The Layers of Dependence and the Changing Role of the State – Conceptualising Urban Change in the East of Europe

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Date
2013
Authors
Nagy, Erika
Nagy, Gábor
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Humboldt-Universität, Institute for Social Science, Department of Social Sciences Urban Sociology
Abstract
The conceptualisation of the „urban” in Eastern Europe is inevitably related to being European – being involved in the flows of ideas, technologies and institutional practices shaping urban space – as well as to experiencing and researching urban change in the East, that has always been the nearest “other” to the western “core” of Europe. Inspired by the non-essentialist interpretations of the transition of urban space in the East of Europe, by Lefebvre’s theory of the “production of space”, as well as by experiencing urban change and East - West relations in everyday practice, we argue for a dependence - and state-centred conceptualisation of urban change in the East of Europe. Our key argument is that while “eastern” cities are heavily dependent on the global circulation of capital and its space-producing logic, this dependence has many interrelated layers that should be discovered and conceptualised at various non-global scales, particularly, in the context of “project Europe” (EEA) and of the changing role of the (nation-)state.
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Keywords
állam , városi tér , urbanizáció , poszt-szocialista városfejlődés , városok - Kelet-Európa , Kelet-Európa - városok , poszt-szocialista városok
Citation
RC21 Conference – Resourceful cities. Konferencia helye, ideje: Berlin, Németország, 2013.08.29-2013.08.30. Berlin: Humboldt-Universität, Institute for Social Science, Department of Social Sciences Urban Sociology, 2013. Paper online