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Notes
1 ‘It All Comes Together in Los Angeles?’ (Catterall Citation1996a, 1, citing Soja 1989).
2 We referred to the recent work of Shin (2014) on ‘domicide’; mass forced evictions (in rural and urban settings), a ‘modern’ continuation of the enclosure of the commons. In issue 5 (3), Michael Safier uses the term ‘urbicide' in reference to 9/11 and cities in conflict (Coulton et al. Citation2001); while Catterall (Citation2000c, 174) quotes William Lim's work on the same theme in issue 4 (2), on East and South East Asia: ‘in the race to become “modern” entire sections of old cities are carelessly deleted'.
3 He references the work of Michael Safier on cities in conflict, and how the transformations are often uncritically described, following Schumpeter, as processes of ‘creative destruction' without questioning who gets destroyed.
4 Agency may be concentrated in terms of wealth and power, but still excludes most urban residents. It is hard to make the claim that urban residents are empowered by living in the ‘centre’—indeed it may be the opposite, as is the case with say, a prison, where people are also concentrated in timespace, and yet, less empowered.
5 There is only an estimated 8% difference between global urban and rural populations; this 8% amounts to 560 million people, which is equivalent also to the number of people globally over 65; and also to the number of people who live in the 11 least peaceful countries (Syria, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Sudan, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and also for militarisation rather than hot conflict, Israel, North Korea and Russia); to conclude that the world is now ‘urban' is logically equivalent to concluding all the world is now over 65 or lives in one of those 11 countries. On urban and rural population, see: http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/world-urbanization-prospects-2014.html; the figures on global population over 65 are based on US Government data: https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/publication/global-health-and-aging/humanitys-aging; figures on the least peaceful countries come from the Global Peace Index Report: http://static.visionofhumanity.org/sites/default/files/2014%20Global%20Peace%20Index%20REPORT_0.pdf
6 Although it might be argued the WTO, IMF, World Bank and governments are also projects that serve the interests of corporations, and indeed corporations serve their owners.
7 In the last episode we also discussed how a machine–technological interface served to insulate modern people from the pain or discomfort of bodily confrontation.
8 The latter exclusion is arguably more forgivable given that the integration of multiple disciplines is a demanding/costly intellectual enterprise, naturally taking more time to arrive at the collective synthesis of multiple disciplines; it is also discouraged by the inherited institutional set up and the dominant culture of fragmentation.
9 Note that where the percentages are lower, it is usually in the case of processed raw materials, suggesting the industrial–technical capital to process it is lacking, likely located in a more central location in the service of central power.
10 This systemic dynamic is a feature of complex systems and is recognised in studies of complexity as applied to transport, communications and technology; these network-dependent functions are vulnerable to monopolisation because one only has to maintain control over certain gateways to win control over the whole; this was understood long ago by Rockefeller when he sought to monopolise American railways, by Bill Gates when we sought to monopolise the early market in computer software and also by Rupert Murdoch in his strategy to monopolise Anglo-American media. All three men gained exponentially in terms of the asymmetrical power such network positions afforded them.
11 See City (2011) 15 (6), special feature ‘Beyond the Return of the Slum'.
12 Where Bedouin villages have been erased from official maps, a criminalisation hastening ‘their forced urbanization and Israelization’.
13 ‘An 1878 study showed there were 31 serious famines during the 120 years of British rule, compared to only 17 in the previous 200 years' (Bowman Citation2001, 254).
14 ‘It has been endlessly demonstrated that the huge numbers of avoidable deaths, directly implicating the USA and its allies, through Iraqi sanctions or global structural adjustment programmes, merit barely a line in even the most high-brow newspapers. And it has been proven beyond doubt that the Western media operates on an informal and unwritten system of valuing human beings, and their deaths, extremely unequally … ' The deep relationship between Hollywood film producers and the White House has also been long acknowledged, see, for example: David Sirota (2011), ‘The Pentagon's Strengthening Grip on Hollywood’, http://www.salon.com/2011/08/29/sirota_military_movies/
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Melissa Wilson
Melissa Wilson is a biologist and political scientist, lives off grid and works with permaculture projects for social-ecological resilience in Portugal; she co-edits the City website www.city-analysis.net. Email: [email protected]