Uneven Growth Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities

“It is in conditions of this sort that the propensity to political revolt begins to fester. Universal alienation from a burdensome daily life in the city is everywhere in evidence.5 But so are the innumerable attempts on the part of individuals, social groups, and political movements to find ways to construct a decent life in a decent living environment. The theme that there must be an alternative takes many forms and produces many quasi-solutions in seemingly infinite guises. It is in this context that concerned groups of thinkers and practitioners are exploring alternatives, sometimes at small scales but in other instances, in the wake of urban revolts, to encourage the search for better forms of urban living. The do-it-yourself ethos of many social groups cast adrift from the prevailing dynamic of capital accumulation creates possibilities for alliances of urban thinkers and technicians with nascent social movements searching for a good or at least a better life. In Andean nations the ideal of “buen vivir” is implanted in national constitutions even as it conflicts with neoliberalizing practices on the ground.6 With massive populations deemed surplus and disposable in a context of perpetual land grabbing by developers and financiers, aided all too often by a corrupted state apparatus, many situations arise in which political battles take shape well before some fuse is lit to turn the growing propensity for street revolts into an active reality.” David Harvey on the Crisis of Planetary Urbanization
rest @ http://post.at.moma.org/content_items/520-the-crisis-of-planetary-urbanization