S
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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J
ust browsing around various websites about the Occupy movement, I came across a map of where the Occupy movements have taken place, published on the Guardian website occupy-protests-map-world. It is stunning to see the spatial distribution, a great swathe of protests occupying the world map. But what struck me was—apart from South Africa at the southern tip, and Tunisia and Cairo in the North—the apparent absence of the continent of Africa in this transnational movement.
This could be under-reporting, and it is of course impossible to generalise about this huge and diverse continent, but this absence could indicate a few things about the spatial limits of the symbolism of the Occupy movement. First, the form of occupation. In some African cities, for example, temporary or makeshift housing is not a form of protest; it is a way of life. What impact would it have to erect temporary shelters in public spaces in cities where such shelters are regularly either cleared away or entered, desired or not, into long term co-existence with more solid urban structures? The logic of the occupy movement assumes transgression of regulatory structures that should make encampment unnecessary, not the everyday reality of really living long-term with the insecurity of temporary housing.
Second, the language of occupation. In the context of a continent that has experienced both colonial settlements, and a range of military interventions, both historic and contemporary, what would be the symbolism invoked by ‘occupying’ urban centres? The threat of disorder and displacement that is part of the daily life of some people on the continent makes ‘occupation’ a fractured and dangerous word.
Third, the temporality of occupation assumes the freedom to temporarily divest yourself of other pre-occupations, to lift out from the daily round of life and work. (Not to mention that it has to do with established democratic rights, not only the right to demonstrate, but also the capacity to do so, i.e. disposable time). What symbolism is evoked by the demonstration of this temporal freedom in urban contexts where so many may not have it?
This is not a criticism of those protests (nor is it of course a complete picture of Africa), it is just an incitement to a question – what will it mean to really build transnational civil society movements that genuinely address global inequalities through the geography of their alliances, not just through their rhetorics? How do such links get made? At and in a shared historical moment, how do people find the capacity to make alliances that truly articulate their different but pressing realities?
