In 2005, a development proposal for the largest city center redevelopment in Edinburgh, Scotland since the 18^th century was presented to the public. Intended for the medieval and recently industrial part of the city’s Old Town, the proposal sparked years of intense argument over appropriate development for the area. Perhaps no aspect of that debate has incited as much rancor as the question of aesthetics. Arguments over development aesthetics, which mobilized a broad spectrum of actors—from corporate leaders, to city councilors, heritage organization members, private architects, city planners, residents and lay observers—were dismissed by the development’s supporters as superficial and insignificant. Instead, I argue that this aesthetic transformation pursued by the developer was accurately perceived by many, in particular the area residents, as a means of spatialized forgetting. The industrial history of the area would be eclipsed by the physical transformations pursued in this development, and in response residents asserted a conflicting aesthetic ethic as native to the neighborhood. This article explores the discourse of aesthetics and its impacts upon this development process, concluding that such discourse represents a strategy of dispossession in neoliberalizing urban development.

中文翻译：

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“美丽不会让锅沸腾：”爱丁堡的审美话语，记忆和城市发展

2005年，开发提案在爱丁堡，苏格兰最大的城市中心重建以来的18^次世纪向公众展示。该提案旨在用于该市旧城区的中世纪和最近的工业部分，引发了多年来对该地区适当发展的激烈争论。这场辩论中可能没有哪个引起了比美学问题那么多的怨恨。关于发展美学的争论，从企业领导人到市议员，遗产委员会成员，遗产组织成员，私人建筑师，城市规划师，居民和非专业观察员，动员了广泛的参与者，但发展的支持者认为这些观点是肤浅而微不足道的。取而代之的是，我认为开发商（尤其是当地居民）将开发商追求的这种审美转变准确地视为一种空间遗忘的手段。该地区的工业历史将因开发过程中发生的物理变化而黯然失色，作为回应，居民们断言邻里人之间存在着矛盾的审美伦理。本文探讨了美学的话语及其对这一发展过程的影响，认为这种话语代表着对新自由化城市发展的剥夺策略。