This article explores some of the ways in which the closely regulated layouts and property boundaries within Scottish medieval towns may have influenced the form and character of domestic buildings during the late medieval and early modern periods. Drawing together strands of scattered evidence from archaeology, morphology, history and architecture, it re-examines how plot boundaries, main thoroughfares and subsidiary access passages acted as site constraints in relation to the design and configuration of individual structures or groups of buildings, focusing in particular on building frontages and so-called ‘encroachments’ such as booths, stairs, galleries and arcades.

This study offers an investigation into the prevalence of interpersonal verbal hostility and litigation in Nantwich, a town that was undergoing radical change during a period of crisis in the seventeenth century. It surveys the vicissitudes of midwife and moneylender, Anne Knutsford, whose outrageous language was met with a petition by opposing factions of Nantwich society. Through an intensive case-study, it identifies a complex interplay of dispute, transaction and reputation during one turbulent decade from 1660 to 1670. Such a close telling of the intimate details and dynamics of relationships gives rare insights into the goings on of daily urban life. Pieced together from a complicated labyrinth of suit and counter-suit, it establishes Anne Knutsford as a formidable creditor and highlights the fragility of social relationships under pressure from material hardship.

The absence of a ‘real’ urban chronicle tradition in fifteenth-century Flanders similar to the Italian or German models has raised questions among scholars. However, there is also no satisfactory consensus on the exact meaning or contents of medieval ‘urban historiography’. Some were ‘official’ city chronicles, while others lauded patrician lineages or took the viewpoint of specific social groups or corporate organizations and reinforced construction of the groups’ collective memories. Some seem to express the literary aspirations of individual city officials or clerics with strong connections to their towns. We propose an analytical framework to identify and measure the ‘urbanity’ of late medieval chronicles, taking into account the authorship and thematic emphasis of historiographical texts, but focusing on the social environment of their circulation and the ideological strategies at work.

In March 1447, a great fire broke out in Valencia, caused by a former member of the municipal government. This fire destroyed many houses and craft workshops around the Market Square, the economic centre of the city. The municipal government had to compensate the citizens, who had lost everything, and restore everyday life in the area. A versatile Italian watchmaker living in Valencia was chosen to supervise the rehabilitation of the area. Under his direction, the debris was removed. Then after a conscious campaign of urban planning aimed at eliminating any traces of the old Islamic city, the streets were reconstructed according to the norms of the western city.

This special issue addresses the changing role and later history of physical, face-to-face markets for goods, which in modern cities all over the world are mainly or wholly used by individuals and families for consumption purposes. Our focus is on the urban market as a specific urban place and its shifting relationship with important alterations in the governance, society and economy of modern, industrial cities (until c. 1970). The main intention of this collection is to move beyond traditional (western) views of the so-called ‘decline’ of these urban marketplaces. In the history and theorization of the type of cities that came into being all over the world in the wake of economic and political transformations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ‘markets’ are usually thought of in terms of their institutional meaning. They are referred to as abstract notions of commerce and exchange, be it in commodities, labour, cash or shares. Seldom are they studied as real, physical marketplaces within cities; as entities that take up space; function in changing production and distribution chains and evolve as a result of changes in wholesaling, retailing, consumption and the political regulation of urban space, society and economy. Indeed, it is often argued that ‘marketplaces’ in this spatially delimited and concrete sense ceased to be of importance once modernization took hold of urban landscapes all over the world. That this is not the case is amply demonstrated by the articles gathered here: markets continued to be vibrant parts of a wide variety of towns and cities across the globe.

The articles gathered here aim at outlining a complex view of the relationship between cities in a state of ‘crisis’ and changes to policing systems, in a period marked by rapid urbanization and industrialization. They explore the connections between the rhythms of urban change and the changes in the institutions responsible for policing the city. This introduction defines ‘urban crisis’ as a brief paroxysm and a way of describing rapid urban change that is considered problematic especially in terms of social control. It examines three sets of issues to highlight the relationships between policing powers and urban dynamics: first, how the police managed to handle unforeseen, traumatic events in emergency situations; second, how the police forces tried to legitimize their status through their understanding and control of urban dynamics; and third, how the police used the discourse of urban crisis they helped to produce, as a tool for their own ends.

The traditional open-air markets on the central squares of Danish cities were thriving in the middle of the nineteenth century. However, the markets were soon challenged by new urban ideals of the city centre as a place for shopping and capital investment. At the same time, urban reformers made efforts to improve the market trade to meet modern standards. The rivalling interests struggled over the question of modernization or relocation of the central square markets and ultimately the definition and use of the central urban space. In particular, this article will examine the struggle over the construction of a fish market hall in Odense as it serves to reveal the different conceptions of the central urban space that affected the fate of the street markets.

This article looks at how and why Bonfire Night celebrations became more peaceful in the later nineteenth century in some smaller Kent towns and what this process reveals about local civic cultures and identities. The drive towards respectability is seen both in the changing business relationships between participants, spectators and local tradesmen and in the evolving role of satire within processions. The ‘social energy’ visible at these events was channelled such that earlier class and other vertical conflicts within these towns were superseded by horizontal rivalries without, as they competed against each other (an important local variant of civic boosterism) to build free public libraries, for example. Moreover, more peaceful ‘Fifths’ and better reading facilities were linked, since both formed part of the much-altered prevailing civic cultures in these towns – their comprehensive, continuous, identity-driven efforts to present themselves in the best possible light against their rivals.

The authors regret that the following acknowledgment was omitted from the first footnote:

This article was written in the context of the project ‘El poder de la comunidad? Lenguaje y practicas politicas populares a fines de la Edad Media’ (HAR 2011–30035), funded by the Spanish Government, Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.

This article discusses the material and spatial features of the tournaments on the Grote Markt, the central market square in Brussels, in the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth century. It investigates how the tournament acquired meaning in the urban space where it was organized, and how the chivalric event in its turn altered that urban space. These Brussels tournaments, for which both archival, iconographical and narrative sources are available, show us the dynamics of an inherently courtly festival within an urban setting. Recent historiography has stressed that these tournaments, just like other urban festivals, for example joyous entries, demonstrate the submission of the town to the ruler. Indeed, the prince and his household used the public space of the Grote Markt and the facilities of the town hall to organize tournaments and festivities. However, they could not do this on their own. They needed the town government for the organization and logistics of the tournament and for its hospitality. Moreover, the town managed to put its own stamp on the architecture, both permanent and ephemeral, emphasizing the responsibilities that the duke had towards his town, as well as the long tradition of subservience and loyalty of the town to the duke.

Obviously the city of Mexico is far away from Europe. Nevertheless, it was the perfect exemplar of city organized along imperial lines. As the capital of ‘New Spain’ and the headquarters of the viceroy and archbishop, it was the showcase of Spain in America. But suddenly and unexpectedly, the Spanish government's colonial policy had to be reconsidered on 8 June 1692 when the most important riot in the history of the city of Mexico broke out. A crowd of thousands of Indians gathered on the Plaza Mayor and kept shouting ‘long live the king, but kill the government’. They lynched the National Guards and burned every sign and symbol related to Spain. Far from being a mere food riot, it was a genuine political movement. The riot of 8 June 1692 was the result of ‘good government police’ that is to say ‘police’ understood in its original sense as good government of the city. This article examines the consequences of the revolt for the city's police and for the Spanish colonial order which was based upon the separation of the Spanish and Indian population.

The post-war reconstruction era was marked by numerous planning exhibitions which provide a window on the contemporary nature of communication and consultation in planning practice. The 1943 Exhibition of the County of London Plan prepared by J.H. Forshaw and Patrick Abercrombie was a major event with the king and queen making a high-profile visit. This article describes the making of the exhibition, considers its content, design and historical significance and reflects on its importance as a high water mark in the culture of twentieth-century town planning promotion generally and exhibition culture specifically. Archival research reveals how the London County Council (LCC) negotiated for resources from the central government and the local boroughs in hosting and organizing the event and how crucial these negotiations were in its eventual staging, marketing and impact.

This article analyses London's street markets in the years between 1850 and 1939. It shows how this was a period of significant growth for street markets, with both steeply increasing numbers of markets and a steady increase in the number of stalls overall. These markets were informal and unauthorized for much of the period under discussion; the administrative/local government context was complex, and competing authorities (the City of London, London County Council, metropolitan boroughs and national government) hesitated in regulating the organic growth of street market trading, while also recognizing the contribution it made to bringing cheap food and commodities to the population of London. It will be argued that the street market, far from being merely the survival of a primitive form of retail, flourished in response to modernity in London. It should be analysed alongside other developing forms of retail, and considered for its contribution to the culture and material culture of the city.

As the population of Khartoum increased during the 1940s, the Sudan government sought to demolish the Deims that surrounded the southern edge of the city and relocate the residents to a new planned site. Here, it was envisaged that improved housing would help to create ‘modern’, model families. However, like many of the post-war housing projects in British Africa, the resettlement of the Deims was undermined by poor planning, inadequate financial support and resistance from residents, who rejected the colonial planners’ vision of how domestic life should be organized.

This article examines the relationship between police forces and Parisian society during the two final revolutions of nineteenth-century France in 1848 and 1871. The comparison between these two events reveals the existence of an alternative revolutionary project of ‘urban police’. It also shows, however, the relatively weak impact of these moments on long-term transformations of police organizations. This is all the more notable if we consider the Second Empire's municipal reform of 1854 that had a deep impact on the landscape of the Parisian police. Observing this general sequence helps thus to explore the modifications of police powers during revolutionary moments, and the dynamics of the non-linear transformation of police orders and urban societies in the nineteenth century.

This article traces the planning history of two central marketplaces in sub-Saharan Africa, in Dakar and Kinshasa, from their French and Belgian colonial origins until the post-colonial period. In the (post-)colonial city, the marketplace has always been at the centre of contemporary debates on urban identity and spatial production. Using a rich variety of sources, this article makes a contribution to a neglected area of scholarship, as comparative studies on planning histories in sub-Saharan African cities are still rare. It also touches upon some key issues such as the multiple and often intricate processes of urban agency between local and foreign actors, sanitation and segregation, the different (post-)colonial planning cultures and their limits and the role of indigenous/intermediary groups in spatial contestation and reappropriation.

Sailortowns were districts in ports where sailors visited, often lived and were entertained. However, while historians have made significant strides in exploring sailors in merchant ports, naval sailortowns have largely been overlooked. It will be argued here that in the English naval towns of Portsmouth and Plymouth, sailortown exhibited a sense of ‘Otherness’ and a subaltern resilience to the cultural hegemony of civic progress and modernity during the second half of the nineteenth century. Those living in naval sailortowns were geographically and culturally marginalized from the centres of economic and political power and their relationship with the civic and naval authorities was one which varied between compromise and resistance.