ABSTRACT

Law and the City offers a lateral, critical and often unexpected description of some of the most important cities in the world, including Moscow, Istanbul, Berlin, Singapore, Athens, Mexico City, Toronto, Sydney, Johannesburg: each one from a distinctive legal perspective.

An invaluable 'guide' to adopting a different approach to the city and its history, culture and everyday experience, Law and the City is not simply an exploration of the relationship between these two spheres.

It details:

  • a flourishing of law’s spatiality and urban legal locality
  • an unfolding of both the juridical urban body and the city’s legal dreams, of both the ‘urban law’ and the ‘juridical polis’.

Enlightening and at the same time problematizing the reader, this volume is an innovative collection of truly global dimensions that will prove compelling reading both for specialists and for critical travellers.

chapter |20 pages

Introduction

In the lawscape *

part I|53 pages

Architectonics of power

chapter Chapter 1|15 pages

Berlin

The untrusted centre of the law

chapter Chapter 2|16 pages

Moscow

Third Rome, model communist city, Eurasian antagonist — and power as no-power?

chapter Chapter 3|19 pages

Istanbul, political Islam and the law

The paradox of modernity

part II|56 pages

Streets of the real

chapter Chapter 4|19 pages

Homophobic violence in London

Challenging assumptions about strangers, dangers and safety in the city

chapter Chapter 5|16 pages

Singapore

The one-night stand with the law

chapter Chapter 6|18 pages

Panjim

Realms of law and imagination

part III|57 pages

Legality/illegality/legitimacy

chapter Chapter 7|20 pages

Athens

The boundless city and the crisis of law

chapter Chapter 8|17 pages

Mexico City

The city and its law in eight episodes, 1940–2005

chapter Chapter 9|17 pages

Law and the poor

The case of Dar es Salaam

part IV|48 pages

The other intramuros

chapter Chapter 10|13 pages

Toronto

A ‘multicultural' urban order

chapter Chapter 11|16 pages

Sydney

Aspiration, asylum and the denial of the ‘right to the city'

chapter Chapter 12|16 pages

Johannesburg

A tale of two cases

part V|47 pages

Lines of lawscapes

chapter Chapter 13|16 pages

Brasília

Utopia postponed

chapter Chapter 14|15 pages

Cyber cities

Under construction

chapter Chapter 15|13 pages

First we take Manhattan

Microtopia and grammatology in Gotham