urbicide: a concerted and preemptive military strategy designed to undermine the urban foundations for independence; destroy networks of resistance; and separate settlers and occupiers from immobilized colonized populations while demolishing their infrastructures of survival.
By Stephan Kipfer and Kanishka Goonewarda
4 Comments
that's a great, short article
yeah, it really makes one question the nature of the city. Have cities been military chess pawns all along since the birth of agriculture? Serving solely the interest of the superpower’s economic conquest? Are our cities today merely modern extensions of that ancient machine, or is there a real essence in their suitability to our living that has over time allowed them to outgrow and transcend the strict ‘formative strategic outpost nature’ of their more widespread intent? Are cities doomed to self-demise by virtue of an inherent lack of sustainability? Even though this article is steeped in a ‘leftist’ language, I don’t think the subject gets lost in a game of left vs. right like many liberal/conservative voices do, what do you think?
I think that what I like about the article is the perspective that cities are likes pistons for imperial drive, but, just like they can power it, they have the potential to overtake it. I think plenty of cities have survived for centuries upon centuries and they will continue to overcome problems of resource depletion, sieges, revolts, etc. Can they survive without serving unfair distrubution of wealth and power? It's hard to imagine. The issue raised by the article is when are the social critics going to stop with the fundamentlist values and begin to answer those questions.
article can now be found here
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