ancient cities

enewal programs, urban marketing, gentrification,
Disneyfication, festivalization, mass tourism,
cultural heritage, cultural economy, and creative
city are all current locutions describing social phenomena,
structural adjustments, or transformations
of the urban economy strictly related to
image production forms. They speak of building,
changing, or preserving the image of the city. To
renew the image of a place is the first step toward
financial investment and physical transformation.
The new creative class, invoked as a panacea for
revitalizing declining cities, is one composed
mainly of image professionals. This brings tools
and techniques initially refined by visual arts and
media industries to assume a relevant role in the
design and management of urban space, in combination
with the traditional tools of disciplines as
planning, architecture, marketing, and policy making.
The entertainment industry and spatial production
increasingly share a similar attitude. Film
production in itself becomes a model for spatial
production, where the development of fictional
narratives is the framework for the realization
and consolidation of actual processes of urban
restructuring. Set and light design, graphic design,
digital rendering, and script writing are contributing
to the redefinition of urban design as a discipline
dedicated to managing the visual perception
of the city.
Urban landscape is no longer divisible from its
mediascape.
Lorenzo Tripodi
See also Benjamin, Walter; City and Film; Harvey, David;
Las Vegas, Nevada; Urban Semiotics
Further Readings
AlSayyad, Nezar, ed. 2006. Cinematic Urbanism: A
History of the Modern from Reel to Real. New York:
Routledge.
Baudrillard, Jean. 1988. America. London: Verso.
Benjamin, Walter. 1969. “The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction.” Pp. 217–51 in
Illuminations, edited by H. Arendt and translated by
H. Zohn. New York: Schocken.
Clarke, David, ed. 1997. The Cinematic City. London:
Routledge.
Denzin, Norman. 1995. The Cinematic Society: The
Voyeur’s Gaze. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Citizen Participation
143
Harvey David. 1989. The Condition of Postmodernity:
An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change.
Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.
———. 1990. “Flexible Accumulation through
Urbanization Reflections on ‘Post-modernism’ in the
American City.” Perspecta 26:251–72.
Lash, S. and J. Urry. 1994. Economies of Sign and Space.
London: Sage.
Shiel, Mark and Tony Fitzmaurice, eds. 2003. Screening
the City. London: Verso.
Soja, Edward. 1989. Postmodern Geographies: The
Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory.
London: Verso.
Tripodi, Lorenzo. 2008. “Space of Exposure: Notes for a
Vertical Urbanism.” In Die Realität des Imaginären,
edited by J. Gleiter, N. Korrek, and G. Zimmermann.
Weimar, Germany: Verlag der Bauhaus-Universität.
Venturi, Robert, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour.
1977. Learning from Las Vegas. Cambridge:
MIT Press.
Virilio, P. 1984. L’espace critique: Essai sur l’urbanisme et
les nouvelles technologies. Paris: Christian Bourgois.
———. 2000. Information Bomb. London: Sage.
Ci t i z E n pa r t i C i p a t i o n
Citizen participation encompasses efforts to
engage the citizenry in a community’s decision
making. Starting with the voting process in a representative
democracy, government administrators
expand the citizen involvement by using public
hearings and debates, referenda, collaborative
forums, and electronic media. The widespread
enthusiasm for more citizen participation rests on
the belief that an engaged citizenry will produce
government policy that is closer to the preferences
of the public.
Over three decades of academic theory have
focused on the superiority of decision making that
engages citizens. A participatory process can educate
the public and, conversely, the process can
assist government decision makers in determining
when policies are unpopular with the public. In
addition, participatory forums and other processes
enable citizens to build their skills at civic leadership
as well as gain access to government officials.
This gives them an empowering “voice” beyond
the ballot box.