The new urban ruins: vacancy, urban politics, and international experiments in the post-crisis city

This book provides an innovative perspective to consider contemporary urban challenges through the lens of urban vacancy. The contributors develop new empirical insights that rethink ruination, urban development and political contestation over the re-use of vacant spaces in post-crisis cities across the globe.

Conclusions: contrasting approaches and their wider sociopolitical implications -- Notes -- References -- 7 Post-disaster ruins: the old, the new and the temporary -- Introduction -- L'Aquila, a post-disaster city -- Reconstruction stories: the good, the bad and the ugly -- The bothersome emptiness of newly rebuilt historical dwellings -- The predictable abandonment and obsolescence of the 'enhanced temporariness' complexes -- The ruination of damaged public housing -- Discussion -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- 8 The post-crisis properties of demolishing Detroit, Michigan

Valorising vacancy through urban agriculture -- Settler urbanism, racial capitalism and vacancy -- Nullius no more? -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- 6 Conflicting rationalities and messy actualities of dealing with vacant housing in Halle/Saale, East Germany -- Introduction: conceptualising urban vacancy -- Neustadt and Glaucha in context: the emergence of vacant housing -- Different rationalities and messy actualities of vacant housing in Halle/Saale: excess versus opportunity -- Neustadt: vacant (public) housing as excess -- Glaucha: vacant housing as an opportunity for urban change

Introduction -- Urban wilderness on the periphery -- Compensation landscapes -- Speculative ecologies -- Conclusions -- Acknowledgements -- Notes -- References -- 4 Building the new urban ruin: the ghost city of Ordos Kangbashi, Inner Mongolia -- Introduction -- Pretty vacant: Ordos Kangbashi as China's pre-eminent ghost city -- New urban ruins: spaces of alterity and slow time -- Coda -- Notes -- References -- Part II The political economy of urban vacant space -- 5 Nullius no more? Valorising vacancy through urban agriculture in the settler-colonial 'green city' -- Introduction

Part I Rethinking ruination in the post-crisis context -- 1 Rem(a)inders of loss: a Lacanian approach to new urban ruins -- What is new about new urban ruins? -- Post-crisis cities: a Lacanian approach -- Rem(a)inders -- Enjoyment of ruins -- There is no comeback! -- Traversing the ruin's fantasy -- Notes -- References -- 2 Dignifying the ruins: a former Jewish girls' school in Berlin -- Introduction -- Ruins in wounded cities -- Interim space in Berlin -- (Re)Animating ruins in Berlin: the Denkraum -- Conclusions -- 3 Traversing wastelands: reflections on an abandoned railway yard

Front Cover -- Half Title -- Series -- The New Urban Ruins: Vacancy, Urban Politics and International Experiments in the Post- crisis City -- Copyright information -- Table of contents -- List of figures and tables -- Notes on contributors -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Empty cities -- Ruins, rubble and the vacant spaces in between -- On the relationship between ruins and vacant spaces -- On urban vacancy as an ordinary component of urbanisation -- On ruins and urban vacant spaces as political antagonism -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References