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This paper aims to discuss the emergence of the contemporary Urban Street Gang (USG) on Merseyside. In terms of gang scholarship in the UK, Merseyside has been greatly neglected despite regular reports in national mainstream media that suggest Merseyside USGs represent some of the most criminally active and violent members in the UK.

A specific methodology has been omitted because the author while providing a viewpoint from Hesketh (2018), also wishes to encapsulate observations from the remaining two pieces of research conducted on Merseyside (Smithson et al., 2009; Robinson, 2018). For this reason, a summary of the methods used in each of the three studies is provided.

The paper will highlight observations drawn from all three research studies that were prevalent with USG members throughout the Merseyside county at the time of each study. They include aspects surrounding territoriality, belonging and identity through dress style as well as USG structures and motivation for joining. In particular, the paper will address also address the role of drugs which has transformed the structural make-up of many Merseyside USGs from relatively loosely knit-street corner groups involved in anti-social behaviour (ASB) to more structural-deviant entrepreneurial enterprises.

The paper calls for more research to be carried out on Merseyside. Limitations would include the omission of young women in each of the three studies.

The practical implications are as follows: a need to focus on the impact of bridging within excluded communities; a need to focus on emphasising that drug dealing is a crime that carries serious consequences, and not a form of work (grafting); a need to focus on young women and criminal involvement; and a need to concentrate on developing strategies that counter the allure and attraction of risk-taking behaviour.

The paper addresses the impact of social exclusion and the need for equality to counter young people becoming involved in criminality and gangs as well as adult organised crime groups.

The paper is based on what have been so far the only three in-depth studies carried out on Merseyside.

Increasingly, punitive policies on ‘poblematic’ pupils are implemented in poor‐performing UK urban state schools. While some are permanently excluded and referred to local authority educational alternatives, others are unofficially ‘excluded’ and referred to other forms of off‐site educational centres, where pupils receive a significantly reduced timetable, undertake unchallenging courses and are unlikely to return to school. Based on an ethnographic research project with 20 excluded young people in one south London borough, this paper will discuss what happens to these young people after their ‘exclusion’ from school. I will suggest that this form of unofficial ‘exclusion’ has significant life implications for these young people, contributing not only to their social exclusion, but also to their increased exposure to crime and victimisation. Moreover, their life options are truncated despite the efforts that they may make otherwise.

Urban sociological research posits a strong correlation between social isolation and the growth in illicit activities of street culture, namely the drug trade and violent gang activities. However, in this article we offer an explanation for why, even in the absence of extreme poverty and social isolation from mainstream institutions, youths in Cambridge, Massachusetts feel vulnerable to illicit street cultural activities. We also offer an explanation for why these youths perceive the effects of social dislocation to be similar to that experienced by youths from larger central cities. As we will elaborate below, some students in Cambridge are affected by illicit street cultural activities because: (1) social dislocation is a relative phenomenon and not merely an absolute phenomenon as described by William J. Wilson; (2) there is a social dislocation spill‐over effect from larger central cities that intensifies or amplifies the experiences of youths in the relatively poorer neighborhoods of Cambridge; (3) and some youths, from stable working‐class or wealthier neighborhoods in Cambridge, view involvement in the illicit activities of street culture as a reputable means of gaining peer respect through status group affiliation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the “event” of the construction of Naguib Mahfouz Square. Drawing on the memory of Gamaet-Aldowel-AlArabyia Street, it attempts to uncover the socio-cultural structures inherited in the Egyptian urban street.

This study adopts Foucauldian discourse on institutions of “knowledge and authority” to approach the power relations between the actors involved. This discourse was constructed through in-depth, unstructured interviews with architects and involved government personnel as well as other archival resources that included national newspapers and magazines.

This discourse reflected an institutional controversy between these actors over the perception and design of the Egyptian street, highlighting the alienation of the designer, and the user/lay-people, from the urban institution. Naguib Mahfouz Square presented a considerable deviation from the established norms of street design in Egypt at that time through its commemoration of a contemporary figure in literature, the architect’s involvement in the design process and the unfencing of urban space. This event thus questions the perception of the urban street beyond our socio-cultural inheritance, and towards street design as a performative urban act that embraces the everyday activities of lay-people in the street.

The paper utilises Foucauldian discourse on power to approach a case study of an urban event and space in Egypt, which has not previously been investigated thoroughly. It thus holds potential towards the resolution of inherited conflict between the urban street and the urban institution.

In the face of urbanisation, there has been prior and current discourse on the gradual thinning out of street identities. Particularly, the diasporic identity of streets such as Petaling Street (Chinatown) has received increasing attention due to diverse development and gentrification plans for the purpose of tourism and urban development. Current and future urban development plans of Kuala Lumpur have led to the need to analyse Petaling Street's identity. Taking this as a point for departure, this paper aims to analyse the contemporary diasporic identity of Petaling street in the face of rapid urbanisation. While there have been studies that addressed Petaling Street's identity, the focus has been from social, cultural and perceptual perspectives which relates to the intangible aspect of place. Taking an alternative stance, this paper studies the contemporary meaning of Petaling Street through the visual communication of facades.

Adapting from Odgen–Richard and Parsaee, semiotics, or the study of signs and symbols, is applied as both theoretical and methodological concept to draw meanings. It examines the visual communication of the cultural products that have evolved from the social processes in shaping the street character. Particularly, this paper examines the street identities by studying the contestation of urban sign and symbols of selected street facades.

The findings reinforced the contestation of identities in Petaling street, with key signifiers of signages, ornament and colour being physical aspects that contest a sense of Chinese-ness. The functional meaning portrayed by the facades due to social, political and economic factors led to the contestations of meaning formed by society that has left the street in a state of irrelevant and unfamiliarity.

It calls to action for retention of significant urban elements of street facades to prevent further diminution of diasporic meanings which characterise Petaling Street as a whole in the process of urbanisation.

It provides basis to understand the contemporary identity and values of Petaling Street and the shift in meanings that has left the street in a state of irrelevant and unfamiliarity. This can prevent further diminution of diasporic meanings which characterise Petaling Street as a whole in the process of urbanisation.

Presents findings from a case study looking at African medicine vendors in Durban, South Africa. Compares the culturally repressive apartheid period with the post‐apartheid explosion of self‐realization of the African population. Shows that street vending is still seen as an eyesore and a problem but still plays an important role in the post‐apartheid era as a form of resistance to simplistic African policies.

The research intends to investigate the different typological and morphological characteristics of the neighbourhood spaces produced by different urban dynamics since the late nineteenth century in Turkey.

The main problem that drives the research is that a significant increase in the construction of gated communities has started to be seen in the last five years as a solution to safety issues in Turkey. However, these gated communities as safe-spaces have resulted in the danger of destroying neighbourhood life's physical and social dynamics by changing their spatial configuration. The study offers an analytical framework structured from defensible space theory and other safe-space theories in the literature. It has analysed the effect of physical characteristics of urban fabric on the production of safe-space in neighbourhoods through mappings and site observations. The case studies are conducted in three different morphological periods in Turkey, which are the Seyrancik neighbourhood in Bolu (the Ottoman Period), the Subayevleri neighbourhood in Ankara (the Republican Period) and the Karaman neighbourhood in Sakarya (the Liberalisation Period).

The analysis concludes that any type does not come to the fore in the production of defensible space in terms of its spatial features, but each has various strengths and weaknesses. As a result, this study emphasises the role of design in providing defensible neighbourhoods in the case of Turkey's cities and reveals the aspects that will guide the design of an urban and housing form in terms of the safety–environment relationship in Turkey.

The significance of the study is the comparative analytical approach to studying the housing development and demonstrates a method for analysing safety issues in the transformation process of neighbourhood structures in Turkey.

Accounting for seventy five percent of urban housing in Vietnam, street houses refer to a mixed-use housing typology that emerged in the 17th century. Such housing has evolved in response to Vietnam's unique culture and environmental conditions. Residential and commercial functions are integrated in a flexible and expandable manner, creating a variety of compositional possibilities in spatial layouts. In addition, transitional spaces such as courtyards, balconies, loggia, and terraces provide shading, cooling, and ventilation effects throughout the building. As one of the most adaptive and popular urban dwellings, the street house has promoted daily domestic activities and the identities of Vietnamese urban areas. However, such valuable aspects have received less attention in many recent urban developments in Vietnam. As such, the goal of this study is to identify and analyze the unparalleled ingenuity of the street house, particularly focusing on its spatial flexibility and environmental responsiveness. Furthermore, this study is intended to apply analytical investigations to the design of contemporary high-rise housing in Vietnam.

With such purposes, this paper is structured in two sequences. In the first phase, typological characteristics of the street house are studied; a field survey is performed to address the evolutionary transformation of the street house. By studying several precedents in Vietnam, our study focused on understanding the ways in which spaces are manipulated and in which diverse indoor and outdoor spaces are created. In addition, passive environmental systems are studied, meaning systems that are integrated with the spaces in order to control the microclimatic conditions of the house. Next, the morphology of the forms and space components are carefully examined through the contemporary examples of street house models in Vietnam. Especially, the flexible nature of the street house, in terms of spatial composition and expansion, is identified. In the second phase, a transition from the street house to high-rise housing is explored based on the previous analytical studies; compositional logic for arranging internal and external spaces are outlined to generate typological unit plans of street houses. Out of diverse design possibilities, an exemplary high-rise building is proposed to address the notions of spatial flexibility and integrated passive systems that are found in the street house. Ultimately, the proposed design aims to enrich dwelling environments for new high-rise urban communities.

The purpose of this paper is to consider Mexico City’s street markets as temporary and modular architectural products that emerge out of intensive, routine and repeated negotiations over urban spatial affordances in a crowded metropolitan environment. Particular attention is given to the polychromatic visual form, not as some detached work of art, but as a collection of tiny signals of the labor, commerce and social relations unfolding below.

For this paper, the author has deployed a methodological approach that blends scholarship and creative practice. From 2016 to 2018, the author conducted fieldwork during three trips to Mexico City, making site visits, undertaking structured observation and engaging in conversations with vendors and customers. The author also collected data available from various municipal agencies, and reportage from newspaper articles, blogs and magazines. Meanwhile, the author developed a creative practice method grounded in the production of rendered aerial views, which allowed for the identification of typologies based on the organizational logics of the street markets.

The paper identifies five typologies of street market, including: the linear, the circuit, the cluster, the contour and the hybrid. The application of these typologies by street market vendors allows for the optimal exploitation of spatial allotments for buying and selling goods. In the end, the paper reveals the polychromatic markets as expressions of an assemblage aesthetic, each a variation on a theme grounded in the cumulative daily choices, desires, routines and thickly woven collaborations of working-class people in one of the world’s great conurbations.

The study is based on a limited number of cases. There are currently 1,400 street markets regularly operating in Mexico City, 200 of which set up on any given day. In order to provide some depth and texture to the study, this paper only examines 15 markets falling into the five typologies identified above. Further research would help to refine these typologies, quantify the daily and quarterly transactions that take place in the markets and assess the impacts of street vending on their surroundings.

Mexico City’s street markets provide employment for some 800,000 vendors, suppliers, transporters and laborers. They also provide one-fifth of all household goods purchased in the city and 40 percent of all fresh produce. And despite the conflicts that arise, they offer an associational approach to the labor of street vending, as well as crucial economic opportunities for women with children. However, it is apparent that street markets face a range of challenges that could be mitigated with supportive policies.

While there is a small and growing literature on Mexico City’s street markets, there is no work to date that examines the assemblage aesthetic that comprises their daily emergence on the landscape. Nor do any extant studies situate the aesthetic composition within the varied urban forms, social relations and labor practices that undergird the street markets.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze walking activity and recent efforts at augmenting walkability conditions in the cities of Macau, Lisbon and Las Vegas.

The methodology consisted mostly of in-loco observations, pedestrian counts and extensive reviews of the literature, city plans and regulations.

The findings include the need to properly design, maintain and retrofit pedestrian facilities, while reducing safety conflicts among street users as well as the establishment and the nurturing of a culture of walking.

A fivefold international walkability research agenda with implications for other cities around the world is established: the value and the need for comparative studies and best practices; the need for urban design interventions; the cultivation of attractiveness and aesthetics; the implementation of safety, construction and maintenance criteria; and responsible funding programs.

This paper has twofold implications for stakeholders with direct responsibilities in the design, planning, building and maintenance of streets and public spaces, and for those who simply use those places at their own discretion.

A succinct set of recommendations include the need to augment endogeneity, the need to make cities for people and not for automobiles and commitment to resolving pedestrian safety concerns.

This paper discusses the factors affecting street vibrancy from both a stakeholder’s and a user’s perspective. The fundamental and inalienable right to walk is analyzed using the WPPFUS framework (walking levels, purposes, primacy of walking, facilities, unique features and safety concerns).