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Perception of distances
compression
owning - related to food (i.e., food market)
and habits.
Relates to the history you have with the city.
Tali S. "you cannot cross that tree" definition of a perimeter that is safe to walk. Fragmented relation with the space. Need to take a taxi. Favelas in Rio, legitimated to enter a space, intruder.
Location of the spaces.

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Personally, I’m fascinated by the way touristic maps don’t show certains part of the city. For exemple, I live in Avignon, a mid-size city with a historical downtown encircled by walls, and most of the architectural patrimony is downtown, making all the other neighborhood less visible in official touristic documents. That, on one side. Also, in regards of the walkable aspect of it, downtown is all made for walking through or biking… but once you walk about 20-25’ outside of downtown, going towards the periphery, even if the distances are not bigger, the car imposes itself

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Police control
Societal control
Food and drinking (drugs). Depending on the time of the day. Rue de la Soif = « thirsty street »
Energy saving
cannot avoid
gender-related concept

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Distance from the closest metro
Within walking distance

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Wandering in a mid-size city can be accompanied by an anonymous or familiar gaze. The metropolis is where the ‘flaneur’ or ‘flaneuse’ can live his/her days, looking around all the stranger faces, staying within the limits of the unknown. S/he does not have responsibilities for the social order, for the potential guilt or secret actions performed in the streets. In turn, s/he can spend her time in the street without having a rush or a reason. Seeing and being seen in the metropolis is anonymous and freed from labels. The small-sized city, on the other hand, imposes a responsibility on the outsider since s/he is no longer a total stranger but a friend, neighbor, relative, or someone that knows the person. S/he has to gaze at the streetwalkers while s/he wanders, detect the dangers and report them to the others. S/he is a wanderer and at the same time a guardian of the social life while the threat of being seen is always waiting in the shadows and corners of the street.

The mid-size city stays in-between. The streetwalker can be anonymous in the crowd or the mission of guarding the society can become his/her duty with the first familiar person s/he encounters. It is never known when the wanderer will be seen, when he can be freed from his/her labels and be just a body standing in the public. The mid-size city is the unknown in terms of the function of the gaze and wandering.

İlknur

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Addressing resilience at the community-level has emerged as essential to highlight the importance of local communities in which action/adaptation takes place, urging the

involvement of citizens. Social capacities emerge from community-place relationships in a continuous process of learning, listening to what communities perceive as their capacities. A community-based approach recognises the city-specificity of resilience and the heterogeneity within urban systems.
The complexity of the urban system may be reduced in more maneageable urban environments, where the need for place-based approaches to analyse how heterogeneous communities and actors engage in promoting resilience can be more easily applied.

contributor: Sara Cruz

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Related to the concept of time; over time you start feeling more comfortable in a city and the scale changes – for example, over time Berlin became "smaller". Because less is unknown, one can start to "own" the city. - willie

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many young people (18-30) leave the mid-sized city for education, work, or discovery.

to be developed.

Contributor: Amer Obied

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One side of understanding the European mid-sized city is to regard its ability to hold its unity. Plato has told us how a city, any city, is, in fact, two cities; one for the rich and another for the poor. However, these two class-divided cities coexist in the geography, overlap in urban structure, and only differ in accessibility to the resources of each -metaphorical- city. In other words, one could always travel from the city of the poor to the city of the rich and vice-versa, but one might find it extremely difficult, uncomfortable, or unwelcoming to stay.

There is another, more visible, manner of urban fragmentation; territorial division. It has been observed that cities have the capacity to split their geography, social and religious identities, resources, and infrastructure if and when a polarising conflict comes to pass. Berlin in Germany, Nicosia in Cyprus, Belfast in Ireland, and Beirut in Lebanon, Aleppo in Syria are some examples of once or currently fragmented cities.

Is “fragmentability” a trait of the large cities? The evidence seems to suggest so; these mentioned cities are ones of the largest, if not the largest, in their respective countries. During conflict, each city was contested by two or more conflicting parties. Heterogeneity, abundance of resources, large population, and large geographical and urban footprint are all factors inciting, prolonging, and sustaining the division. The resulting two cities, needless to say, have very strongly opposing characters. moreover, and opposite to Plato's cities, the two cities are strongly demarcated to prevent any overlap or porosity. It is also interesting to look at how many points and lines of demarcation are but the urban infrastructure itself.

On the other hand, the mid-sized cities have different dynamics for conflicting groups; more often than not, rather than splitting territory, one group eventually prevails in winning or controlling the city as a whole. This happens due to the lack of the aforementioned factors. In other words, while possible to accommodate conflict, the mid-sized city cannot afford to divide itself for neither part could survive without the other.

Unity, not fragmentability, seems to be the appearance of a mid-sized city. It is hard to tell, however, whether this is a result of democracy and inclusion or conflict and exclusion.

Further reads: Divided Cities: Belfast, Beirut, Jerusalem, Mostar, and Nicosia. By Jon Calame, Esther Charlesworth.

Contributor: Amer Obied

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Mid as in-between the extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. 'Mid' as avoiding dogmatic extremes, and potentially more consensual, moderate, common, reasonable.

contributor: Sara Cruz

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Idea of relation to - relativity to another centre. Midsized in comparison to what.
Example of Antwerp
Relation to the government as well (trust/mistrust).

Genk - Hasselt (natural reserve/landscape) > Leuven

c: Kris

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Test

Eliana

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afford a certain amount of time to take care of others

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Not necessarily in contrast with in-between
physical and social

scale of affection has to do with the neigh. that have networks of help and care. When you know each other. In a territory that is around you.

c: Luisa

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Challenge the definition of the EU Commission

dialects reflect this condition of intermediate

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connection network

time changes the perception of scale. Even larger cities can shrink through transportation networks

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Affective in the sense that their intermediate scale can more easily facilitate experiencing the city, exploring and owing spaces! People potentially relate to spaces as these are more accessible.
The "supposed" medium scale allows people to take possession of their cities, appropriating urban spaces and exploring the human scale.

contributor: Sara Cruz

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Definition by difference

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Non-Places
Billboards announce the entrance of the city

“Paradoxically, it is at the city limits, in the cold, gloomy space of big housing schemes, industrial zones and supermarkets, that the signs are placed inviting us to visit the ancient monuments; and alongside the motorways that we see more and more references to the local curiosities we ought to stop and examine, instead of just rushing past; as if alluding to former times and places were today just a manner of talking about present space.”

refer to Vadem.

Giuseppe/Amer

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Thinking about how 'mid-sized' can function 'mythologically' (in Barthes's sense) - whereby it comes to operate as a shorthand for certain lifestyle and leisure preferences, themselves readily fed back into consumeristic and branding processes which imperil / contradict the original imaginary elements...

Who appropriates / controls the representation of the city to itself and others?

Michael K

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Attractiveness towards people from their own country.

c: Angeliki

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Strategy for design. Transition towns, slow cities, MSC urbanity.
Branding of the city based on food, wine, etc.
Living and enjoy
Sarajevo, "Ottoman and western parts", "Olympics city", all the infrastructure that is supposed to support touristic
residents are forced to move to make space for tourists. Deal with mass tourism and touristic boom. Afraid of being isolated.

https://www.oasejournal.nl/en/Issues/89

18 labelled "slow cities" in TR (Mula, ?). It's a reason for them to be visited. > connected with term "neglect". This changed their perceived images (oasis). Domestic and international interest.
At the same time is a paradox because it brings more people to the city: it's a fragile status.
How to preserve authenticity

Klaske/Mirza/Sernaz

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Spatial Urban figures (streets, markets, squares). Do they have another meaning? Not multiple

bypass that allows to go around the city, affected the quality of the people living in the city. Political controversy. Not part centre. Especially in highly motorized countries.

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Importance of airport. When you travel and you want to go to midsized city, you pass though big cities and international airport
modes of transportation on the long distance split in different legs
c: Jesus

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use of the word "city" for regional centres with reference to surrounding towns/region
Amenities that make it a regional attractor in relation to the territory. Problem of commuters. Nightlife and vibrant activities.
Agglomeration around the administrative centre.
to be integrated with "Regionality"

many functions condensed in a small centre.
See role of the city centre = the city
Now suburbs are perceived as part of the city, especially by the younger generation.

Mirza/Klaske

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Capacity to deal with global challenges (i.e., migration, housing sustainability, climate change).
Accommodate differences. Being involved in urban dynamics.
Covid-19, if there is any knowledge if midsized cities were better at coping with consequences (research about that?). What is urban quality.
c: Sernaz

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At what point business starts regarding city as a midsized city (i.e., cinemas)
Contributor: Amer

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The role of the city and walkable distances

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The role of the city and walkable distances

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Mid-sized city is as much a “relational term” as it could possibly be – it’s definition always depends on the exact context; e.g. the biggest Slovenian city (Ljubljana of about 280.000 inhabitants and highest rank of nationally important functions), which is one of the European cities, is the far largest city in the country. It is The City of the whole state. Many people will find it (even too) big (if they come from the rural areas for example). But within the European context is merely a mid-sized one and without doubts a small one in the global terms.

So if we take the European context (as a whole) as the main frame, I would say that the parameters of the mid-sized city are:

role in the network of European cities – it has a role in the network of European urban centres, it is a central node of a European micro-region but not the central node of a macro-region;

the amount of pedestrianised/green public space* per inhabitant – I think the large cities have too many infrastructural demands to provide enough of this kind (*) of space per capita, while the mid-sized cities are much better in this (have a better ratio);

urbanity and walkable distances combined in the same place; the mid-sized European city normally has all the characteristics of the “urbanity” (variety of urban functions but a limited arrange of the same function – not many options to choose from per each function) while they are spatially distributed in a way that they are relatively close to each other and thus in principle accessible in a walking/cycling distances from each other  … in contrast to big cities where the arrange of options when in need for a certain function is big and they are spatially distributed in far distances from each other)

contributor: Matej Nikšić

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Awareness of the territory is distinctive of the misized city. Live the experience of that context.
When you walk, you tend to greet everyone. It's also about the culture and geographies
combination of culture and size

c: Matej

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MS Cities as having a distinct relation to the 'anonymity' typically identified as a feature of urban life. Intimate identifiability without necessarily direct acquaintance / contact...

Michael K

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Feeling at home and intimacy together with social control. Temepered urban experience and it might have to do with sociability,
balance between city and landscape
Klaske

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Differentiate midsized city. Size that is fragmentable. When a city becomes a city of two. Only bigger cities such as Beirut are able to split into two. Two identities at the same time. The city was divided by religions.
Belfast follows similar patterns. Two parallel sets of territories. Comparison to be developed. Conflictual nature of this separations, linked to geopolitical issues.
Language of conflict; Irish Gaelic and English different ways of identifying the "others". Ciaran Carson
In smaller cities people have intimate understanding of what the others are doing
contributor: Amer

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The highlighted division between the central and non-central areas is notable.

The historical center is the meeting point, and it is usually being referred to as “the city".

Living close to the (very) center of the city is still perceived as a matter of prestige among urban dwellers, despite all disadvantages (noise, traffic jams, lack of green space...). In that sense, suburbia is usually (at least in Sarajevans' perspective) a less desired place to reside.

Contributor: Mirza Emirhafizović

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Regionality... [draft] Mid-sized city as bound up in logics of regionality [distinct from parochial or provincial...]. These can be read as a down-scale version of the 'capital' city - but regionality also cuts across the problematic of the state in a European context, especially in border situations. 'Europe' often plays a triangulatory role in the self-images of such cities [/regions].

Michael K

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tram more likely in mid-sized city, metro in a big city / capital
electro rollers typically for?

(draft, data needed to make this a valid point)

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Mid-sized city as driver of econonomic growth [draft]

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Mid-sized city as driver of econonomic growth [draft]

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http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/pdf/citiesoftomorrow/citiesoftomorrow_final.pdf

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09654313.2012.716245

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166046296021692

https://www.mdpi.com/2413-8851/3/1/5/htm

contributor: Sonja Novak

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Public participation and involvment [draft]

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Public participation and involvment [draft]

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Mid-sized city as a community in which public involvement in governing and other decision making processes can still remain tangible and accessible as opposed to metropolises

contributor: Sonja Novak

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In the small European countries, there is quite often a relatively clear "second city" that is smaller and less international than the capital, but nevertheless thriving and ambitious, in competition as mentioned by Asma Mehan. I am thinking of Gothenburg, Århus, Tartu, Kaunas, Tampere, for example. Maybe this national secondness is interesting both from national policy and planning perspective (does the second "deserve" something from the state?) and from the local perspective (we are definitely not like the capital but find our own way). Linked notion might be "second capital" like Manchester in the UK (not a small country of course) with BBC North, War Museum North and so on. Contributor: Panu Lehtovuori

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Level and distribution of amenities/services/programmes: work, production, leisure, living, culture, nature

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Level and distribution of amenities/services/programmes: work, production, leisure, living, culture, nature

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Of course, in a tight knitted context like the European, all is connected, so there is more a gliding scale than a clear distinction.

A metropolis would have most of the larger amenities (museums, universities), but spread over the different parts, so there would be several focal points.

In a small town one would need to go to other towns/cities for many amenities

A mid-sized city would have most, but distributed following a ‘logical’ distinction between centre and periphery.

contributor: Saskia de Wit

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Urban Branding and Community Resilience: The future of European Mid-sized Cities

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Urban Branding and Community Resilience: The future of European Mid-sized Cities

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"Medium-sized European cities have to be able to cope with the national and international competition from the larger metropolises. Also, they need to correspond effectively to the contemporary challenges such as climate change, immigration/emigration, etc. with the help of their organizing management capacity, sustainable regional resources, and resilient local communities to overcome the threats and hazards collectively."

contributor: Asma Mehan

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In how far is the town understood as a unity with clear boundaries and a difference between centre and periphery? In terms of perception by inhabitants and by visitors (i.e. based on deeper knowledge of the place or at first glance) as well as understood from the map. If we place a mid-sized city between metropolis and small town:

a metropolis has different parts with their own centres, fringe areas and peripheries, more fragmented etc… E.g. I live in Amsterdam, which I consider a metropolis, and I connect more to Amsterdam-North, which is where I live, but in the city centre I feel like visitor, although I do have friends living there.

a small town is usually a clearly discernible unity, but has not clear periphery

contributor: Saskia de Wit

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differences between urban community, urban place and urban neighborhood

contributor: Adriana Martins

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is connected with the scale of a mid-sized city
Caring about what is going around, talk to each other, interaction that is easy to lose in bigger cities. Because of social control?
[Antwerp]
combination of scale and culture. Short or long forms of "hi"

contributor: Angeliki Sioli

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linked to responsibility and accountability, contrasting the anonymity and the protection that offers a metropolis

contributor: Adriana Martins

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in relation to other towns/cities in the country
[...] in the vicinity
[...] in Europe

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Drawing on literary terms and narratological notions, the characteristic of the particular “image” or universal “silhouette” (symbol) of a city can be considered among the parameters of a mid-sized city.

▪ From a relational geography perspective, places are social and spatial territories with relational boundaries that refer to how individuals perceive, imagine, experience and interact with the social and spatial entities in that particular realm. However, a place with a universal image and symbolic value may dominate or suppress the subjective, experiential and imaginative potential of personal encounter.

▪ A mid-sized city does not have a universal and fixed symbolic silhouette that governs the imagination of the citizens, inhabitants, residents, or visitors. The image of a midsized city is too evasive and subjective to grip or manipulate; it is expectably a flexible one, neither having a universal symbolic value nor a collective or public function of representation.

▪ An image, by definition, is fluent, flexible and open-ended in a state of becoming, not a fixed and solid symbol (or symbolic silhouette). The image of a place is a particular narrative construction and an experiential accumulation, whereas the silhouette of a place/city is of symbolic value and universally circulates a figurative meaning. So, an open-ended image of a place is more individual, subjective and experiential, while a universal silhouette of a city holds a collectively shared meaning/function. In the former, the inhabitant or the visitor is an active participant in the unique encounter with the city; in the latter, the participant is expected to be part of the prevailing silhouette with a grand narrative behind it.

▪ So, in the communication with a midsized city, the existing image of the urban setting hardly shapes one’s perception, experience and imagination before s/he has an interactive (social, cultural and spatial) experience with it. On the other hand, a silhouette is a universal image, a symbolic sign rather than a particular, subjective and personal image. Hence, if a place has a universal, collective and public “silhouette”, the visitors or citizens will be determined or adjusted by the city silhouette. The individuals will be governed by collective consciousness and probably be part of the collective experience (i.e. It would be too difficult to develop a particular, subjective, personal image in Makkah, Vatican or Mumbai).

▪ The fluid image of a midsized city does not predetermine the individual’s/subject’s imagination, which is inviting but not imperative, engaging and encouraging but not encapsulating; and the persona can have the potential to contribute to the ongoing/fluid/becoming construction of the urban image, by which the experiencing persona remains active.

▪ As for the silhouette of a big city or a small town, if it has turned out to be a universal symbol (solid, fixed, imposing), the participant (as a citizen, resident, visitor or tourist) is supposed to be part of the readily presented, collectively shared and publicly consolidated image, which has emerged as a transgenerational phenomenon or worldwide arrangement of the urban elements. The passivized persona in such a city remains almost always a “visitor” in the face of that silhouette, attuning himself/herself to the collective mood of the city, or should develop somewhat schizophrenic (fluent image and fixed/symbolic silhouette at a time) attitude towards the city as it would be challenging to overcome the “silhouette.”

▪ One's imagination is captured by the pre-existing array of narratives of the city. Metropolitan cities cannot be utterly “big” nor the mid-sized cities are always “smaller,” from a narratological perspective “if a city lets the “participant” tell his/her own narrative then it can reinstate its potential for being a mid-sized realm of experience. Such a definition will not only exclude the metropolitan cities but also small towns having such symbolic meaning and universal silhouette associated with a particular sect, religion, cult etc. For example, Florence, Oxford, Strasbourg, etc. are midsized cities according to the conventional parameters of “size.” Yet, these cities have a prevailing, universal and solid image, thereby signposting a symbolic value and cannot be considered “mid-sized” regarding the spatial, social and personal experience with the urban elements.

▪ Narratives of midsized cities, therefore, are primarily eligible to explore the unique and particular city images. They represent spatial, experiential, perceptive and fluid images of these cities in narratological, psychological, phenomenological and aesthetic senses, respectively, and are more open to overwhelming any symbolic (universal) or collective metaphorical signification. These experiential fluid images also have to do with the relational parameters of town places.

contributor: Mustafa Zeki Çıraklı

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contributor: Silvia Quinteiro

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Amount of citizens
Amount of m2

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In her article “The Morality of Urban Public Life: The Emergence and Continuation of a Debate,” Lofland distinguishes between three different realms; namely private, public and parochial. She defines realms as social territories, each characterized by a distinctive relational that refers to how individuals interact with one another. Accordingly, the parochial realm is characterized by a sense of commonality among acquaintances and neighbors who are involved in the interpersonal networks that are located within communities. In contrast, the public realm is marked by a stranger or categorical relational form. It signifies the non-private parts of urban areas, occupied by individuals who are personally unknown or only categorically known to each other. The parochial realm could be a parameter to define the mid-sized European city. On the one hand, it has positive connotations; like urban belonging, care, sense of a community, neighboring practices. On the other hand, it creates certain constraints, which are connected with known social positions, roles, and smaller communities where residents know each other. It lacks the anonymity of urban space and anonymity among ‘strangers’ -hence freedom-  provided by the metropolis. It might be interesting to discuss whether the rules, meanings, expectations, physical structures associated with urban space and community are relatively fixed, explicit, and less fluid/loose in the mid-sized European city.

contributor: Sernaz Arslan