of seasons, or the timelines of material decay, among others. Continue reading “The Soviet city as a landscape in the making”

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Freshly published: Geoforum Editorial on informalities in urban transport and mobility

This editorial introduces and contextualises the Special Issue on informalities in urban transport and mobility in cities across the Global South, East and North. It identifies a mutual misrecognition between the urban studies literature on informality and research on transport and mobilities, and proposes that urban mobility be understood as a critical site of contestations over (in)formalisation processes. Continue reading “Freshly published: Geoforum Editorial on informalities in urban transport and mobility”

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Central Europe, Brexit and Covid-19: free Online panel & discussion

On 7th June, 16:30-18:00 CET (15:30 – 17:00 UK time) the panelists Stefan Popov, Karolina Wigura, and Špela Drnovšek Zorko will discuss about the connections between Central Europe, Brexit and Covid-19. The panel will be hosted and moderated by Lyubomir Pozharliev. You can register here for free to join the panel online, no membership required.

Continue reading “Central Europe, Brexit and Covid-19: free Online panel & discussion”

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EXTENDED DEADLINE | Cfc: 2022 RSA Special Sessions on Infrastructural Materialities: Human and Non-Human Interactions

The 2022 RSA Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) conference from 14th to 17th September 2022 in Leipzig is open for your contributions until 30th May. Herewith we invite you to join one of the EEGA special sessions on infrastructure, hosted by Wladimir Sgibnev, Tonio Weicker and Lyubomir Pozharliev: “INFRASTRUCTURAL MATERIALITIES: HUMAN AND NON-HUMAN INTERACTIONS”

Continue reading “EXTENDED DEADLINE | Cfc: 2022 RSA Special Sessions on Infrastructural Materialities: Human and Non-Human Interactions”

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The Journey of the Second Hand Trams

(c) https://aktuell.nationalatlas.de/wp-content/kartographie/22_04_Strassenbahnen/22_04_Strassenbahnen_k1.html

At the end of a long service life, Streetcars do not necessarily end up on the scrap heap in Germany. Some are given a second home in other operations. Since 1990, 49 transport companies have handed over a total of 3,745 discarded streetcars to cities outside Germany. The fascinating complexity of this phenomenon was the motivation for Lukas Adolphi, Wladimir Sgibnev and Tonio Weicker to investigate the destinations and the further use of used streetcar vehicles from German companies in more detail. One result of these investigations are maps showing the manifold travel routes of individual vehicles.

Continue reading “The Journey of the Second Hand Trams”