evicting the public.pdf

8/11/2019 Evicting the Public.pdf

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Deng Xiaoping and his colleagues did many good things, just not on

June 4, 1989. Bloombergs action against Occupy Wall Street was

directly analogous to those of rulers who do not even claim to be

democrats.

One should not just condemn his actions but wonder why he and a

variety of other well-intentioned leaders thought such actions made

sense. The pretext was health and fire concerns, which are certainly

legitimate, but I doubt anyone imagines that sanitation or safety is the

whole story.

There is the obvious point that Bloombergs fortune was made mainly in

financial services not public service. Its not surprising he sides more

with Wall Street than its critics, even in a time when common practices

as well as problematic individuals on Wall Street have caused ordinary

people enormous pain. It may be that Mayor Bloomberg sought to

defend Wall Street and wealth from the Zuccotti Park occupation. But I

doubt he thought the protesters were on the verge of winning. I suspect

he merely thought it was more important to maintain public order than

to allow those particular citizens to exercise public voice.

Similar decisions have been made by officials across the country,

Democrats as well as Republicans. The predicament of university

presidents is instructive. Some of these leaders no doubt agree with

protestors that the power of financial capital has become too great, that

inequality is too extreme. They also face immediate practical challenges.


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They are charged with maintaining order, and the safety of students is

a real issuethough its hard to say how serioussince the Occupy

encampments brought lots of non-students onto campuses. University

presidents are also tasked with raising money from wealthy donors. This

isnt optional, partly because politicians have slashed public funding for

higher education. Yet relying on private donations to make up the

differences changes the character of universities. Among other things, it

makes it less and less possible for them to offer public spaces for protest

against the control of society by financial interests.

So, it is a pity that Mayor Bloomberg chose repression over freedom for

dissent. But we need to face the fact that the use of heavily armed police

to evict and arrest protestors and reporters is a national pattern, not

simply a matter of the personal preferences of individual politicians or

university presidents. This pattern reflects the very ascendancy of

private financial capital that Occupy Wall Street protests. But it is a

more complicated pattern than just the power of the rich over

politicians, real though that is.

The material power of wealth is reinforced by law, as for example the

Supreme Court has declared that corporations are individuals entitled

to constitutional guarantees of free speech. It is reinforced by cultural

campaigns like those through which conservative think tanks have

encouraged the view that private property is natural while public space

(and perhaps the public interest) is optional. Zuccotti Park, we are often

reminded, is private property. But of course the park is also the small


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manage media coverage of important public events are explicitly

antidemocratic.

Occupy Wall Street and its cousins around the country constitute only asmall social movement. It has resonant slogans and appeal beyond thenumbers of its activists, but it is at best in the early stages of itsdevelopment. It sounds melodramatic to say that democracy itself is atstake in the widespread moves to repress its main strategy of publicdemonstration. But it is true. Happily American democracy is not on itslast legs; there is plenty of chance to fight back against repression andelite efforts to manage public participation. But the issue is basic. Afterall, democracy depends not just on voting and the rule of law but onsocial movements and public expressions of dissent.


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http://pmarcuse.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/occupy-and-the-provision-of-

public-space-the-citys-responsibility/

Occupy and the Provision of Public Space: The

Citys Responsibilities

The occupation of key public spaces by Occupy Wall Street, as a means

of calling attention to more basic problems, raises questions of the role

of public spaces that need to be urgently dealt with. The basic questions

about the organization of society, democracy, inequality, social justice,

public priorities are deep-going and require long-term answers. They

should not be pre-empted by the immediate needs for space, not should

any space be fetishized. But spatial issues need to be dealt with

immediately and urgently.

The need for, and the function of, public space, raised by the Zuccotti

Park affair, is an issue that should be confronted directly as an issue in

democratic governance. While other city departments are also

necessarily involved, the focus here is on the appropriate concerns of

the City Planning Commission and its staff, as one entry point in its

consideration.

It is axiomatic, we believe, that the concern of city planning is not only

promotion of the efficient use of the citys built environment and the

health and safety of its users, but also the extent to which that

environment, and generally planning for and allocation land uses in the

city, furthers the interests of democracy and participation in the affairs

of the community.


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The Zuccotti Park affair, and similar forcible evictions of protestors

from public spaces in cities across the country, reveals a deficit in the

provision and management of public space. The courts may ultimately

rule that the constitutional provisions guaranteeing the right peaceably

to assemble and petition for the redress of grievances implies a

constitutional duty on states and their cities to make such assembly

possible through the provision of public space for its exercise. Until

there is a change in the composition of the U.S. Supreme court,

however, it is left for other branches of government to accept that

responsibility as a matter of good democratic policy. The following

discussion suggests the possibilities in New York City.

The occupiers of Zuccotti Park clearly had a message they wished to

convey to the wider public, one that concerned issues of governance,

social justice, public policy, the conduct of the affairs of the city. It was

perhaps a controversial message, one affecting a wide range of subjects.

There is widespread interest in at what the occupiers have to say, both

pro and con. They have found Zuccotti Park a feasible location in which

not only to express their opinions but to discuss them, look at alternate

formulations, educate themselves on the issues, and in the process

develop a model of discussion and transparent decision-making that is

itself of significant potential value to the development of urban

democracy. They claim the right to occupy a particular space not simply

on First Amendment grounds they do not wish simply to yell and

scream for its own sake, but to participate in the democratic governance

of the society in which they live. They are in a notable modern tradition

of the use of central spaces for democratic action, going from Plaza de

Mayo to Tahrir Square, including in the U.S. spaces such as the mall inWashington D.C. An even older tradition goes back to the Athenian


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agora and the medieval cathedral square (as St. James in London

today). Their availability for political use is generally taken for granted,

if sometimes limited by undemocratic regimes or used for repressive

purposes, as with Nazi plazas and Soviet squares.

In a city as dense, and with the kind of market-dictated property values

it reflects, there is a real need to face the lack of such spaces directly and

to plan for their use as part of the essential city planning process and

governmental regulation of land uses. The Zuccotti Park affair

highlights the urgency of the need to act.

We believe that the city government should, in confronting uses such as

those of Occupy Wall Street, welcome their initiative for public

involvement and consider carefully how the citys planning process

might promote the occupiers ability to participate, actively and

peaceably, in the citys public life

How might this be done?

An open and democratically-motivated city leadership might provide

communications facilities, radio and TV access, sponsor public fora,

have transparent discussions on the issues being raised in governing

circles, call for open and imaginative and constructive supportive

conduct by city officials in all matters related to the occupiers abilities to

make their voices heard, encouraging a public debate around their

views. But even short of such actions, making space available for such

activities is a primary need that should be addressed by the City, a need

that requires it to examine the possibilities for the use of space withinthe city to encourage democratic activities. The demands of the First


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Amendment set a minimum threshold for the exercise of the right to

free speech, but what is needed is not the ability to speak freely out in

the desert, inaccessible to most and heard by few. Rather, what is

needed are publicly available spaces that can fulfill the functions of the

traditional agora, places where free men and women can meet, debate,

speak to and listen to each other, learn from each other, confront issues

of public concern and facilitate their resolution.

Zuccotti Park was not ideal for the purposes of speech and assembly,

but by almost heroic effort it was made into one in which such uses

thrived. The City could have supported them: it could have done things

as simple as provide sanitary facilities, as it has in other parks; it could

have provided sound systems that would both facilitate wide

participation and minimize disturbance to neighbors; it could have

consulted on health and safety measures, provided fire extinguishers,

safe connections to power lines, even efficient sources of heat and

protection from the elements. Facilities for the provision of food and

water could have been provided, as they are in other parks. It could have

arranged with the occupiers that they could speak and meet in safety

and security. The availability of spaces such as the atrium at 60 Wall

Street might be a model. But the City did nothing along these lines at

Zuccotti Park; it did not even explore their possibility.

But it is not too late to recognize the problem and plan for its immediate

amelioration and long term solution. We could learn from Zuccotti Park

what is needed and plan how to provide it. The city has developed other

plans which include provision of public spaces, and has had them since

the city was founded. But those plans need to clarify further what thosepublicly available spaces are for what, purposes they should serve,


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where they should be located, how they should be designed and

equipped. We have plans for the spaces and the facilities that have been

shown to be needed for other purposes. We have waterfront plans of

which we are proud, transportation plans, environmental plans, social

service plans, recreational plans; we need public spaces as part of a

democracy or public participation plan, one which would look at the

spaces and the facilities needed to make a healthy democracy thrive.

We are able to plan and make space available for ticker tape parades,

community gardens, street fairs, farmers markets, political rallies; we

provide for commercial and recreational use of parks; we even arrange

for seating for large numbers in the middle of times Square in the heart

of the citys busiest intersection at the peak of rush hour. We build

and/or subsidize convention centers and sports arenas for large crowds.

We plan special restrictions and special opportunities for various

holidays. We provide office space and meeting space in numerous

locations for the transaction of city business, from Community Board

meetings to public hearings to electoral events, and we rent space in

municipal properties and on public sidewalks to all kinds of activities,

public and private, and at all hours of the day and night.

Further, the City through zoning regulations, building codes, tax and

subsidy policies, anti-discrimination laws, environmental controls,

infrastructure provision, transportation policies, and the exercise of

other normal governmental functions, has substantial control not only

over publicly-owned space but also over privately-owned space. Many of

these deal explicitly both with restricted and with favored uses, whether

negatively as with nuisances or positively as with theaters or community

facilities or spatial bonuses for open spaces and public facilities. Spacesfor public uses may be publicly owned, or privately owned and subject to


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public influence and regulation; it is the use, not the bare ownership,

which is the issue. A Public Spaces Plan concerned with the spatial

requirements for the exercise of democratic functions should deal with

both. .

For many of the citys spaces there are already appropriate time, place,

and manner regulations governing their use, and such regulations, if

reasonable, may be applicable for spaces appropriate for democratic

assembly and speech, keeping in mind the constitutional importance of

the particular uses involved and their adoption through open

procedures consistent with democratic decision-making. The issues

involved in dealing with Zuccotti Park are all within the Citys power to

manage, and relatively easily. In Newark, for instance, the citys police

chief said she would waive the permit ordinarily required to

assembling in Military Park, telling protesters that her officers task was

to make sure youre safe. members of the citys Municipal Council

said they supported lifting the 9 p.m. curfew that typically governs the

plaza.[1]

Should we not plan ahead to do the same kind of planning as we do for

other spaces in the City to provide space for the functioning of the

democracy to which we are constitutionally committed? Should not the

imagination, the technical skills, the design experience, the collective

experience of the diverse body of our citizenry and our guests, the

knowledge of our educational institutions, the competence of our

business community, the creativity of our artists, be now harnessed in

that effort?

In implementing such a Public Spaces Plan, consideration must be given


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also to criteria for the management of such spaces. Tw o different

groups or individuals cannot conduct two different activities in the same

space at the same time, certainly not without careful prior

understanding as to their rules of behavior. Developing or applying

such rules is a common everyday task for those in charge of many

spaces, both public and private; the examples above suggest the many

situations in which such rules are already established and enforced as to

public spaces, streets, parks, with relatively wide public agreement.

The Zuccotti Park experience suggests two points that require special

notice. One is that in determining priorities among possibly conflicting

claims on the use of a particular space, a particular priority should be

given to uses which increase the ability of the populace to participate

actively and with information in the democratic governance of the city.

Detailed research would be useful to see how criteria are now framed in

various cities for the regulation of various types of spaces.[2]

Transparency and ample opportunities to be heard should be a sine quo

non for the adoption of such rules.

The Zuccotti Park case also shows the potentials of open discussion

among users and affected non-users of public space to deal with

arrangements for use. The agreements between the occupiers and

Community Board 1 for the regulation of noise at the Park show that

even in difficult circumstances discussion can achieve satisfactory

results. The experience at Zuccotti also shows that the absence of

discussion can have very undesirable results, as the clearance of the

Park at by the City in the dead of night, without notice and or oversight,

with substantial property damage and infliction of unnecessary personalhardship, demonstrates. Occupiers waive no rights by entering into


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negotiations over time, place, and manner regulations on their use of a

particular space at a particular time in a particular manner. The rights

of free speech can be adequately protected in such circumstances; the

cases are legion. The City, on its side, should be sympathetic to the

prospective users needs, and not meet them with expressed hostility.

Agreement with their goals is not a requirement, but civility and

common sense are.

There should be an end to the handling of the democratic outpouring we

have seen at Zuccotti Park by forcible evictions and quasi-military

police actions, and instead a forward-looking and responsible planning

and implementation process for the flowering of a vital and

constructive democracy in the City.

* * * *

Why, within city government in New York City, should the Planning

Commission take a leading role here?

Apart from its purpose to plan broadly, comprehensively and long-term

for the welfare of the citys people, there is a realistic political argument

for it to take a leading role in the matter. All political leaders have a

vested interested in staying in power; it goes with the territory. They

have no incentive to tolerate protest, or certainly to encourage it, unless

it may lead to a loss of voter confidence such as to threaten their

continuation in office. The City Planning Commission, by contrast, is

specifically created as a non-partisan commission, has very limited

powers; its members are not dependent on their position on it for theirlivelihood or status. Those concerned about the uses of adequate space


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in the city for purposes that include political protest can attempt to

persuade a sitting mayor that a negative attitude incurs a political cost

to him or her. [3] But directing their attention of the somewhat less

partisan political Planning Commission may facilitate the beginning of

constructive discussion.

[1]New York Times, November 8, 2011, p. A20.

[2] The regulations for the use of the Great Meadow in Central Park

have I believe already been subject to judicial review.

[3]57 percent of those polled said the demonstrators should be able tostay in the parks all day and all night, while 40 percent say they shouldnot. Voters clearly support First Amendment rights, Siena pollsterSteven Greenberg said. November 15, 2011,. Staten Island Advance.http://www.silive.com/news/indspellingoex.ssf/2011/11/occupy_wall_street_protesters_7.html


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http://thenextwavefutures.wordpress.com/2011/11/12/privatising-public-

space-1/

Privatising public space (1)

One of the issues that the Occupy movement has brought into

sharp focus is that of city land and its ownership. On Wall Street,

Zuccotti Park is owned privately but heavily constrained by

covenants. Occupy LSX ended up camped on ground partly by St

Pauls Cathedral and partly by the City of London Corporation

because Paternoster Square, where the London Stock Exchange is

located, is private land. In practice, urban land is increasingly

owned or managed by private interests, even when it appears to be

public space. This is a new enclosuremovement.

So it seems appropriate that Occupy LSX has made so visible theprivate nature of Paternoster Square (as seen in the picture above)

and that one of the teach-outs it has organised through its Tent

City University was about the private control of public space. By

privatised public space, I mean that space which appears to be a

public space (a square or a lane, for example) is in fact owned and

controlled by a private landowner (or sometimes managedprivately for a public owner.) Either way, different rules apply. Its

a trend which has been driven along by private sector regeneration

schemes, and reinforced by a plethora of increasingly contentious

public order legislation. But it is all but invisible.

From public interest to economic interest

Broadly speaking, in the UK, the current wave of land privatisation


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started in the 1980s, with the development of Canary Wharf and

the Citys Broadgate building, and has grown from there.

According to Anna Minton, a speaker at the Occupy LSX event, and

the author of Ground Control, the best single book on this subject,

New Labour gave the process a boost in 2004 when it changed the

legal basis by which Compulsory Purchase Orders were assessed.

Previously they had to show they were in the public interest; now

they need only to demonstrate economic interest. (New Labour

was never very good at consequences, but one consequence was to

create a platform for the Coalition to propose trashing the entire

planning systemin the same way).

What started with office spaces quickly moved on to city centre

retail developments such as Cabot Circus in Bristol and Liverpool

One, where the developer has a 250-year lease on the 42-acre site.

Local authorities were keen because, at a time when regeneration

was thought to be about new buildings, it seemed to be an

affordable way of re-shaping the city. You dont get something for

nothing, of course, and in many places local authorities were far

too willing to give away public space in their dealings with

developers.

And then there are the Business Improvement Districts (BIDs),

which are managed by a company on behalf of the local authority,

and funded by local business subscriptions.

Rules and security guards

One of the things that comes with private management is, almost

always, a lot of rules and a set of security guards to police them: no


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music. no busking, no picnics, no drinking (at least of alcohol), no

photography, no street theatre, no ball games, no skateboarding,

no roller-blading, no cycling. And certainly no protests. (And as an

aside, the fact that Londons seat of government, City Hall, sits on

such land seems, to say the least, an affront to civic democracy).

Surveillance is widespread, usually via CCTV. The streets, said

Minton, have been privatised without anyone noticing.

And indeed, you can tell when youre on a privately controlled site

because of the notices. Ive included a couple of pictures of these,

from Hays Galleria on the south side of the Thames near London

Bridge.

Obviously shopping malls and retail areas have long followed this

pattern, because they were typically closed off spaces under a roof.

Here there is a similar blurring; theres a telltale sign on the

Thames riverside walk, as it passes by Londons Hays Galleria,

that it is a no-smoking area a sign that the land is under private

control even though it appears to be public space.

Guardian journalist John Harris made this point about Bristols

Cabot Circus which is partly covered, partly open:

Cabot Circus bleeds out into the city, and surrounding streets they

are busy redeveloping. The fact that their turf includes open areas

points up one of the more unsettling aspects of the development:

what seem to be ordinary streets are actually privately owned.

Its an interesting one, this, says [Centre director Richard] Belt.


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These places are quite a new breed. Weve applied all the usual

rules that shopping centres do, but because its a streetscape, its

getting customers scratching their heads a bit. Cycling is

forbidden. Unless you have a visual impairment, should you turn

up with a dog, youll be told to leave it at home next time. Security

staff in regulation black blazers keep a constant watch on whats

going on, including smoking.

This British model was according to Ground Control - imported

almost wholesale from the United States, but with an important

difference. In the US, the changes to property and planning laws

became a focus for widespread protest, with extensive media

coverage, and eventually George W. Bush had to intervene. In

Britain, there was almost no political response, but this was partly

because of our opaque legislative processes and the technicalities

of our planning processes. As Anna Minton writes, While the

legislation may not look very significant when it passes through

parliament, by the time it becomes law, the addition of utterly

obscure guidance and statutory instruments ensures it is rather

different.

The idea of public space is at the heart of the idea and the life of the

city, as Paul Kingsnorth wrote, in his bookReal England:

It is the essence of public freedom: a place to rally, to protest, to

sit and contemplate, to smoke or talk or watch the stars. No

matter what happens in the shops and cafes, the offices and

houses, the existence of public space means there is always

somewhere to go to express yourself or simply to escape. From


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parks to pedestrian streets, squares to market places, public

spaces are being bought up and closed down.

A couple of years ago Blueprint magazine, working with the

progressive libertarians of the Manifesto Club, chose to go to

places which we think of as identifiably public space in London,

such as Trafalgar Square and the riverside area in front of the City

Hall. They went back on different days to picnic, sometimes with

drink, wearing different clothes (hoodies always went down well

with security personnel). Theres only a summaryonline, but it was

an interesting experiment. In More London (privately owned and

managed, seen above), they were moved on, by security staff citing

health and safety reasons, which may sound familiar this

morning. The rules in Trafalgar Square publicly owned but

tightly restricted under social order legislation are different in

the north half from the south half, below the steps. Deck chairs

were not permitted above the steps: below the steps, although

drinking is not permitted, the police were happy provided they put

bottles out of sight and drank the alcohol from teacups. But then

the police have more leeway than security guards, who are poorly

paid, and also heavily monitored (by CCTV) themselves.

Dolan Cummings, who wrote theBlueprintarticle, argues:

Instead of the ambiguity that comes from different groups of

people sharing the same space and using it for different purposes,

there is a conformism Anyone doing something a bit different

stands out all the more and is increasingly likely to be seen either

as a threat or a source of embarrassment.


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No fun

'Welcome to London Bridge City. You are now entering private property'

Space Hijackers, who also spoke at the Occupy LSX event I

mentioned in my first post, subvert these newly private spaces in

ways which make more explicit the way the space is controlled.

They add posters which set out the rules (NO FUN, NO OLD

PEOPLE, ENJOY YOUR STAY), they intervene to prevent

passers-by from doing things like holding hands or otherwise

enjoying themselves. They tend to stay until they have attracted the

attention of the security guards which they always do because of

the pervasive CCTV but leave before the police arrive. More

extreme interventions include night-time cricket games, in full

whites, in private spaces such as Paternoster Square.

Part of the Space Hijackers critique of this privatisation process isthat it diminishes the social aspects of the street so that it can

emphasise consumption. They say, Youre welcome here as long

as you spend your money. It turns us into isolated little bubbles.

Diane Coyle touched on this from a different angle recently when

she wroteof the way in which public life is designed out of the city:

The enclosure of open space in private malls, the design of street

furniture to make sitting down (never mind sleeping) a challenge,

the bearing down on demonstrations and gatherings and even

photography on the grounds of law and order or security, have

all contributed to discouraging public gatherings.

Paradoxes of public space


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Taking a historical perspective, the opportunity to reconstruct

urban space so radically, observedAnna Mintonwhen she spoke at

Occupy LSX, was created by the de-industrialisation of the city,

and the closure of the factories, works, warehouses and docks

which used to dot the urban landscape (as one look at any 1970s

street map reveals). What were seeing as a result is a fairly rapid

reversal of the long trend through the 19th century of roads and

highways being adopted by the public authority. Minton pointed

out the irony of the City of London Corporation trying to use the

Highways Act (about maintaining public access) to remove the

Occupy protesters outside St Pauls after being so aggressive in

privatising land elsewhere in the City of London.

There are a couple of interesting paradoxes here, which mean that

such approaches to managing public space are self-defeating. The

mantra of a manager of such privately-controlled spaces is clean

and safe, but they also want to see some energy, which is good for

business. What we know about safety in public is that it comes

mostly from social interaction, not from the paraphernalia of

security management: by banning so many activities, social

interaction is reduced, not enhanced. The second paradox is that

the management companies believe that clean and safe is merely

the bottom level of a Maslovian hierarchy, and that once that is

established,the site moves up to energy and excitement. Not so; by

killing off the messiness, you

also kill off the diversity and difference that bring cities to life. You

cant make yogurts or urban environments without some live


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culture. (The picture shows the feeble attempt by one privately

owned space to inject some untidiness. No, they reallydont get it.)

Perhaps improbably, one of the people who realises the costs of

this privatisation is the Conservative Mayor of London, Boris

Johnson, who issued A Manifesto for Public Space (opens pdf) in

2009. It turns out that developers do not need to be bribed with

gifts of public land, as they were so notoriously in the building of

Liverpool One. The Manifesto is explicit about the need to

maintain city space as public space.

There is a growing trend towards the private management of

publicly accessible space where this type of corporatisation

occurs, especially in the larger commercial developments,

Londoners can feel themselves excluded from parts of their own

city. This need not be the case. At Kings Cross it was agreed that

the London Borough of Camden will adopt the streets and public

areas. Elsewhere unrestricted 24-hour access to the area has been

agreed. This has established an important principle which should

be negotiated in all similar schemes.

Despite the title, this is a policy document with the status oflegislation. Its early days: property development is a slow process,

especially during a downturn. And so far the Greater LondonAssembly seems to have disregarded it. But theres a simple,important principle within it: as Johnson writes, I want to ensurethat access to public space is as unrestricted and unambiguous aspossible. For Londoners at least, it provides a space in whichplanning and property become visible again, the proper subject ofpolitics.


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http://www.fastcompany.com/1731291/urban-spaces-and-protests-subject-of-israeli-

mit-exploration

How Urban Planning Fans

the Flames of Revolution

The accelerating role social media played in the recent uprising in

Egypt has gotten a lot of people talking, but urban planning was justas vital in fanning the flames of revolution.

Civic squares and parks are the best places for protests to function,

and go hand-in-hand with online organizing, says Israeli architect

Tali Hatuka. "Public spaces are the only place in which people feel

truly, physically unified," says Hatuka, who researched the link

between urban design and quality of protests long before the recent

Middle East upheaval. "With so many protests going online, the


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physical element is critical for enhancing society's sense of

togetherness and solidarity."

Urban planners can help promote a healthier democracy by

designing spaces that allow for equal public access, including forjournalists. Less pressing is the need to make them beautiful.

"As the recent events in Cairo suggest, a protest space doesn't have

to be nice or well-designed," Hatuka says. "A large-scale protest like

this has shown that people will just hijack the streets and the roads."

And while size sometimes matters, it doesn't in this case. "When

Americans wish to protest," she says, "they do not immediately run

to the Mall in Washington. Sometimes a small venue will work welltoo."

in the case of Egypt and Tunisia, Hatuka's research is extremely

relevant, as the new democracies are sure to face questions of how to

rebuild under leaderships that presumably want to promote

democracy, not squash it.


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FOR FURTHER READING

Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban RevolutionBy David Harvey

Chapter : RIGHT TO THE CITY

http://rosswolfe.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/reflections-on-occupy-wall-street-what-it-represents-its-prospects-and-its-deficiencies/

Outdoor Spaces of Londonhttp://www.london.gov.uk/priorities/environment/londo

ns-great-outdoors

http://www.thepolisblog.org/2011/02/signs-of-midan-tahrir.html


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http://www.thepolisblog.org/2011/01/five-days-of-anger-revolting-in-modern.html#more

Five Days of Anger: Revolt in the ModernMetropolis, by Danya Al Saleh and Mohammed Rafi

Arefin

It is January 25th, 2011. An Egyptian organizer armed with

nothing but his legs and a Twitter-enabled cellphone runs through

downtown Cairos 19th-century Haussmannian system of

boulevards, pavements and interlocking squares.

After being banished from downtowns Midan Tahrir ("Liberation

Square"), he flees to the 6th of October Bridge, joining a larger

group that will eventually attempt to break riot police lines.

Seemingly random waves of protests, each with their own organic,internal logic, march from Dokki, Shubra and Dar el-Salam,

converging and dispersing fluidly as night approaches. As the

government declares a halt on further protests, employing rubber

bullets, water cannons, and tear gas to disperse the crowds, vast

numbers organize in crowded Facebook forums to express

solidarity with the movement and plan for tomorrowJanuary

26th.

We are inclined, as demonstrations unfold, to understand the city

as merely a stage or backdrop. When turbulent events occur, we

typically see the city as a stage, people and security forces as actors

and social media as a new technology mysteriously working in a

place-less cyberland, somewhere between the wings of an Egypt

Air Boeing airplane and the heavens. With this model, pundits

from both the Left and the Right can easily observe the present and


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predict the future, moving pieces of the game around an ossified

map of Cairo.

Wurster Hall at UC Berkeley, the home of the College of Environmental

Design, occupied.


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But to properly situate the ongoing events in their due

revolutionary context, we must ask a dialectical question that re-

conceptualizes these factors. How has the city itself become a tool

of rebellion?

Originally planned in the 1800s to monitor and limit such

upheaval, the concentrically organized downtown modelled after

the belle-epoque aesthetics of Paris imposed a sort of urban

discipline that was to foster the creation of the "modern" and

neatly "organized" Egyptian citizen. These same streets in the

2000s are bearing witness to revolutionary slogans such as,

Alshab Yureed Asqat Alnazam! (The People Want to Topple the

System!), embodying efforts to radically disorganize the current

political, economic, and social system.

With this said, the city as a tool of rebellion is always in flux,

contested by both the protesters and government security forces in

both concrete and abstract spheresall of which constantly

articulate through one another to create the Cairo we are currentlywatching on Al-Jazeera.

Consider this: Midan Tahrir is based on a concentric overall planthat offers wide open spaces for thousands to gather. If downtownwere simply a grid system, the protesters could easily be dispersedwith little hope of finding a similarly welcoming place toreassemble. But centers such as Talaat Harb and the 6th ofOctober Bridge allow mass numbers to congregate and parade

down boulevards greeted by giant metal statues of long-deadEgyptian revolutionaries. At the same time, the system that allowsreassembly also denies it. The downtown streets, wide andspacious, can accommodate the easy passage of riot vans, largearmored vehicles and water cannons, unlike other parts of Cairo.


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http://www.thepolisblog.org/2012/02/floating-tents-interview-with-tidmore.html

Design to Occupy at UC Berkeley

What are the design lessons of the Occupy movement? In this

interview, Robert Tidmore and Alex Schuknecht, landscape

architecture students at UC Berkeley, discuss the protests, police

brutality and floating tents at the university in November 2011.

They share how the movement's alternative use of space led to a re-

evaluation of their roles as students, designers and citizens.

How has the Occupy movement influenced your thinking

on the practice of landscape architecture?

Rob: As designers of public spaces, I believe we have a mandate to

uphold and defend the loftiest ideals of public space. This includes

the ability to assert our first amendment rights by occupying and

using public space for protest. The brutal police crackdowns on#OWS protesters over the past several months have made it clear

that our rights to public space are far more limited than we

previously thought. To me, this raises serious concerns about our

societys control of dissent. If the people do not have the right to

protest in public, where will protest occur? Public space must be

made available to all publics, and as designers we should use our

creativity to ensure that this is the case.

Prior to being involved in #OWS, I thought it was enough to

simply create spaces that facilitated large-scale gatherings,

promoted community and fostered civic engagement. My recent

experiences have proven that this is not sufficient. We must take

an active role in our communities and use our diverse skill sets to

fight inequality and tackle the complex problems of our day.

Landscape architects are trained to build attractive places, but weshould do so much more. We are inherently problem solvers and


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have the ability to envision better worlds. We are uniquely situated

in a field that bridges social, cultural and environmental concerns,

and we should address these issues through activism in addition to

design.

Alex: Many of us came to landscape architecture with the beliefthat the practice would be a good outlet for our idealism, and Ivegotten a bit jaded at times learning that the design business isoften much more reactive than it is proactive. In a development-based business, where the goal is to make money, your ideals caneasily be shoved to the wayside. For me the movement reinforcesthat, while I believe in many of the merits of professional design

practice, it is imperative that we examine why we do what we do,even at the most basic level. Id argue that, for example, none ofthe projects you see today do anything to challenge the dominanteconomic structure not that they should or even can but itssomething we need to think about, and Occupy reminds us of that.

Has it changed your perspective on design education?

Alex: We have a unique opportunity in our limited time as students

to attack design in a completely creative and uninhibited way. The

constraints of the market dont necessarily apply, which means

that we can spend our time doing strictly things that we feel good

about. But what the Occupy movement and similar projects that

Ive been involved in have reminded me of, is that feeling good

about your work is the ideal situation always. Design education is

not just about how to design well, it should be about how to

achieve your vision that in your way aims to make the world abetter place, and all of the pieces that go into that. Good ideas are

one thing, but the ability to navigate those ideas through business

and politics is vital, because the market would just build the

landscape around us entirely on its own terms if we let it. Learning

how to design against the tide, and survive doing it, will be a big

part of the remainder of my education.


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Rob: Being involved in something like #OWS that was deeplymeaningful and extremely rewarding. Students should be doingthis as part of their education. I would strongly advocate for theinclusion of smaller-scale design projects that have local, real-

world impacts. Students could partner with local communitygroups in a design-build exercise, or whole studios could bearranged around solving a particular design problem for a localnonprofit. Creative activism should be part of the core curriculumat all design schools.

Can you tell us about your experience working on the

floating tents intervention in Sproul Plaza?

Rob: The floating tents project was literally conceived, built and

unfolded on Sproul Plaza in less than 24 hours. It was partially a

response to the forceful destruction of the Occupy Cal encampment

(that I had been sleeping in) at 3 a.m. the previous morning by 120

police officers in riot gear, and continued violence against

students. The same plaza that only a day before had been the stage

for Robert Reichs the days of apathy are over speechand home

to the hopeful celebration of over 7,000 studentswas cleared by a

front-end loader. Watching all of that energy, hope anddetermination being destroyed in the early morning was

heartbreaking. Walking away from the empty plaza that morning, I

felt very strongly that we needed to re-occupy the space and

rekindle the hope and elation of the Occupy movement.

As the LA 203 studio convened later that day, our professor Judith

Stilgenbauer urged us to respond to the recent events on campus,and an hour later the concept of floating tents and a floating

banner was born. We sketched out the idea on scraps of paper,

then made phone calls to locate the most important component:

helium. The next morning we picked up two tanks of helium and

spent the rest of the day crafting our piece: filling balloons,

attaching guylines to the tents, spray-painting the banners and

organizing a march to Sproul. It was designed as a quick

intervention to intelligently challenge the administrations policies,


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and I dont think any of us anticipated that it would attract such

widespread support.

Alex: There was very minimal research, and we had very fewchallenges. It was just a matter of doing, and the excitement andwill to do it was there. The hope now is to continue to feed off thatexcitement and not let it wane into the humdrum of professionallife.

Do you consider your intervention political? Artistic?

Architectural?

Alex: All of the above, definitely. The intervention was an artistic

response to the politics of space. The larger impetus for this was

the burning need for a response to the violence that had been

carried out against students and faculty by the administration and

police. I watched kids take overhand baton swings to the face so

that the police could tear apart three tents that sat in the grass at

the side of Sproul Plaza it was asinine. And a response from our

department felt doubly important. As students of landscape

architecture, we see ourselves as stewards and advocates of publicspace, and our role as architects, landscape architects and planners

is absolutely political. If were not fighting to serve people which

often means challenging the status quo then who are we serving

and why bother?

Rob: I agree. Public space is innately politicized, as we saw in the

administrations reaction to the Occupy movement on campus. To

make an impact in the plaza large enough to rekindle the hope and

elation of the movement, we needed a statement that was spatial.

And to fly in the face of the administrations ban on tents, calling

attention to the absurdity of the situation, called for an artistic

reinterpretation.

Would you do this again? Why or why not?


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Alex: This was a spontaneous intervention, so repeating it wouldnt

make much sense. But I would absolutely engage in any project

that I felt added to the dialogue about public open space, justice

and economics, food politics. In a very broad sense, I hope to dothis again and again and again until I can look back and say Ive

made a career out of doing only things that I feel contribute to the

common good. Maybe Im nave, but seeing my tent floating 50

feet in the air on the evening news gave me a week-long high, and

reflecting on the experience has never made me question it.

Absolutely something along these lines will happen again the

ideas are already rolling.

Rob: Without question. The absurdity of the events that unfoldedon campus that week demanded an intervention. I certainly willcontinue pursuing projects that question the status quo, promotecommunity activism and invite critical analysis of injustice andinequality. Activism and engagement have been key components ofmy experiences prior to coming to Berkeley, and a designeducation gives me the ability to pursue these values in even moreinteresting ways. Im very excited about the possibilities that this

opens up. There are already other projects in the works.

evicting the public.pdf

Documents