Contested Atmospheres: Heritage, Selective Permeability and Political Affordances in the City.
Abstract
This article examines how the same heritage or revival site can produce both welcoming and hostile atmospheres depending on the cohort, yielding selectively permeable environments that enable some groups while constraining others. Climatic volatility further shapes these encounters, as extreme weather has been shown to increase negative valence by making movement and access more difficult, especially for marginalized populations. Drawing on built-form analysis and political history-supplemented with interview data on everyday navigation and affective experiences in cities-the paper examines three cases: Cairo’s Tahrir Square, revivalist university campuses and Buenos Aires women’s marches. To explain why these locales produce varying atmospheres for different groups, the article draws on affordance theory-an empirically grounded account of valenced action possibilities that exist independently of any one observer yet remain harder for vulnerable populations to negotiate. These challenges often intensify around heritage and revival aesthetics, which can alienate outsiders, and are amplified by Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) elements, such as elevation changes, ornamental walls and other territorial cues. The study contributes to urban political ecology, especially scholarship on how aestheticized urban forms serve as instruments through which powerbrokers materialize dominance and produce uneven access to public venues.
