CfP: Special issues "A chrono-urbanist approach to arts and culture", Cities Journal

A chrono-urbanist approach to arts and culture

In this special issue, sustainable and equitable urban development is explored through the novel combination of two approaches: chrono-urbanism and the role of arts and culture in creating livable and sustainable cities.

Guest editors:

Dr Christina Ballico

Department of Music
University of Aberdeen

Dr Leonieke Bolderman

Faculty of Spatial Sciences
University of Groningen

Special issue information:

In recent years, the field of urban planning has seen a shift to focus on the ways cities and the design of their neighborhoods contribute to and stimulate environmental and social sustainability and wellbeing (Nederhand et al., 2023). In this special issue, the move towards sustainable and equitable urban development is explored through the combination of two approaches that hitherto have been considered separately: chrono-urbanism and the role of arts and culture in creating livable and sustainable cities. While both development ideas aim for wellbeing and sustainability, this special issue explores potential synergies and challenges between the associated planning and policy strategies, offering avenues for further theorizing and implementation. Its core aim is to provide timely and applicable insights to the fields of urban planning and policy, while also furthering debates about the ways communities and cities are shaped through arts and culture, and how this in turn affects the wellbeing of those who live, work and visit there.

Keenly adopted as urban planning best practice in cities around the world, interest in chrono-urbanist approaches such as the ‘10’ ‘15’ and ‘20’ minute city frameworks have increased in recent years due to the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic reconfigured neighbourhoods. Focused on decentralising provisions and resources away from city-centres and central business districts (Moreno et al., 2021), these urban planning approaches suggest that the vast majority of one’s day-to-day life should be accessible via either active (i.e. walking or cycling) or public transport, using a time and/or distance based calculation to inform related planning. Driven by a desire to create more compact cities and neighbourhoods in which environmental sustainability, health and wellbeing, and an overall shift away from car-dependency are encouraged (Moreno et al., 2021), chrono-urbanism prioritises a “human-scale” planning (Allam et al., 2022, p. 181), within which density and accessibility are core values.

Where the interest in chrono-urbanism is of a more recent nature, the potential of art and culture to contribute to urban development has a longer history. Proposed as a way to redevelop city centres after deindustrialisation (Quinn, 2010), arts-focused redevelopment strategies have since branched out to include neighbourhood and peripheral development (Ballico, 2021; Gibson, 2014), with research also exploring the role of mediatization and smart city narratives in arts-based redevelopment (McQuire, 2008; Jansson and Hartman, 2022; Bolderman, 2022). More broadly, established debates in the field of creative clustering (Branzanti, 2015; Gibson, 2014; Makkonen, 2014) illuminate the possibilities for arts and cultural activities within chrono-urbanist frameworks, given the compact nature of these planning approaches, and the vital role of density to such clustering.

Curiously however, while there has been some acknowledgement of the capacity to leverage arts and cultural ecosystems in chrono-urbanist frameworks (cf Shapiro, 2020), the role of arts and cultural activities in these planning approaches are largely missing from both academic debates and city-level applications of these frameworks. This is despite entertainment being explicitly listed as a core social function within chrono-urbanist planning approaches (Moreno et al, 2022). Furthermore, arts and cultural activities are recognised as playing a vital role in the creative and cultural identities of cities and function as place activation strategies (Alonso-Vazquez and Ballico, 2021; Cannady, 2021; Fauteux, 2021).

It is within this context that we invite contributions that consider chrono-urbanism frameworks in
relation to arts and culture-focused redevelopment strategies, with considerations of the implications for urban planning and policy at their core. Topics may include:

● Empirical examples of arts and culture activity in places which have adopted a
chrono-urbanism approach to planning.
● Theoretical and/or empirically supported discussions of the capacity for artform specific
activities and associated ecosystems to fit or function within chrono-urbanist frameworks,
considering both their possibilities and limitations.
● The implementation of chrono-urbanism in cross-cultural contexts, aimed at a discussion of
various cultural specificities or various artforms.
● Participatory culture within chrono-urbanist frameworks.
● Cultural heritage preservation practices within or contrasted with chrono-urbanist approaches
to planning.
● Case studies or theoretical discussions of centre-periphery issues related to the combination of
arts, culture and chrono-urbanism.
● Explorations of the ways these frameworks contribute to community wellbeing and/or
sustainability.

We are especially interested in including work from the global south and historically marginalised
academics.

Manuscript submission information:

Interested authors are asked to submit:

a) the manuscript title and an abstract of up to 1000 words (excluding references, figures and tables), and

b) a short bio of authors (150 words maximum per author) to the guest editors.

Abstracts will be reviewed, and selected authors will be invited to submit a full manuscript for consideration for inclusion in the special issue.

For any inquiries about the appropriateness of contribution topics, please contact Dr Leonieke Bolderman at s.l.bolderman @ rug.nl