Re: planners! beyond Moses v|s Jacobs!

Architexturez. wrote:
> | the Eminent Domain revisited.

So the emerging political battle over the next shape of the city is 
hardly one between nasty neoliberal capitalism and cuddly citizen 
democracy. The neoliberal acid of market calculation has indubitably 
corroded both state and society down to the bare bones of capitalist 
necessity – remember Margaret Thatcher: “there’s no such thing as 
society” – and the liberal Jacobsian vision of village globalism is in 
total nostalgic retreat. But for most people in the world this 
represents a battle among the privileged. Radically missing, howling in 
its silence in this entire emerging debate, is the voice of working 
class neighborhood dwellers, long distance subway riders, grocery store 
customers, office workers, all of whom lose housing, jobs, services and 
access, no matter whether Moses wins anew or Jacobs rallies.

The why and wherefore of the Moses revival are therefore obvious. New 
York City, like cities around the world, is embarking on a neoliberal 
city building splurge and needs to generate the legitimacy to see it 
through with the least disruption from its citizens. Whatever the 
nationalist resurgence around the world after 2001, cities and their 
regions are increasingly supplanting nation states as the fulcra of the 
global economy. As French urbanist Henri Lefebvre perceptively saw in 
the 1970s, city building is becoming an increasingly central plank of 
capitalist accumulation. The Moses revivers would have a more convincing 
case if they acknowledged that the master builder’s ambition of building 
prolific public housing will never have a place in today’s neoliberal 
city building vision. And Jacobs nostalgists would also carry more 
credence if they admitted that public housing was the furthest thing 
from Jacobs’ agenda.

Meanwhile, back among the people, the only thing worse than having to 
stay in neighborhoods long abandoned by capital, services and landlords 
is that the landlords themselves become developers or are bought out by 
developers (private, state or public-private) who force neighborhood 
residents to who-knows-where. Moses and Jacobs can argue grave to grave. 
It’s time for a new vision of the political city.

cont'd....
http://www.planetizen.com/node/26287