Note: This post is in response to Kuecker's "Reorganizing the Urban Syntax" post of August 14.
It is the belief of some
writers that the modern form of development begins with a pronouncement made by
President Harry Truman, acknowledging the plight of the global poor, stressing
both for reasons of compassion and for practical consideration of the implicit
threat this problem posed, that something needed to be done. "Their poverty,” Truman stated, “is a
handicap and a threat both to them and to more prosperous areas" (Truman,
1949). Implicit in this program, in the
post World War II and ensuing Cold War contexts, was fear of the “Other” in a
sharply polarized world. True the production of modernity had existed in many
forms until this point, but some assert that virtually overnight, this
"problematization of the poor" discursive was a unique, singular
event defining a world that must be saved with a subtext of fear.
And over the years, nothing
has changed; fear of the Other -- whether in the form of the communist threat, the
War on Terror, or the problematic of a planet of slums -- has resulted in
policies meant to blunt, contain, maintain control of, and make legible a changing
world. In this latter period, it is agreed that development has been a primary tool
and ally to counter unrest and growing insurgencies. But one might say that despite the historical
relationship of development and counterinsurgency, that it is possible for each
to develop agendas inimical to the other. One might argue that the
intentions of Habitat III and other such projects imagine a positive and
competing form/syntax of the urban, one that can be "fixed" if we
just get the city form right (maybe as the 'dense city' form) that the social
issues that threaten can be addressed. But, as Hatu (The Global Urbanist)
points out in his critique of the Habitat III approach, not dealing with the
reality of social conflict, to leave that unvoiced, is a dangerous omission, as
it will leave the door open to a less desirable urban reality.
And through that door, and
from the counterinsurgency side a competing form has emerged, a militarist urbanism,
or the anti-urban. For as Mike Davis states: “The Pentagon's best minds have
dared to venture where the United Nations, World Bank, or Department of State
types fear to go: down the road that logically follows from the abdication of
urban reform." But, does it just reduce
to a resource used when Habitat III et al efforts fail to solve deep seated
problems, or as Kuecker (2014) mentions a "grammatical repair" to
insurgency? Or is it inherent in these seemingly different forms/syntaxes,
proof of Foucault's notion of politics as war, controlled if not by consent
than by coercion in one form or another? Perhaps it is the Hobbesian view that
the jungle inherent in human society is never far from the surface, so one must
prepare?
In fact, this incorporated
other form, from the IDF example perversely urban, into privatized,
industrialized forms of "tunneling", incarceration and surveillance,
and as a vastly expanding form of capital accumulation, has a vested interest in
the failure of UN Habitat III type reformism. For even as the many
opportunities for new development emerge from the agenda of Habitat III, the
prospect of yet another regime of technocratic solutions that does not deal
with the basis of conflict, will only further expand the opportunities for this
shadow form of urbanism to latch onto
these primal fears of the Other and have their way. As we approach the global impacts
resulting in a “perfect storm” of global crises, one wonders which vision of the
urban will prevail, one where complex infrastructural and social problems are
dealt with in a just way; or one where that vision is abandoned for a bicameral
one of gated communities protected, while the rest are reduced to a perpetual
battlefield?
Sources:
Datu,
Kerwin. "The road to Habitat III; a wake-up call to the New Urban
Agenda". The Global Urbanist, 22 April 2014.
Davis, Mike.
Planet of Slums. Paperback ed.
London; New York; Verso, 2007.
Kuecker,
Glen. "Reorganizing the Urban Syntax". Habitat III Research Project,
14 August 2014.
Naz,
Farzana. " Arturo Escobar and the development discourse: an
overview". Asian Affairs. Vol. 28 (July-September 2006).
Robinson,
William I. "Policing The Global Crisis." Journal
of World System Research, Volume 19, Number 2, (2013): 193-197.
