This article argues that high-rise residential projects—a dominant form of contemporary cities—are playing a pivotal role in generating new urban experience for city dwellers. Drawing on an affect-based research approach, we empirically examine high-rise residential projects built from 1998 to 2016 in two medium-size cities in central Israel. We address three moments of new affective experience of residents: (1) the view and the practice of viewing; (2) bodies and sound; and (3) bodies becoming a body. The article contributes a conceptual shift to urban planning for studying present-day urban experience. Accordingly, it derives insights to better understand contemporary socio-spatial relations in cities.

High-rise housing complexes (HRHCs) are a prominent trend in urban development. They generate new configurations of open green spaces, thus creating a new set of human-environment relations and a new constellation of urban landscapes. However, little attention has been devoted by the literature to these new spatial configurations and the urban experience they offer. Focusing on the spaces between buildings, this research article examines the urban morphology of these large urban developments and how they are being experienced by residents. Based on morphological analysis, we propose a set of outputs with which to discern and evaluate various characteristics of these new spaces. Namely, a typology of HRHCs complexes, three evaluation indexes, and a green/gray nolli map. Drawing on morphological analysis, the research discusses the role of green spaces of HRHCs in the experience of residents. We portray different tensions arising from the residents’ experience based on walking interviews and propose how these tensions are connected to the morphology of space. Juxtaposing the morphological and qualitative topological analyses, we focus on the way that different planning aspects of HRHCs’ open spaces might foster everyday use and function as well as attitudes and feelings.

Smart specialization is studied in the Arab–Jewish region of Haifa and Nazareth, with a focus on high-tech ventures created by Arab entrepreneurs. We find that not only did smart specialization occur under these complex conditions, but also it was spontaneous. It began with the sharing of entrepreneurial knowledge held by Jewish entrepreneurs through social networks set up by grassroots organizations. Policy initiatives in support of this process followed, helping to reshape the region’s socioeconomic structure. Therefore, we argue that smart specialization followed a four-phase process: a pre-phase of knowledge transfer between the two communities, followed by Foray’s three phases .

Present day cities are highly diverse and include ongoing socio-spatial transformations. Attending to recent calls made within urban planning literature to draw on relational, nonrepresentational approaches to better attend to current cities dynamics, this paper suggests three adapted qualitative methods to the study of socio-spatial relations. The paper draws on three empirical case studies of diverse urban settings (the international airport and high-rise residential complexes) in which traditional qualitative methods were adjusted to attune to ‘affects’ in socio-spatial research: sense-oriented observations; experiential walking tours; and in-depth in situ interviews. The paper discusses the benefits and disadvantages of each of these methods and reconsiders the knowledge that can be derived from socio-spatial studies in urban planning for better urban futures. The paper advances the development of a solid nonrepresentational framework in urban planning to derive nuanced understandings of diverse urban experiences in rapidly changing cities, and planning which is more attentive to multiplicities, transformations, and complexities. For nonrepresentational scholars, the paper contributes to the search of affective methodologies empirical examples utilizing qualitative methods which were adjusted to include affective experiences in diverse urban settings.

Aeromobility and air travel are known to produce multilevel experiences of sound, ultimately resulting in social and environmental struggles against noise pollution. Different studies that address aeromobile sounds and atmospheres, however, do so while using highly different concepts, approaches, tools, and methods that often create disconnects between different disciplines and their capacity for dialogue. Drawing primarily on a study of Ben Gurion International Airport, and on a nonrepresentational approach to aeromobile sounds, their experience, representation, and sensing – by people and technologies – this paper provides conceptually informed empirical accounts of different ways to get to know noise, while addressing the gaps they create between different fields of knowledge. The paper concludes that nonrepresentational thinking is a valuable pillar with which shared grounds between academic discourse, practitioners, policymakers, and the public could be progressed, offering wider considerations of noise, its constitution, outcomes, and futures in aeromobile geographies and airport planning.

Amidst major urbanization and technologization processes, scholars have been seeking innovative concepts and methods for studying urban environments and settings. Behavioral mapping was developed in the 1970s by environmental psychologists. However, despite its potential to address new challenges, the method remains relatively underdeveloped in the field of urban planning. This paper juxtaposes the new objectives of urban planning with the qualities of behavioral mapping to discuss the method’s relevance for studying dynamic urban environments. Drawing on case studies of complex urban settings of different scales (a community park and a hospital), we offer a systematic analysis of applying behavioral mapping in urban planning and conclude about the use of the methods and its potential to address contemporary challenges faced by urban planners.