City…form north-Europe -> an Urban Fiction

by AgaTino Rizzo

After three months “City…from north-Europe” change skin to become a more complete and independent column dealing with urban culture, architecture, and public space not only in “north-Europe”. Therefore we changed the name in "an Urban Fiction".

Our early issues are still valid: support the making of the PresS/Tletter an international platform, provide a new “oblique” point of view in the current practice of urbanism, for instance.

In UF, however, we will focus also in emergent urban lifestyles, new technologies, new political horizons, and we will try to stimulate a trans-disciplinary debate on urban research.

We are working to structure UF around at least three issues:

1. UF-Kosovo: focus on an emergent European country;
2. UF-City: urban research and practices;
3. UF-Toolbox: new practical, theoretical, and political horizons after the current financial crisis.

Today we have an incredible opportunity to re-think cities and development. The crisis shows even to the most proud architect the limits on conceiving cities as space to be filled (a brutal masculine practice). Therefore we should call for a social involvement. It will be a shift from a scientific professionalism to a fuzzy social practice. That’s the last chance to make urban researchers and practitioners useful for the world.

I hope UF will be able to go beyond cities, perhaps investigating what’s going on in a more than ever forgotten country-side, and pointless rhetoric.

The aim of this space is to create tools capable to affect the most urgent global emergencies: social segregation and economic polarization.

You find UF at this link: http://www.presstletter.com/storico.asp?s=An+Urban+Fiction

* UF is also in facebook (link)