Specificity

The last two deca­des have seen a sharp increase in the speed, sca­le and scope of urba­ni­sa­ti­on that has fun­da­men­tal­ly chan­ged the cha­rac­ter of urban are­as. Tran­s­cen­ding various phy­si­cal bor­ders, poli­ti­cal juris­dic­tions and social sphe­res, urba­ni­sa­ti­on has beco­me a pla­ne­ta­ry phe­no­me­non. While it is often assu­med that this phe­no­me­non leads inex­orab­ly to uni­form and undif­fe­ren­tia­ted urban ter­ri­to­ries, evi­dence shows that it also gives rise to sur­pri­sing forms of dif­fe­rence, diver­si­ty and varia­ti­on within and bet­ween urban are­as. This simul­ta­neous pro­li­fe­ra­ti­on and diver­si­fi­ca­ti­on of urban forms have important impli­ca­ti­ons for urban plan­ning and design. In the first ins­tance, it demands a more sup­p­le con­cep­tu­al frame­work that can both hold the pro­ces­ses of pla­ne­ta­ry urba­ni­sa­ti­on and remain sen­si­ti­ve to the diver­si­fy­ing local manifestations.

A rese­arch programme

The con­cept of spe­ci­fi­ci­ty beca­me the core of a rese­arch pro­gram at ETH Stu­dio Basel that las­ted for many years. The cen­tral hypo­the­sis of this pro­ject is that urban are­as, pre­cis­e­ly under con­di­ti­ons that are con­ver­ging world­wi­de, tend to deve­lop their own spe­ci­fi­ci­ty, their own uni­que cha­rac­ter, set of pat­terns, and distinc­ti­ve phy­si­cal and social pre­sence. Urba­ni­sa­ti­on is inva­ria­bly a con­cre­te pro­cess shaped by local con­di­ti­ons, struc­tures, and power rela­ti­ons. Glo­bal ten­den­ci­es accor­din­gly find vary­ing inter­pre­ta­ti­on depen­ding on local con­di­ti­ons. The book on Spe­ci­fi­ci­ty explo­res the­se pro­ces­ses in sel­ec­ted cities und urban are­as: Nap­les, the Nile Val­ley, Hong Kong, Bel­gra­de, Nai­ro­bi, Bei­rut, Casa­blan­ca, and the Cana­ry Islands.

ETH Stu­dio Basel: The Ine­vi­ta­ble Spe­ci­fi­ci­ty of Cities (2015)

Elec­ti­ve Cour­se Fall Semes­ter 2008 

Year­book. DARCH, ETH Zürich 2009

Schmid, Chris­ti­an (2023): Spe­ci­fi­ci­ty and Urba­ni­sa­ti­on: A Frame­work for Com­pa­ra­ti­ve Ana­ly­sis.
In: Le Galès, Patrick and Robin­son, Jen­ni­fer (eds.): The Rout­ledge Hand­book of Com­pa­ra­ti­ve Glo­bal Urban Stu­dies. Rout­ledge: Lon­don, 300–311.