Perceiving Urban Change in Detroit and Manchester: Space, Time and the Virtual

Abstract

How people experience cities has long been of interest to urban studies. This chapter asks how people’s experience of cities is framed through their perception of urban change. In asking this I place the body, and people’s understandings of ‘life’ and embodiment, at the centre of the analysis. Drawing on the theoretical framework set up in Chapter 5, I explore how the structures of urban spaces and perceptual processes are materially interwoven in ways that are both temporal and spatial. I examine how the specific temporalities of urban regeneration and urban decay are embedded in advertising spaces, texts and structures. Alongside the many other everyday forms such as buildings and streets, these produce an urban vernacular through which people make sense of cities, city life and the multiple capitalist processes that shape cities.