Remembering, Forgetting and City Builders

"Remembering, Forgetting and City Builders" critically explores how urban spaces are designed, planned and experienced in relation to the politics of collective and personal memory construction. Bringing together a range of case studies from North America, South Asia, East Europe and the Middle East, it analyzes how contested national, ethnic and cultural sentiments, that shape memories and practices of belonging, clash in designing, planning and experiencing urban spaces. Going beyond the claim that such situations exist in many parts of the world because communities construct their 'past memories' (and thus their collective forgetfulness) within their current daily life and future aspirations, it explores how the very acts of planning and urban design (which are considered 'rational', 'professional' and 'neutral') are rooted in the existing structures of hegemonic power (in terms of knowledge production and agency) and thus contested. Based on critical theories of planning and urban design, the book critically examines the symbolic and tangible construction of places in cities. With a line-up of contributors from the fields of architecture, geography, planning, anthropology and sociology, urban studies and cultural studies, it provides a rich and interdisciplinary view which reveals valuable insights into the conflicts over memory and belonging which are spatially expressed and mediated through the official planning apparatus.