Urbicide: The Death of the City

Contents
Editors and Contributors
Part I Introduction
1 Urbicide: An Unprecedented Methodological Entry in Urban Studies?
1.1 Introduction
1.2 The Urbicide: New Methodological Entry for Urban Studies
1.3 The Structure and Content of the Book
1.3.1 Part 1. Introduction
1.3.2 Part 2. Urbicide. The Death of the City
1.3.3 Part 3. Annihilation: The End of the Public Space
1.3.4 Part 4. Decline of the Built Environment
1.3.5 Part 5. Dissolution of Social Interaction
1.3.6 Part 6. Degradation and Abandonment
1.3.7 Part 7. Destruction of Common Life: Violence
1.3.8 Part 8. Contraction of Public Management: Privatization
1.3.9 Part 9. Urbicide: Cities Cases
1.3.10 Part 10. Epilogue
References
Part II Urbicide. The Death of the City
2 Urbicide. The Liturgical Murder of the City
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The Trajectory of the Formation of the Urbicide Concept: Background
2.3 What Do We Understand by Urbicide?
2.3.1 Toward a Typology of Urbicide
2.4 Conclusions
References
3 Death By Theory and The Power of Ideas: From Theories of Cities to “Smart” Cities
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Powerful and Dangerous Theories
3.2.1 Theories of Legality Which Become Theories of Exclusion
3.2.2 Theories of Recognition: Formality and Informality
3.2.3 Theories of Description: The Myth of Marginality
3.2.4 Theories of Validation
3.2.5 Theories of Profiling
3.2.6 Theories of Intra-Urban Inequality
3.2.7 Theories of Income and Theories of Wealth
3.2.8 Theories of Density
3.3 Smart Cities and the Death of Localism and Local Knowledge
3.4 Toward a Conclusion
References
4 Urbicide: Towards a Conceptualization
4.1 Introduction
4.2 The Concept of Urbicide
4.3 The Features of Urbicide Violence
4.4 The Mechanisms Involved in Urbicidal Practices and Processes
4.5 Urbicide Experiences from the South
4.5.1 The Eradication of Slums
4.5.2 Abandoned Neighborhoods with Empty Houses
4.5.3 Urban Catastrophes
4.6 Conclusions
References
5 Urban Order and Disorder. Genealogy of Urbicide
5.1 Introduction
5.2 The Urban Context
5.2.1 City Government, Governance, and Urbicide
5.2.2 Ruins, City and Modernity
5.2.3 City and Biopolitics in the Andes
5.2.4 Urbicide in the Andes
5.2.5 The Organization of Space and the Governance of Populations
References
6 Imaginaries and Archetypes on the Death of the City
6.1 Introduction
6.2 God's Wrath Against Cities: Punishment as a Foundational Urbicidal Archetype
6.3 The Imaginary of the Late-Modern Urbicide and the Crisis of Inhabiting
References
7 COVID-19 and the City: Reframing Our Understanding of Urbicide by Learning from the Pandemic
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Examining the COVID-19 Impacts Through the Lens of Urbicide
7.2.1 On the Material Destruction
7.2.2 On the Symbolic Destruction
7.3 Reframing Our Understanding of Urbicide Based on the Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic
7.3.1 Environment
7.3.2 Planning
7.3.3 Society
7.3.4 Economy
7.3.5 Democracy
7.4 Concluding Remarks
References
Part III Annihilation: The End of the Public Space
8 The Ideology of Public Space and the New Urban Hygienism: Tactical Urbanism in Times of Pandemic
8.1 New Citizenist Municipalism
8.2 The Idealism of Public Space as a Moral Scenario
8.3 Tactical Urbanism: From Tactics to Strategy
8.4 Emergency Urban Planning in Times of Pandemic
8.5 Against Conflict Conceived as a Plague
8.6 Conclusion
References
9 The Transformation of Urban and Digital Spaces from a Democratic Perspective
9.1 The Global City and Digital Networks
9.2 Space, Power, and Democracy
9.3 Territory, Ecology, Politics, and Social Processes in Public and Digital Space
9.4 Towards a Democratic Urban Digital Space
References
10 Streets, Avenues, Highways
10.1 The Street
10.2 The Avenue
10.3 The Highway
10.4 The Killing of a City
10.5 The Way Back to the Street
References
11 The Post-automobile City From Deterritorialization to the Proximity City: The Case of Madrid
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Metropolis and Territorialization
11.3 Contemporary Formations of Metropolis
11.4 The Contemporary Transformations of the Madrid Metropolis
11.5 The Qualitative Leap in the Diffusion of Accessibility: Linear Attractors and Nodes
11.6 The Post-metropolitan Territory: From Fragmentation to Fractality
11.7 Put People First: The Proximity City
11.8 Strategies for a New Sustainable Urban Mobility: The Proposal of the Madrid Centro Project
11.9 The Urban Cell as a Basis for the Articulation of Public Space
11.10 Conclusions
References
12 Mobility as an Expression of the Urbicide: The Risks of Transport Modernization in Latin American Metropolises
12.1 Introduction
12.1.1 Daily Mobility in Latin American Metropolis
12.1.2 Transport Policies, with Modernization and Sustainability in Sight
12.2 Mobility Infrastructures: Changes and Permanence
12.2.1 The BRT in the Network of Public Spaces in the City
12.2.2 Costs of the BRT for the Average Citizen
12.2.3 The Effectiveness of the System
12.2.4 Coverage of the BRT System in the Metropolis
12.3 Informal Transport: Problem or Alternative for the Poorest?
12.3.1 The Stigmatization of Informal Transport
12.3.2 An Alternative Offer
12.4 Active Mobility: A Privilege for Some, a Burden for Others
12.4.1 The Prioritization of the Automobile, the Forgetting of the Peripheries
12.4.2 Unwanted Cyclists
12.4.3 From Fear to Pedestrian Exclusions
12.5 Conclusion
References
Part IV Decline of the Built Environment
13 The Urbanisation of Risk
13.1 Introduction
13.2 Disaster and Catastrophe in Cities
13.3 The Basic Constituents of Urban Risk
13.3.1 Hazard
13.3.2 Exposure and the Resource-Hazard Continuum: The Beginnings of All Urban Risk
13.3.3 Vulnerability: Multi-dimensional Poverty and Resilience
13.3.4 Disaster Risk: The Concatenation of Hazard, Exposure and Vulnerability Factors
13.4 The Social Construction of Urban Disaster Risk
13.4.1 Increasing Hazard Exposure
13.4.2 Socio-Territorial Inequality
13.5 Urbanisation as a Driver of Systemic Risk
References
14 Urbicide or Suicide? Shaping Environmental Risk in an Urban Growth Context: The Example of Quito City (Ecuador)
14.1 Introduction. The Urbicide Concept from the Point of View of the Environmental Risk
14.2 Quito City
14.2.1 Growth of the City of Quito
14.2.2 The Multipurpose and Multihazard Exposure Model of the MDQ
14.3 Shaping Environmental Risk in the City of Quito
14.3.1 Modification of the Hydrographic Network
14.3.2 Heavy Rains Near the City of Quito
14.3.3 Flood and Debris Flow Risk Assessment Based on MEMM-DMQ
14.4 Discussion
14.5 Conclusion
Appendix: Query Description to Calculate ASPVI
References
15 Between Greens and Grays: Urbanization and Territorial Destruction in the Sabana de Bogotá
15.1 Introduction
15.2 The Sabana De Bogotá: Massive Urbanization in a High Andean Plateau
15.3 Types of Territorial Destruction: Between Resilience and Points of no Return
15.3.1 Deterioration of Hydrological Processes (Pollution and Flood Risk Management)
15.3.2 Unregulated Resource Extraction, Mining and Atmospheric Contamination
15.3.3 Annihilation of Green Areas and Urban Trees
15.3.4 Consumption and Destruction of Soils with Agrological Potential
15.3.5 Lack of Habitat Conditions, Loss of Urbanity
15.3.6 Loss of Cultural Practices or Heritage
15.4 Divergent Understandings of Territories Destruction
References
16 Overregulation, Corruption, and Urbicide
16.1 Introduction
16.2 Pernicious Effects of Overregulation
16.3 An Intractable Challenge: More Issues, Fewer Rules
16.3.1 Building Regulations and the Regulation of Procedures
16.3.2 More Requirements, Lengthier Procedures
16.4 Mexico City: The Enigma of Underreporting
16.5 Final Remarks
References
17 Obsolescence of the Built Environment
17.1 Introduction
17.2 City, Power and Obsolescence
17.2.1 The City for Dwelling versus The City of Power
17.2.2 Crisis of Urbanism
17.2.3 Urban Planning, Urbicide and Obsolescence
17.2.4 Urban-Architectural Obsolescence
17.2.5 Tyranny of the New
17.3 Spatial Condemnations
17.3.1 Gentrification
17.3.2 The City of the Peripheries
17.4 Criticism of Expiration
17.4.1 Date of Expiry
17.4.2 Time in Architecture and City
17.4.3 Re-politicization of the City. Toward Another Urbanism
17.4.4 Architecture for Uncertainty
17.5 Conclusion
References
Part V Dissolution of Social Interaction
18 The (Un)made City: Spatial Fragmentation, Social Inequalities and (De)compositions of Urban Life
18.1 Introduction
18.2 A Socio-anthropological Critique of the Concept of Fragmentation
18.3 Place Composition
18.4 Production of Conviviality
18.5 Two Squares and the Limits of Conviviality
18.6 Concluding Remarks
References
19 The City and the Abandonment of Public Space. Between Neoliberal and Citizen Urbanism
19.1 Urbicide. Destruction and Reinvention of the Real and Imaginary City
19.2 The Neoliberal City and the Abandonment of the Public
19.3 Urban Macro-Projects and the Power of Private Over Public
19.4 Public Space: Closure and Abandonment
19.5 Final Note, ¿Toward the Open City?
References
20 A “New” Urban Colonialism? North–South Migration and Racially Structured Gentrification in Latin America
20.1 Introduction
20.2 From “Ghost City” to U.S. Paradise
20.3 U.S. Migration and Border Externalization
20.3.1 The U.S. Migration to San Miguel During the First Half of the Twentieth Century
20.3.2 The U.S. Migration to San Miguel De Allende During the Twenty-First Century
20.4 The Destructive Production of the City
20.4.1 Destructive Production of Physical Space: Racial Gentrification in the City
20.4.2 Destructive Production of Symbolic Space: Occidentalist Imaginary Geographies and Urban Orientalism
20.4.3 Destructive Production of the Relational Space: The “Foreignization” of the Native
20.5 Conclusions
References
21 Urban Frontiers in the Fracturing City: Heritage, Tourism and Immigration
21.1 Introduction
21.2 The Dual Tourist City: Urban Patches of Gentrification and Impoverishment
21.3 Urban Agents and Processes
21.3.1 The Territorial. Heritage as a Gentrifying Agent
21.3.2 The Sectorial. Tourism and the Unequal City
21.3.3 Urban Borders and Immigration
21.4 Conclusions
References
22 The Production of Emptied Places in the Borderlands of the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires
22.1 Introduction
22.2 Metropolitan Borderland Territories, Nameless and Expressionless Spaces
22.3 The Prefigurations of Urban and Environmental Land Management
22.4 The Networks of Illegality and the Forms of Circulation of Violence
22.5 The Privatization of Public Space and the Gated Communities
22.6 Final Reflections
References
Part VI Degradation and Abandonment
23 Reconstructing Cultural Paradigms. Experiences in East Europe: The Historical Memory of the Historical Centers in Lithuania
23.1 Introduction
23.2 Sacredness of the City and Modernization
23.3 The Cultural Landscape of the City
23.4 Vilnius, Capital of Lithuania
23.5 The Labyrinth of Cultural Identity
23.6 Conclusions
References
24 Lose the Memory, Lose the History, Lose the City
24.1 Introduction
24.2 Lose or Preserve the Historic City
24.3 The Transformations of the Historical City
24.4 Incontinent Urbanization and Urban Heritage
24.5 The Disconnection of Planning with Urban Conservation
24.6 The Logics for Urban Conservation (Local Daily Life or Tourism)
24.7 Tourism for What and for Whom?
24.8 The Lack of Local Projects
24.9 Conclusions
References
25 Revolt and Destruction. The Public and Monument Landscape in Latin American Cities
25.1 Introduction
25.2 Unrest, Revolt, and Rights
25.3 Protests in Historical Centers
25.4 Barricades, Fires and Acts
25.5 De-monumentalizing the Public
25.6 Uprising Monuments
25.7 Notes for a Democratic Public Space (Or How to Avoid Urbicide)
25.7.1 The Common Space of the Different
25.7.2 Squares for the Protection of the Urban Condition
References
26 Trends of Urban and Territorial Reconfiguration in Metropolitan Buenos Aires
26.1 Introduction: “Cities of Walls” in Pandemic Times
26.2 Buenos Aires, Neoliberal City: Territory and Symbolic Reconfigurations in Dispute
26.3 Old and New Trends in the Urban Segregation During the Pandemic Present
26.4 Guernica and Nordelta: Divergent Peripheries of the MRBA
26.5 Between Urbicide and the Right to Beauty: Walls that are Murals and Landmarks of Self-managed Urbanism
26.6 Colophon. In the Face of Urbicide, the Right to Beauty
References
27 Anatomy of an Urbicide. Social Housing in Santiago 1980–2006
27.1 Introduction
27.2 Housing Policy 1980/2006
27.2.1 Origin
27.2.2 Take-Off
27.2.3 Boom
27.2.4 Decline
27.3 The Footprint
27.4 Outcome
27.4.1 Large Fragments of No-City
27.4.2 Dissatisfied Dwellers
27.4.3 Difficult Coexistence
27.4.4 Difficult Recovery
27.5 Today
References
28 Urbicide. A Look Through the Mirror
28.1 Introduction
28.2 Is Physical Loss of the City Possible?
28.3 The Symbolic and Anthropical Death
28.4 Final Reflection
References
Part VII Destruction of Common Life: Violence
29 The Besieged City: Geographies of Crime
29.1 Introduction
29.2 Territory and Perception
29.3 Spaces of Transgression
29.3.1 Borders
29.3.2 Territories
29.3.3 Routes
29.3.4 Plazas
29.3.5 Hubs
29.4 Conclusions: Characterizing the Spatial Structure
References
30 Urbicide, Violence, and Destruction Against Cities by Criminal Organizations
30.1 Introduction
30.2 Urbicide and Violence in General
30.3 Clarification and Conceptual Limits
30.4 Urbicide and Criminal Organization Actions
30.5 Urban Violence and Urbicide, Approaches, Proximities, Limits
30.6 Expressions of Urban Violence Associated with Practices of Criminal Organizations
30.7 Ecuador’s Western Cities, an Example of Recent Regional Crime Growth
30.8 Urban Violence, How to Avoid It
References
31 Discursive Understandings of the City and the Persistence of Gender Inequality
31.1 Introduction
31.2 The Connection Between Urban Violence and Violence Against Women
31.3 Violence Against Women in the City: The Private and the Public Realms
31.4 Urban Policy and Violence Against Women
31.5 Conclusion
References
32 Border Cities Between Life and Death: Ciudad Juárez and El Paso
32.1 Introduction
32.1.1 The Border Wall
32.1.2 The Geopoetics of the Wall
32.2 Ciudad Juárez, Abandonment, and Urban Degradation
32.2.1 Geopoetics of Abandonment and Urban Degradation
References
Part VIII Contraction of Public Management: Privatization
33 The Metamorphosis of Infrastructure in Latin American Urbanization: From Insufficiency to Presence as Fictitious Capital
33.1 Introduction
33.2 Metamorphosis of Infrastructure as a Global Process: From Fixed to Fictitious Capital
33.3 The Insufficiency of Infrastructure in Latin American Urbanization: The Limits of the Public Funds and Urban Spoliation as an Accumulation Strategy
33.4 The Presence of Infrastructure as Fictitious Capital in Latin America Cities: The Transformation of the Role of Public Funds and The Emerge of New Forms of Spoliation
33.5 Final Considerations
References
34 Public Policies (Or Their Absence) as Part of Urban Destruction
34.1 Introduction
34.2 The State as Facilitator of Private Action
34.3 A Misunderstood Subsidiarity
34.4 The Abuse of “Tactical Urbanism”
34.5 The Reconfiguration of the Public
References
35 Metropolitanicide? Urbs, Polis and Civitas Revisited
35.1 Introduction
35.2 Metropolitan Government or Misgovernment?
35.2.1 Competencies, Funding and Multilevel Governance
35.2.2 A Practical Example: The Implementation of SDGs
35.3 The Difficulties of Building a Metropolitan Civitas
35.3.1 Metropolitan Elections
35.3.2 Political Orientations and Practices
35.4 Conclusion
References
36 International Tourism, Urban Rehabilitation and the Destruction of Informal Income-Earning Opportunities
36.1 Introduction
36.2 International Tourists and Street Traders
36.2.1 The Direct Impact on Traders
36.3 The Indirect Impact on Artisans
36.3.1 Artisan Decline and Displacement
36.3.2 Artisans and the Refurbishment of Public Spaces
36.4 Artisans and Transport Infrastructure Improvements
36.5 Crime, Violence and The Informal Sector
36.5.1 In-Market Violence
36.5.2 Street Violence
36.5.3 Catching Criminals Versus the Management of Tourist Space
36.5.4 Street Crime in Artisan Neighbourhoods
36.6 Conclusions
References
37 De-urbanization: From the Shock to the Revolution of a New Urban Logic
37.1 Introduction
37.2 Shock and De-urbanization. Cycle or Rupture?
37.2.1 The Urban Shock Doctrine. Blank Slate or Ruins?
37.2.2 City and Urbanization. Historical Construction or Human Caprices?
37.3 De-urbanization and Decitizenization. Production or Waste? Process or Flow?
37.4 Conclusions
References
Part IX Urbicide: Cities Cases
38 Grassroots Spaces Make London Exciting: The Relationship Between the Civitas and the Urbs
38.1 Introduction
38.2 From Institutional Support to Struggles on the Ground
38.3 Understanding the Relationship Between the Civitas and the Urbs
38.4 Re-assembling the Civitas and the Urbs
38.5 Conclusions
References
39 Rio de Janeiro: The Trajectory of the Wonderful City, Violence, and Urban Disenchantment
39.1 Building Capitality
39.2 The Capital Leaves Rio
39.3 Rio’s Structural Crisis in the Post-1960s
39.4 City and State of Rio de Janeiro: Intertwinings
39.5 Impacts of the 1964 Civil-Military Coup on the Politics of Rio de Janeiro
39.6 Socio-territorial Inequalities in the City of Rio de Janeiro
39.7 Facing Social and Territorial Inequalities in Rio de Janeiro
References
40 The Implosion of Memory. City and Drug Trafficking in Medellín and the Aburrá Valley
40.1 Introduction
40.2 Demolishing the Ignominious Past
40.3 Medellín Embraces Its History
40.4 A Benefactor of the Low Income Barrios
40.5 It Was not the Rule, but It Was not the Exception Either…
40.6 The Metro System: A Symbol of the Times in the Metropolitan City
40.7 The Dramatic Change of the Metropolitan Landscape
40.8 The Criminalis Metropolis
40.9 Between Permanence and Mutation…as a Colophon
References
41 Caracas. Urbicide and Precariousness of Urban Life at the Beginning of the Venezuelan Twenty-First Century. The Worst of Capitalism and Savage Populism
41.1 Introduction
41.2 Urbicide: A Useful Concept for Urban Analysis
41.3 Urbicide in a Petro-state
41.4 The Urbicide in Caracas
41.5 Information Opacity
41.6 The Urbicide Demonstrations in Caracas
41.6.1 Symbolic Urbicide
41.6.2 Urban Policies
41.6.3 Territorialization of the Political Conflict
41.6.4 Urban Violence and the Proliferation of Organized Crime
41.6.5 The Deterioration of the City’s Government and Infrastructure
41.6.6 The Popular Neighborhoods and the Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela (Great Mission Housing Venezuela)
41.6.7 The City Center: Deterioration and Spurious Recovery
41.6.8 Utility Problems Persist
41.6.9 Adding Up Problems: Urbicide, Complex Humanitarian Emergency, Pandemic, and Climate Change
41.7 Urban Management in the Wild Populism
41.8 Weaving the Threads of the Analysis of the Urbicide and Its Manifestations in Caracas
References
42 Santiago, the Non-city? Destruction, Creation, and Precariousness of Verticalized Space
42.1 Introduction
42.2 The City as an Object of Destruction in the Production of Urban Space
42.2.1 The Expressions of Destruction: Debris and (Re)construction
42.3 Verticalization and Transit Towards Its “Precarious” Expression
42.3.1 The Context of Chilean Cities
42.4 Evolution of Verticalization in the City of Santiago de Chile: Transition Towards New Forms of Precariousness
42.4.1 Verticalization as a Temporal and Territorial Process: Between Dispersion and Atomization, Systemic Height Adjustment and Critical Magnitude of the Residential Building
42.4.2 Transcendence of Verticalization: From Zones to Silos of Precariousness
42.5 Conclusions: Precarious Verticalization as a Recursive Process and Conformation of an Urbicide
References
43 Neoliberal Urbicide in Barcelona. The Case of Ciutat Vella
43.1 Introduction
43.1.1 The Instrumental Space of Urban Neoliberalism in Barcelona
43.2 Neoliberal Urbicide in Ciutat Vella (1970–2018)
43.2.1 The Capitalist Production of Space in the Old Quarter of Barcelona During the Late Francoism Period and the Spanish Transition
43.2.2 Ciutat Vella SA: Urban Entrepreneurialism for a Middle-Class Center
43.2.3 Ciutat Vella Premium: Violence of the Financialized Real Estate Circuit
43.3 The Production of Radical Social Space Against Neoliberal Urbicide
43.3.1 Transformative Urban Demands
43.3.2 (De Facto) Righ to the City
43.4 Conclusions
References
Part X Epilogue
44 Epilogue. Remake Us from Ruins, Collective Memories and Dreams
44.1 The Life of People and Life of Cities
44.2 Urbicide, Recent Trends
44.2.1 Physical Destruction Due to Economic, Political and Social Causes
44.2.2 Symbolic Destruction
44.2.3 Obsolete City
44.2.4 War and Disaster as Business
44.2.5 Ghost Urbanism
44.3 Learning from History
44.3.1 Utopias and Ideal Cities
44.3.2 Latin American Ideal Urban Visions
44.3.3 Science Fiction and Futuristic Cities
44.3.4 Over Ruins and Devastations
44.3.5 Reconstructions of Cities
44.4 Colophon
44.4.1 Between Urban Justice and the Right to the City
44.4.2 Another End of the City is Possible
44.4.3 Reinvent Urbanism
44.4.4 Public Policies for the People, not for the Market
44.4.5 Radical Positions
44.4.6 The Future Dispute
References
Index