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cholars and practitioners of urban planning need to rethink the field’s futures at this important historical juncture: some might call it a moment of truth when there is little left to hide. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed many cracks, contradictions, and inequalities that have always existed but are now more visible. This also includes the global vaccine apartheid that is ongoing as I write these words. Moreover, this is a time when the violence through which U.S. imperialism has exercised power worldwide is increasingly exposed. Protests in the summer of 2020, which spread all over the United States like fire through a long-dried haystack, showed Americans and the whole world that racialized violence and police brutality are real. They also revealed that such brutality is spatially facilitated in American apartheid—a condition that planning has been far from innocent in creating and maintaining. I think this reckoning is particularly important in the United States, the belly of the beast, where there might have been more of an illusion about planning innocence.
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Moreover, this is a time when the violence through which U.S. imperialism has exercised power worldwide is increasingly exposed. Protests in the summer of 2020, which spread all over the United States like fire through a long-dried haystack, showed Americans and the whole world that racialized violence and police brutality are real. They also revealed that such brutality is spatially facilitated in American apartheid—a condition that planning has been far from innocent in creating and maintaining. I think this reckoning is particularly important in the United States, the belly of the beast, where there might have been more of an illusion about planning innocence.
- Moreover, this is a time when the violence through which U.S. imperialism has exercised power worldwide is increasingly exposed.
- Protests in the summer of 2020, which spread all over the United States like fire through a long-dried haystack, showed Americans and the whole world that racialized violence and police brutality are real.
- They also revealed that such brutality is spatially facilitated in American apartheid—a condition that planning has been far from innocent in creating and maintaining.
- I think this reckoning is particularly important in the United States, the belly of the beast, where there might have been more of an illusion about planning innocence.
What’s a Rich Text element?
Moreover, this is a time when the violence through which U.S. imperialism has exercised power worldwide is increasingly exposed. Protests in the summer of 2020, which spread all over the United States like fire through a long-dried haystack, showed Americans and the whole world that racialized violence and police brutality are real. They also revealed that such brutality is spatially facilitated in American apartheid—a condition that planning has been far from innocent in creating and maintaining. I think this reckoning is particularly important in the United States, the belly of the beast, where there might have been more of an illusion about planning innocence.
- Moreover, this is a time when the violence through which U.S. imperialism has exercised power worldwide is increasingly exposed.
- Protests in the summer of 2020, which spread all over the United States like fire through a long-dried haystack, showed Americans and the whole world that racialized violence and police brutality are real.
- They also revealed that such brutality is spatially facilitated in American apartheid—a condition that planning has been far from innocent in creating and maintaining. I think this reckoning is particularly important in the United States, the belly of the beast, where there might have been more of an illusion about planning innocence.
What’s a Rich Text element?
Moreover, this is a time when the violence through which U.S. imperialism has exercised power worldwide is increasingly exposed. Protests in the summer of 2020, which spread all over the United States like fire through a long-dried haystack, showed Americans and the whole world that racialized violence and police brutality are real. They also revealed that such brutality is spatially facilitated in American apartheid—a condition that planning has been far from innocent in creating and maintaining. I think this reckoning is particularly important in the United States, the belly of the beast, where there might have been more of an illusion about planning innocence.
What’s a Rich Text element?
Moreover, this is a time when the violence through which U.S. imperialism has exercised power worldwide is increasingly exposed. Protests in the summer of 2020, which spread all over the United States like fire through a long-dried haystack, showed Americans and the whole world that racialized violence and police brutality are real. They also revealed that such brutality is spatially facilitated in American apartheid—a condition that planning has been far from innocent in creating and maintaining. I think this reckoning is particularly important in the United States, the belly of the beast, where there might have been more of an illusion about planning innocence.
What’s a Rich Text element?
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hen I set out to write my article, "Indignation and Inclusion: Activism, difference, and emergent urban politics in postcrash Madrid," Ahora Madrid was in its infancy. I was fairly skeptical about its chances of actually winning. I was clearly, however, proven incorrect—Manuela Carmena is now the mayor of Madrid. In Barcelona, Ada Colau has gone from spokesperson for the anti-evictions movement to the mayor’s office. Meanwhile, Podemos made tremendous strides in the December 2015 national elections; many in its highest ranks emerge directly from urban social movements.
As an addendum to this piece, I want to emphasize two ideas. One is contextual and historical, while the other is perhaps an orientation for future research and the role of scholars in articulating the horizons of possibility for radical democratic praxis.
First, I think we must read the recent moment of opening up in Spanish politics as decidedly urban. The success of Podemos and other new parties in the recent elections broke decades of bipartisan elections, extant since the advent of democracy. Podemos’ victories were made possible by the popular assemblies, the new spaces of encounter, and many months of organizing throughout a variety of scales. Of utmost importance, however, is the scale of the city, where citizens’ coalitions across the peninsula demonstrated that another kind of urban politics is possible. In a country that has long been divided between urban and rural, elite and popular classes, this signals the emergence of an urban population enlivened by the possibilities of a new way of thinking and doing politics. It also, crucially, is a response to frustration with hegemonic processes of urbanization, a way of bringing urban Spain’s failed past into contact with a radical future. Those processes, after all, led to the ruin and fury evident throughout the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca, but also to new articulations of mutuality and aid, empathy and solidarity, which have traveled outwards, connecting intimate spaces of the household with institutional arenas of traditional political power.
Yet as these new political entities gain electoral victories, their ability to govern has been anything but easy. In Madrid, Carmena’s government has sustained attacks from both the right and left. The city’s staunch conservatives have eked out any and all means by which to destabilize the government, while the radical left bemoans the slow pace of change and capitulation to the right. This brings me to my second point: I think we need further attention to the ways in which protest becomes institutionalized, which is happening in a variety of contexts. I also think we need to engage with the fine-grained dynamics of both micro and macro political changes. In particular, those spaces and sites in which traditional electoral politics come into contact with more radical, autonomous, and unruly forms of activism provide potent opportunities for us to think about possibility, hope, and alternative urban futures.
