Athens_migration the Under Covered City

8/3/2019 Athens_migration the Under Covered City

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Dborah Cohen Benguigui _4th Semester _ Academic Year 2010_2011_Teaching Group_Dina Vaiou_Rouly Lykogianni

Introduction to Special Topics ofGender and Space

_ The undercover city__An approach to gender and space through the mi-

grant neighbourhoods of Athens


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_01_Dborah Cohen Benguigui _ The undercover city Gender and Space _ 4th Semester _2010-2011_

Index1. Geraniou under the shadows _p02.residents, housing, everyday life

1.1.Introduction1.2 urban network centrality

urban network public transport

1.3 urban blocks and open spaces landmarks open spaces

streets phases of construction

typologies _visual analysis

1.4 urban scape: the residents nationalities

location the women role into different nationalities structures social structures without women, by the moment

lack of women presence in the public space

users and everyday life

house_street_square

1.5 urban facilities and productive units lack of community services productive units definition

women and job

1.6 Notes

2. Not a conclusion _p 15.2.1 the skin of the city

2.2 women on the street

3.References _p.


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1.Geraniou under the shadows

_residents, housing and everyday life

1.1_introduction

Geraniou, one of the darker areas of the city, an area that is forgotten, by the citizens of the rest of the city, an area

mostly occupied by migrants but also by drugs and by the crime.

The authorities just act in order to repress the migrants, there is any chance of integration between the two words

that are limited on the sides of Athinas street, going down this street we find on the left the banks, the pedestrian

streets, the main stream commercial shops, the stock exchange... on our right we can see the town hall and the veg-

etables market, no one will overcome this facade. Few are the citizens which abandon the light of Athinas to walk

through Kleisthenous shadows.

This area of the city is a black spot for the rest of the metropolis, this marginal structure has provided the birth of

new communities within. The area is mainly used by Afghanis , Bangladeshis, Chinese, Egyptians migrants. A lot of

them use it as a place of interchange, work, social relations, leisure, dwelling...Those structures are based in the

need of building communities with strong ties, with their own logic, their own authorities, their own traditions. The

spatial cores of those social configurations are the Public Space - squares, streets, corners...- the Intermediate

Space - ground floors and first floors of the buildings, where restaurants, cafs, commerce, work as meeting points

of the communities - and the Private Space - dwelling usually host a lot of members of the same community-.

figure 0: situation

Peirai

osst.

Omonia

Athi

nas

st

.

Kle

is

th

enous

st

.

Sofokleousst.

Anaxagorasst.

Theatroust.

Evripidoust.


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1.2_ urban network

figure 1: landmarks

figure 2: urban nets

The urban character of the area is defined by a lot of variables:

Centrality as a part of

the metropolis,

the area is located in the

heart of the city between

Omonia Square, Monasti-

raki, Keramicos. A lot of

city landmarks are relat-

ed to the zone, and main

streets as Pireos, Athinas

and Ermou. In those street

are collected a big part of the traffic flows of the city to the centre, the borders of the area are well connected to the

rest of the city but the inside of it is outside the flows, outside the city.

Different nets,

the main streets create a

triangle in which three dif-

ferent kinds of urban nets

coexist, one of them is

area of Psiri, which has re-

cently been gentrified due

to its historical and more

traditional aspect, with

an irregular pattern and a

clear core for the neighbourhood. The net surrounding Komounduru Square, which is occupied by dwellings and offices

or warehouses, which try to turns towards the other side of Pireos Street.

The area we are interested in is the area directly under Omonia Square, the area of Geraniou. We can say that some of

the points of the rationalist urbanism have being applied in the area on a distorted way.

We see straight streets, with orthogonal corners but without transversal continuous roads, without views from side


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Public transport,

the area of Geraniou gives a fake impression: it looks really well con-

nected to the rest of the city but the public transportation network is

just related to the borders of the area, to the main streets, this is the

case of most of the neighbourhoods, but in this case as there is a huge

lack of attraction, the inside of the area is a dead zone for the biggest

part of the habitants of the city.

The amount of public transport is enough but the problem cannot be

solved without reorganizing the streets structure, the relation between

the high of the buildings and the wide of the streets, the land uses....

figure 4: bus and metro

figure 5: bus and metro stops

figure 3: internal border_lack of connection

figure 4: external borders

figure 5: Pireos

figure 6: Athinas

to side, we can see some blocks open inside but the space is unusable, we find some

pedestrian streets but they arent connected with any net, we can see a division of

functions -the buildings in the main streets are taller and work as hotels, banks or

offices, but this keep the inside of the area isolated, creating a lack of attraction

for the rest of the citizens that feel that there is no interest in this area, that they

have nothing to do there, that the area is a ghetto and its dangerous to go inside.


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1.3_ urban blocks and open spaces

In this section, the study will try to identify the dominant typologies of the area, to find the contrast between the

different phases of the growing of the area, localize the landmark, the cores of the migrant social structures, the

Open Spaces, the Streets in order to connect the uses and ways of living - described in the next section - with the

spatial logic.

figure 6: Squares, Open Spaces and Public Buildings

The general area of the cen-

tre has a lot of landmarks

(Theatrou square, the meat

market, Koumoundourou

square, Kotzia square,

Keramikos,...): open spaces

and public buildings, most

of them are outside or on the

borders of the neighbour-

hood of Geraniou.

The open spaces inside the strict area of analysis are vacant plots abandoned or used as parking.

The residents use the closest ones: Komondourou and Kotzia. Komondourou is one of the social cores of the area,

where the most of male residents gather to discuss, play sports and build their social relations. Komondourou is

more used than Kotzia because it is more related to the residential area -instead Kotzia is related to the town hall,

to the city centre, to the comercial street of Aiolou, ...- because its outside the flows, apart of the rest of the city.

The migrants women are rarely seen in the streets, sometimes they use the squares, where there activities are re-

lated with the children and with other migrants women. Even if they are mostly seen in the public space there is no

interaction between them and migrant men. Migrant women, specially into the Muslim community do not interact with

other social structures.

The streets in the area of Geraniou are close and dark, the proportion wide of the streets / high of the buildings is re-

ally poor, the area has buildings up to thirteen floors, most of them are between seven and ten floors, the wide of the

streets is around five meters, even though there still life on the streets, most of the apartments are rented by more

than five persons, the private space is limited so the residents use the streets, the squares, the cafes instead of

the living room. They use it as the cores of there communities, as the places for gathering, for sport and for leisure.


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Theconstruction periods of the area in the 20th century, we can distin-

guish three phases for the blocks that we are studying:

Blocks which more of the buildings have been built before 1919, blocks

which more of the buildings have been built between 1920 and 1945 and

blocks with a mixture of the two categories.

A lot of buildings of the area are preserved or into recommendation

for preservation, most of them are neoclassical, low density buildings,

who used to be owned by a more wealthy class before the devaluation of

the city centre and the transfer of the moneyed class to the suburbs.

The low density buildings, and the modernistic one share the same

space, they are mixed , the streets are not prepared to stand the den-

sitiy of the polikatoikias who have been growing fast due to the con-

structions laws.

The area we are focusing in

has an amazing amount of

traffic in its borders, mainly

in Peiraios Street and Athi-

nas Street, Sofokleous and

Evripidou are the only streets

that allowed the car flows to

cross the area.

The lack of pedestrian streets

is clear compared with the

others neighbourhoods.figure 6: density and kind of flows

figure 7: Construction Period

figure 8: Preserved Buildings

The typologies in the area are mainly three: the old neoclassical buildings, the greek ploykatoikia and the offices

buildings.

The most of the Neoclassical buildings of the area are under renovation or unused, some of them are permanently

for rent, others are used for terciary activities, as bars or taverns, just a few of them still being used as residence

in our area.


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figure 9: density

The greek poly-katoikia

(multi-residence) is the

reorganization of the Cor-

busian domino system,

thought initially for housing

is a flexible construction

system offering innumer-

able alternatives: housing,

office, ministry, store,

warehouse, manufacture,

restaurant,supermarket,

car-repair shop. A prototype to be repeated to infinity.

Athens constitutes the over-ambitious transformation of a relatively small built into an urbn hyper-concentration

through the continuous repetition of an unit. 1

The poly-katoikia has taken over the area of Geraniou, as the rest of the city, most of the workers class and migrants

live in those kinds of residences. The numbers of habitants of the dwelling are higher in the migrants areas, this, the

high of the buildings, the poor proportion between buid and unbuilt in the area, are some of the reasons why this zone

is one of the most dense of the city.

The offices buildings give life to the area during the day, even if they are located mainly in the periphery of the neigh-

bourhood, during the night they are empty spaces who emphasize more the feeling of dead zone, dark areaa feeling

that has its roots in the knowledge of the lack of witnesses.

Athinas Street.

Anaxgoras Street.


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1.4_ urban scape: the residents

figure 10: nationalities

The main users of the area

come from Afghanistan, Bang-

ladesh, Pakistan, Egypt or

China. Just near by, the area

of Psiri is full of Greeks, due

to the gentrification process.

Even if they live together

in the urban tissue there is

not strong ties between the

Chinese community and the

rest,however they exist be-

tween the Muslim community.

There are also difference in the uses of the area depending on the community, the Chinese use it mainly for commer-

cial activities, the Bangladeshi and afghans use it for residence, Egyptians more as a meeting point.

The role of the women is also really distinct, Chinese women take part in all the commercial activities, they are in

charge of the shops or helping familiars, in the Muslim community the role of women keep on being more turned tothe inside of the house and the children.

This is not the only reason why its difficult to see women on the streets of Geraniou, most of the migrants are first

generation, a lot of them are just in Greece from a few years ago, because of the circumstances, they are trapped

here, due to the strict control of the borders, they dont feel sure enough -economically and phisically- to move in

with their families.

The city, the only place in the country where the possibility of finding a job may exist has became a trap for them, the

demographic pressure, the poverty, the capitalism crisis, the political measures have created a dramatic situation

in Athens, as always the migrant are the scapegoat.

In the last days this area as suffer from fascist attacks to migrants, men and women. This situation is not isolated,

in space or in time, a lot of migrants neighbourhoods of Athens suffer from it since a long time.

This radical example shows how deep are the integration problems in the Athens, how they are present in the city

centre and how the external circumstances can sharp the way of living the space in the city.

We have to take into consideration, that this area is part of the core of the city, really close to one of the most dy-

namic areas of Athens, even if some migrants use the area as their place of residence, this is not a main residential


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neighbourhood, its basically an offices and tertiary services territory.

This district do rarely take part into the daily routine of women, which activities are more related to the family and

to the dwelling place. The area is used by women mainly as a leisure space, where they specially go in order to meet

with friends.

Men use it in a different way, as their activities, outside the house, are mainly related to their formal jobs, they use

the public open space around their working place. They are related to this neighbourhood in their daily routine, not

just as a meeting point quite far of their residence.

They use it to work, to meet friends, coworkers, to take coffee, to discuss into their own network...

The gender difference that is observed in the public space of Geraniou is a different situation in comparison with the

one in residential areas, in which the women are pioneers in the appropriation of the public space, due to their daily

routines ( children needs to use the open space, women usually are in charge of accompanying them, they cross the

squares, in the residential areas, to buy supplies...), in this case men are the avant-garde, opening usually a path

for their family, wife and children will come around more often in order to interact with their father (i.e. the men

are playing sports with their friends and the family arrives takes sit at a certain distance and the children interact

with the father and their friends in those sports games, taking balls, supporting teams...).

This shows the urban public space as something changing and dynamic, susceptible of being affected by the relations

of its individual users in a radical way, a space mainly used by a certain gender can easily be renegotiated and start-

ing attracting the other by the more frequent presence of some individuals.

Geranious public spaces suffer also from this lack of residential use, accentuating the time uses: the streets are

empty when the sun goes down, the users have returned to their neighbourhoods, the coffee places are closed, the

restaurants, most of them are owned by migrants and offer typical food, are opened until a bit later, some of the

residents are there watching their countries tv programs and discussing, but even though the streets are abandoned,

the sensation of darkness and danger (drugs and crime issues of the area) can be felt.

The area is rough during the night, while some streets down, the neighbourhood of Psiri is full of young people having

drinks in the terraces.

During the day the situation is completely different, the habitants of the area can be sawn on their balconies, while

making the laundry or just looking to the street, the houses, normally rented by some men or by a family, are small,

the balconies are a relief to this lack of private space but also the contact space between the activities of the streets

and the house routine.

The streets are narrow but busy and effervescent, the users go from one shop to another, to do errands, to sell prod-ucts (i.e. vegetables, traditional food in mobile posts, supplies of all kind...) to go to the bars and coffees owned by

their friends, to see their relatives...


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Then we have the squares, not all of them are used by the same kind of people, we are not talking now by means of

ethnicity, age or gender, but mainly of classes, distinguishing here between migrants and locals, but mainly between

descent and indecent, correct and incorrect, honoured and dishonourable people and activities.

We can see as examples the main squares of the area:

Omonia, which depending on the police repression, has been used by drug dealers, migrants, homeless, and

recently by some locals, those uses are excluding, they are not used by those kind of people in the same period

of time, when the area is used by locals is not used by migrants, homeless, and drug dealers in a wide period

(months). When the police dont control strictly, the area its use by migrants during the daytime, and drug

dealers and homeless during the night, but never by locals. Omonia is the example of correct and incorrect

attending to the city circumstances.

Kotzia, due to its situation, in front of one of the important centre of power, the town hall, its an example of the

descent square. It is used by migrants and locals, depending on the daytime and without mixing, but always for

legal activities. Drugs and crime have always been avoided in this space, even thought, ironically, for a long pe-

riod, drugs and crime where just behind the town hall a few meters from the square, but never in its front faade.

Varvakios, again the design and the urban power relations condition the users and activities, this square is

located approximately 4 meters over the ground level, in order to place the vegetable market underneath. The

ground level is busy all the days of the week, but the lack of witnesses allowed the upper square to be an empty

area where drug consumers meet.

Komondouru, this square is used by migrants, mostly men, the activities here are related with sports and lei-

sure, discussions and games, its the most related open space with the users of Geraniou, its far enough from

the locals everyday life: locals can pass by the streets or sit in the coffee places around or work in the offices

that surround the square but they dont have the need of spending time in the centre of the square. The square

has been reappropriated by the migrants as a core of their network, the uses of the square are rarely considered

dishonourable.

This differentiation has been made, unfortunately, because those binary concepts: moral and immoral, exist in most

of the social structures, in migrants and in locals, in men and women. An they have an important repercussion in

which spaces can be used for whom and for what. The attitude of women and men can be different towards the, so

called, moral activities and spaces (i.e. a women with its children wont use a square related with drugs uses; men are

more involved in drugdealing; women and men, locals or migrants, are involved in drug consumming...).


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1.5_urban facilities and productive units

The area of Geraniou, as we commented on the previous chapiter is deeply related with residential uses, this is the

main cause of the lack of neighbourhood facilities, such as schools, formal communities centre, hospitals...

In the other hand there is a good transportation network witch allows the users of the area to reach it easily, the

commercial possibilities of the city centre and the rising migrant commerce make it one of the main destinations to

find jobs, mostly men are employed.

The productive units that we have located in the area consist in:

single men: the basic productive unit, migrants that came, mostly from Oriental or African countries, they can

be literally single( they are young and their only family engagements are with parents and bothers) oe they can

have left their family behind in order for looking to better life conditions before trying to take their wife and

children with them.

couples: men came first, even if their initial destination was not Athens, due to circumstances they felt confi-

dent enough to bring their wife, or they have found a partner in Greece, normally both of them work with a salary.

families: constituted by a man a woman and a certain number of children, the familiar unit its mostly formed

before coming to Athens, in some case the families have been formed in the city. Mainly men use to have a formal

job and women work in domestic areas, with or without salary.


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Figure 11_ Migrant enterprises in the study area according to the country of origin of the entrepreneur.2


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Figure 12_ Migrant enterprises in the study area according to the sector within which they operate. 2


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1.6_Notes

Athens is an endless city, we just have to change our view point, we just have to go up to any of the hills -Lycavitos,

Strefi, ...- to notice the urban tissue, the extended net, growing in all directions, the organization of the neighbour-

hoods, the streets, the avenues ending in the sea, the chaotic mixture that characterize the landscape.

This city is a no typical example. Starting with an orthogonal net and an attempt of rationalistic urbanism, which

tries to sew the different frames of the areas, we end up in a bad realization of the modernistic approach superim-

posed on several historical layers.

The streets are parallel, the buildings are based in the domino system, the neighbourhoods are specialized, some of

them are residential, others are commercial and others are productive.

We can see Geraniou as a fractal part of the rest of the city, we can find in it most of the situations that are repeated

in a bigger scale. The contrasts between the difficulties and the accomplishments are shown on the spheres of the

everyday life and on the urban space.

The street net is too narrow, the building are too high, the specialization of uses, in this case mainly commercial

with some offices and some residences, transform the area in a dead zone during the night, the public space is a

failure, the users are not together on it, they use it separately, each social group choose a square or a time slot,

even though, some achievements are slowly built: the reappropriation of the public space by people who transfer to

it their own culture; the interconnection between groups and individuals, with a similar background; the transmission

of personals experiences.

The social tissue is constantly under construction, particularly in our area, where most of the habitants are mi-

grants, we can feel the rapid cycling of their everyday life, the amazing amount of changes that their unstable situ-

ation favours. The gender relations are easily revealed, the women migrant presence is low outside the residential

areas, the use of the public space in the city centre is part of the men routine, but this situation is in permanent

change, in our case, when the men appropriate the space, usually women start arriving, to visit, to discuss, to inter-

act and to establish new relations.

This evolution, based on the personal relations, affect the specific space in which it happen, transforming a physical

environment into a emotional milieu, according to the perception, making it dynamic and alive.

Our research area its a great example to understand how the social relations change the city rhythm, the time users

spend in it sculpt the urban appearance.


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2.Not a conclusion

2.1_The skin of the city

As a different way tu understand the social network we have decide to take a look into one of the most visual aspects

of the urban space.We can simplify the urban aspect of cities by defining them from their squares, their streets, their blocks and their

corners. We can also implement this vision by taking into consideration the social relations, which usually needs a

deep research in order to be understood, thats why we consider here, as a way of completing the understanding of

the city, the intermediate layer between the physical and the emotional, the skin of the city, the palimpsest of the

human desires over the walls of their space: the cities posters, the graffiti, the tags.

The way those device work is completely different depending on the context, the countries legislations, the specific

needs and attitudes of the population.

We can see a big difference between others Mediterranean countries , such as Spain, and Greece. In the first case the

legislation doesnt allow you to stick posters on the city wall, thats way mainly people use templates to communicate

short messages, in the second case the legislation is not that strict, or not that respected, and posters allow the

users to communicate longer messages, with serious contents, that shows in a lot of case the political implication

of Athenians.

The customized Mediterranean streets, versus the sterilized North European facades, shows the dialogue between

habitants, the tales of the urban life, the exchange of perspectives, the communications of ideas of all kind, without

any state censure.

Layers of posters are disposed one on the other, covering the city with a heterogeneous patchwork, defining the ideas

Figure 13_ Torn and stuck up poster _Exarchia

of the habitants, explaining their motivations, their phobias, their

hopes.

This entity works as an alive entity as an organism in which new cells

are created while others are absorbed and destroyed. This dermis is

responsible of multiple exchanges between the habitants, who con-

stantly interact with it, hundreds of people stop in front of a poster,

or just turn their face to capture an image or a data while their pass-

ing, they can also remove the posters with which they dont agree, or

get in contact with people they want to interact.


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2.2_Women on the street

Due to the high amount of posters, templates and other kind of space customizing we have been able to notice an

important evolution in this skin appearance in only ten month.

A lot of women are main actors in the street art, by realizing the posters, graffiti, and by being represented on them.

As migration is a main subject in Greece and in Athens in particular, its also represented in the posters, from Sep-

tember to June we have seen a increase of posters related with migrations, as the situation with it has become more

tense - hunger strike of the 300, refugees movements, fascist attacks- the street showed it in a proportional way.

As it has been notice the migrant women presence in the political milieu is very low, just a few of them are able to

take part in it.

Due to the migrants hard work conditions -often more than a job- its really difficult for them to participate, migrant

women, who generally have to take care of child, have even more problems to participate, in addition we should con-

sider, that in other cultures, women do not participate in political life.

This situation has been reflected in the posters, claiming, visually, for the women to take part, calling them, explain-

ing that there is a place for them, in the struggle, in the streets, in the decisions processus, expecting from them

to take the reins of their life.

This doesnt pretend to be an extended analysis of how does the conscience of the individuals reappropriate the urbanspace by spreading their ideas on it, which would be an interesting field of research, we just want to introduce this

situation, and to illustrate it with a few of examples that are on our daily routine.

Figure 14_ from the revolution of the Arabs in Europe.

Poster_Exarchia

Figure 15_Direct Democracy

Sticker_Exarchia


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Figure 16_ Chiapas,Mexico.

Poster_Exarchia

Figure 17_ Template_Exarchia


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Figure 17_ Anarchist Assemblies and the relations of power.

Equality, Dignity, Freedom, no to the sexism.

Poster_Exarchia

Figure 18_ Women again...

Poster_Exarchia

Figure 19_ Open anarchist assemblyPoster_Exarchia

Figure 20_ Concert for economic support

Poster_Exarchia

This selection of posters doesnt con-

cern a specific subject or ideology,

we just have tried to present the post-

er that address to specific subjects,

such as women, migrants,...

Those who try to claim that everyone

has a place in the struggle and on the

streets.


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4.References

1 Rem Koolhaas, Sanford Kwinter, Daniela Fabricius, Actar-D 2001, mutations; Yanis Aesopos, Yorgos Simeoforidis,_Athens.

2 Martin Baldwin-Edwards,2005, The integration of Immigrants in Athens: Developing indicators and statistical

Measures,

http://www.mmo.gr/pdf/publications/mmo_working_papers/Migrants_in_Greece_Report_Eng.pdf

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