Academic literature on the topic 'Divided city, urban conflict, Nicosia, Cyprus'

Nicosia, the capital of the island of Cyprus, has accommodated diverse political changes, and the city itself has transformed in the process. In the recent past, as an outcome of the 1963-1964 ethnic conflicts, the city’s most radical transformation has been its division into a Turkish and a Greek part. This article argues that this division has not only affected the daily lives of people living in the northern part of Nicosia but has also caused changing socioeconomic dynamics. The article explores these shifting boundaries through an analysis of the border area and maps these changing spatialities through in-depth interviews with certain social actors. Thus, this study offers a broader understanding of the Cyprus issue, as well as highlights certain intangible aspects of urban boundaries as they affect the spatial configuration of divided cities in general.

Abstract. In May 2004, only Greek Cyprus joined the European Union. The EU did not negotiate with Northern Cyprus as the Greek Cypriot government is acknowledged as sole representative of Cyprus. Despite this, after more than two years of EU membership, the Republic of Cyprus is seen in a positive light by the people of Northern Cyprus. Through the grey zone of the acquis communautaire, north Nicosia and Cyprus profit from European modernisation and the common market. Although the northern part of the island is still often labelled as «occupied territory», in the light of recent European developments. Nicosia, and with it Cyprus, seem to no longer be solely defined by their Green Line. This grey, self-created Option means that the EU has indeed had a significant effect on the «Cyprus issue». For the Greek Cypriot authorities, their hoped-for advantage of a stronger negotiation position in Europe did not turn out as expected. For the north, their fragile socio-economic structures appear to have benefited from the common market with the Republic of Cyprus. Despite the current partitioning of Nicosia, this city may therefore be understood today as a unique example of urban osmosis.The conclusion is made that both the long-term impact of the new osmosis which is taking place at street level in the city of Nicosia, and the city's capacity for co-optation and resistance, should be assessed and perceived not in the form of traditional geopolitical narratives, but in a form more sensitive to its complex context.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations state that cities and human settlements need to be more inclusive, safe and resilient. In Europe cities have experienced dramatic physical, social and economic changes during the last decades while historic centres of European cities, among the most important assets of the European cultural heritage, are living paradoxes. They are defined as “a collection of beauty, icon of well-being, model of sustainability, but abandoned”. This study investigates the changes in the urban landscape of Nicosia, a particular historical centre in the Mediterranean region (Cyprus). The city centre is characterised by exceptionally well-preserved Venetian fortifications. Due to political circumstances, the capital of Cyprus, Nicosia, is still divided and has been ruled by two different administrations for several decades. This study used optical multi-spectral satellite datasets processing, like the Landsat and the most recent Sentinel-2 products, to detect, identify and characterise significant morphological transformations within the walled city and around it. This paper’s central thesis promotes a more systematic use of earth observation products and derivatives in decision-making processes that regard planning, use and management of urban resources in Europe, especially in support of urban planning strategies of historic cities.

The reproduction of space along the border in post-conflict divided cities is an important issue in relation to urban resilience. Nicosia, widely known as the last divided capital city in Europe, is the capital city of Turkish Cypriots in the north and Greek Cypriots in the south. The Buffer Zone was formalized in 1974 as an emergency measure against inter-communal clashes. Further, the walled city of Nicosia was bisected, and thus urban and social unity became a relic of the past. In addition, the city center became the edge of the two bisected halves. The Nicosia Master Plan (NMP) was initiated by professionals on both sides. Moreover, it was in the first planning attempt that Nicosia was considered as a whole. The NMP was the first self-reliant quest that was developed for the purpose of finding a solution that could operate without having to wait for a political consensus. The Ledra Palace crossing opened in 2003 as the first opening on the border that ran across the United Nations (UN)-controlled Buffer Zone in Nicosia. Such a crossing possessed a symbolic meaning; the two communities feel as if they are socially united, and it encouraged NGOs and artists to step forward and allow the border to be perceived not as a boundary but as a shared space. The Buffer Fringe Festival is one of the recent cultural organizations that was held along the divide of Nicosia and it is also the festival scrutinized in this paper. This festival was designed to explore the boundary as a phenomenon experienced in daily life; furthermore, discussions were had regarding how the Buffer Fringe actors and artists perceived the festival as a peace-making tool. Together with visual and verbal records, the analysis conducted in this paper is based on qualitative data within a theoretical framework concerning body–space connections. In this paper, the aim is to emphasize how festivals can function beyond the limits of borders, provide an arena for connecting people, and exemplifies how one can interpret the spatial transformation of a space within the context of post-conflict divided cities.

This article reports on the technical development and testing of the basic components of a virtual environment platform that could be used for the cross-disciplinary study of complex urban realities, such as the historic city of Nicosia, Cyprus - the last divided capital of Europe. This platform captures data of virtual visitors' movements in space, and the article suggests that these data could help better understand the impact of planning scenarios and design interventions in open public spaces that used to be popular among the citizens of the historic city. The article presents how this platform uses interaction and immersion opportunities to engage citizens and stakeholders in the management of public open spaces that are associated with built heritage. Crowd simulation is discussed as a computational technique that when is combined with the presented virtual environment platform, and under the right conditions, would contribute to a digital practice for small-scale urban modelling. However, it is beyond the scope of this technical note to provide a full empirical testing and validation of the presented immersive virtual environment.

Cyprus has hosted many cultures and civilizations for centuries. Thanks to these civilizations, architectural structures of different styles are seen together in Cyprus. Nicosia's walled city, which started with the Lusignan period and took its current form during the Venetian period, is home to some of these structures. Although very few of the ones that have survived are used in the function of the period in which they were built, most of them have been re-functionalized. In addition, while some of them are idle, some of them have been preserved and used. Despite the touristic interest and socio-cultural activities in the region, the unused buildings have brought various negativities to the urban structure.Over time, with the increasing interest of the individuals living in the city in the historical texture, the re-functioning and use of these structures have gained importance. In this context, Zahra Street, which is among the urban spaces with an important location and architectural structures bordering the Buffer Zone within the city wall of the divided capital Nicosia, was chosen as the study area. The use of the British Period residences here with the function of a cafe today has contributed socio-culturally to the city walled area of the developing city of Nicosia. Effective use has been achieved thanks to adaptive reuse in the region where traces of past life are found in contemporary living conditions. Thus, a more livable, safe and pleasant urban space has been obtained. This study, it is aimed to emphasize the importance of improvement in urban spaces when they are reused in accordance with the changing living conditions depending on human needs. A literature review was conducted on the subject and data were collected using qualitative and quantitative methods during the on-site inspection. The facades, entrance hall/service area, sitting areas, toilets and outdoor/courtyard sections were examined in the tables created for each building with the collected data. According to the research, it can be said that successful re-use was applied to the cafe function while it was a residential function.

This paper discusses the concepts of conflict and border in relation to place and identity reflecting on narratives and meanings of dividing urban and civil borders. It takes the divided Greek and Turkish society living in Nicosia as a case study. The significance of the wall, as an explicit expression of division, is discussed but also overturned by looking at its closure and its permeability when Nicosia’s sealed borders opened again for everyday crossing. The inquiry speculates an alternative path informed by Glissant’s concept of Opacity, Agamben and Nancy’s non-essentialist approaches non-community to look at entangled deep-rooted ethnic divisions and fragments of shared cultures. To inform urban epistemology, two bottom-up examples are analysed using De Certeau’s concepts of everyday life: Home for Cooperation, which is a neutral space in the buffer zone for unified collectively and Occupy Buffer-zone Movement, which has occupied a non-place and transformed it into a public square through grassroots activism. The paper highlights that in order to draw a feasible future of Cyprus, an anti-essentialist acceptance of the multiple and eclectic origins of the context is needed. In this sense, the tangible and intangible meaning of division requires a shift of meaning, from delimitation, classification, separation to a porous element of balance and calibration. The top-down urban models and concept of inclusiveness have been shaken by the temporal civic grassroots communities, and this demonstrates that collective participation fosters the reappropriation of public space, overturning the perception and the experience of the border of differences. This contributes to theorizing a critical and reflective,rather than idealistic, practice of participation in urban design.

The aim of this research is to understand the spatial and social configuration of divided cities, and the relation existing between these two aspects. The understanding of this interconnection is crucial if we are to shed light on issues concerning the construction of identity linked to territorial belonging in the specific case of contested territories. It is intended to analyse space as both a carrier and a receiver of meanings tied to conflict that characterises a given context. The main assumption is that in cities in which a division, whether materialised as a wall or not, marks the existence of a present conflict or the memory of a past one, people experience a definition of feeling of belonging and a construction of otherness in territorial terms. This research describes the consequences of a partition on the city in terms of functions and everyday life. The object of this analysis is to understand if divided cities lose something as a result of the partition and how the previously existing system transforms and adjusts to the new conditions. The founding elements of Nicosia’s partition clarify its peculiarity and its emblematic nature, and justify the choice of the case study from an analytical point of view, since the actual condition of the city makes it a very interesting case: it is physically split into two parts in which nationality, institutions, administration, language and religion are different. Therefore it is the perfect case to analyse the consequences of a division on urban unity. This issue can be analysed through the observation of everyday life in the divided space. I decided to focus on different aspects related to the management and the organisation of the city and also to the inhabitants’ relations and uses of space. These diverse areas of observation can be summarised into main points, each of which has been studied according to the more general frame of ethnographic research. These points are: urban development, city administration and institutions, infrastructures and communication systems, urban economy and trade organisation, and the broader issue of social relations. In order to obtain useful additional information to understand the relation between space configuration and social aspects of the everyday life in Nicosia, I conducted a visual analysis of the partitioned landscape. A border, on the urban level, divides objects and symbols that used to belong to both communities and which now define different and competing groups and identities. Therefore, the presence of a boundary that divides a city into two parts discloses and clarifies the artificial nature of identities based on place affiliation and the multidimensional nature of borders, which are not only material territorial lines, but also social, spatial and political constructions (Newman, 2001). Territory becomes part of the national identity and space acquires significance in narratives and discourses concerning the nation's history. The double function of the border, which generates identification on the inside and differentiation towards what is outside, has a strong reflection on spatial configuration. Divided space in Nicosia has become the materialisation of social cleavages and contributes to maintain patterns of mutual denial. Every material aspect of the borderscape – that is the peculiar landscape created by the presence of a boundary (Rumley & Minghi 1991) – can be used as a tool to understand both the process of identity creation/strengthening and the construction of memories related to national history and to the conflict.

Ethnic conflict is a persistent and vexing problem for the world today. The intercommunal violence during these conflicts not only significantly alters the social and spatial geography in these regions for decades, but also frequently involves external actors who magnify the social conflict. It is within the urban areas that the impacts of violence are often most acute and deleterious to the once functioning system. Ethnic conflict transforms many urban areas into “divided cities” in which barricades and armed posts dominate the landscape. With this paradigm of conflict in mind, the overarching purpose of this dissertation is two-fold: 1) to examine how and why certain peaceful societies devolve into intercommunal conflict, and 2) to outline how ethnic conflict ultimately, and often irreparably, transforms an urban area into a “divided city.” In this dissertation, Nicosia, the ethnically divided capital of Cyprus, serves as the primary case study used to illustrate the process of social devolution from ethnic conflict to a militarily fortified urban division. The three main research questions are asked concerning Nicosia’s division. 1) What historic factors contributed to the progression and intensification of the social and spatial cleavages that appear in the urban landscape today? 2) To what extent is the urban divide diagnostic of the overarching ethnic conflict on Cyprus? 3) How is Nicosia’s urban division similar to or different from other “ethnically” divided cities and how might this comparison help further the general understanding of the causes and consequences of these entities? These three questions help frame Nicosia within the context of the larger social conflict on Cyprus as well as assist in developing linkages with other divided cities. As articulated throughout this study, Nicosia is a “model” divided city that typifies how the historically-laden process of ethno-territorial polarization can manifest itself in the physical and social geography of a contested region. In the end, divided cities epitomize the “worst-case-scenario” outcome of ethnic conflict and once the urban divisions take root, they prove exceptionally challenging to remove from the social and physical landscape.
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AbstractSituated at the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, the island of Cyprus has always been a bridge as well as a border between the Middle East and Europe. It has also been an important place of both emigration and immigration. The situation in Nicosia, the capital city, is marked by decline following the 1974 conflict and partition. At the same time, however, the city has become an important settling place for international migrants, whose presence has grown during the last 20 years. Today Nicosia’s situation lies between a typical south European city (in which migrants find room in the interstices) and a post-war city. Following the growing effort within migration studies to use the street as a laboratory of diversity and cosmopolitanism (Susan Hall), this paper focuses on a single street. Formerly an important business street, Trikoupi Street is now well known as one of the most cosmopolitan streets in Nicosia, in which south Asians, Arabs, Sub-Saharan Africans as well as Eastern Europeans converge. These different populations correspond to different migratory waves as well as different modes of incorporation into local society. In this chapter, we aim to see how the street level may help us to reflect upon important topics in Cyprus such as contested citizenship, urban change, local/global connections, as well as new forms of cohabitation and patterns of subaltern cosmopolitanism. We also aim to reflect upon the multiple temporalities of the neighborhood, in order to show how the history of the street (and the history of the neighborhood) impacts on current ways of life in Trikoupi. We define the current situation as “suspended cosmopolitanism.”