ancient cities

Non-places are mediated spaces that facilitate
movement. They are full of signs, instructions, and
regulations. One navigates a non-place by following
the signs that designate where one is in terms
of a system of organized public movement. Alphanumeric
signs designate destinations and distances
(for instance, Gate 6, Homewares on the 2nd Floor,
London 20kms) and also provide conditions of use
(for instance, speed limit 100k, no smoking, automatic
consent for surveillance). In this mode of
spatiality, people experience each other anonymously.
They may see the same people every day
on the same bus or at the same shopping mall, but
they never know the other’s name socially. In nonplaces,
people tend to be identified only for purpose
of verification. As Auge famously noted, there will
be no anonymity without identity checks.
In the late capitalist context, spaces of transit,
like airports, shopping malls, and highways, are
becoming ubiquitous as urban forms, and as a
consequence, the concept of non-place is gaining
prominence and relevance.
See also Airports; Shopping Center; Tourism
Further Readings
Gillian Fuller
Auge, Marc. 1995. Non-places: An Introduction to an
Anthropology of Supermodernity. Translated by
J. Howe. London: Verso.
de Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life.
Translated by Steven Rendall. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
No N -se x i s t ci t y
It has long been established, from research in the
fields of urban geography, history, sociology, philosophy,
and urban planning, that the city is sexist.
Change is not easy to achieve because the city
is the outward manifestation of deeply held
assumptions about women’s role in society. These
are transmitted onto the design of towns and cities
through the urban planning system and through
the decision-making powers of planners, architects,
surveyors, engineers, and city managers. All these
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professions remain male-dominated, and so few
women have a voice at the policy-making level.
Indeed “more women” does not necessarily mean
“better policy,” such are the powers of professional
socialization and the need to conform to succeed.
Women at a Disadvantage
So what is the problem? Although planning is
for people, it has been shown that women suffer
disadvantage within a built environment that is
developed by men, primarily for other men.
Women make up the majority of public transport
users, the elderly, the disabled, shoppers, care providers,
and the ethnic minority population. Much
of urban sociology, social policy, and urban criminology
has traditionally focused on the experience,
work, and problems of men, not least on the problems
experienced by the male aggressor as against
the female victim within the inner city. Women
have been seen stereotypically as suburban housewives
or bored wives, or simply as invisible,
whereas, in reality, the female population includes
a wide range of social-class groups, incomes, and
levels of education. Women live in all sorts of
places of residence: just like men, who are also not
a unitary group. Women were categorized according
to the social class of either their father or their
husband and failed to capture the true position of
women in society, economically, socially, and culturally.
This was the custom until feminism began
to reshape sociological study and to demonstrate
the differences between women’s and men’s experience
of work, the city, and life itself.
Women have distinct roles and responsibilities
in society, all of which generate different usage of
urban space. Fewer women than men have access
to the use of a car, and thus, most public-transport
users are women whose daily travel patterns are
more complex than men’s because many are combining
work with child care and other home-
making commitments. This has implications for all
levels of policy making, including the citywide
macro level of overall strategic policy, the district
meso level of local planning, and the detailed micro
level of daily practicalities, as explained below.
At the macro level of overall urban form and
structure, cities have traditionally been zoned and
the land uses divided according to male life experience,
on the basis of separating out home and