Introduction Sustainable what? Sustainable + city = ???/ Help save the Elsewhere! All these people! Who are they, anyway? So where does this leave us? The structure of the thesis Footnotes

In assessing cities and what these may become, it is pertinent to review literature concerning the experience of living in these places. Much literature concerning the urban realm appeared in the documentation of urban social movements, of which Castells is a key author. This literature focussed on the actions of bodies seen to be centred around core issues, such as housing rights, sexuality rights and so on 34. However, such portrayals are problematic in that they imply coherent, single issue ‘movements’ exhibiting internal homogeneity, which denies the role of the individual other than as a group member and allows room for neither diversity nor complexity within the urban realm 35. Others see the contemporary city as an arena for spectacle and celebration 36. However, this celebration is only by and of some, and comes at the expense of others 37. This is the result of a perceived need for regulation and control of threatening ‘others’ so as to avoid potential conflict 38. Such ‘others’ and also ‘strangers’ are constructs used by city inhabitants to cope with living "…next to each other (but not together)" 39; ‘others’ become targets for those traits in ourselves we despise or are in denial of 40. ‘Strangers’ are more problematic, as their status as ‘self’ or ‘other’ cannot be readily determined, hence by the process of ‘mismeeting’ we relegate strangers to "… the sphere of disattention... the realm of non-engagement" 41. This is triggered by "…our feeling of being lost, of not knowing how to act and what to expect, and the unwillingness of engagement" 42. Underlying both constructs is a basic fear of chaos, whereby we feel the need to regulate and control a world which we feel distant from, as well as those ‘strangers’ and ‘others’ in it 43. Bauman states "[i]f only they could be confined to the outer fringes of social space, perhaps the outsiders could take all the rest of ambivalence, scattered all over the place, with them" 44. Not surprisingly, this ordering leads to the dehumanisation of public space. The process of ordering always favours some over others whose modes of being or thinking are perceived as threatening. Buell and DeLuca discuss the more fundamental role of othering in its capacity to maintain our current social order and economic system: How does a society justify to itself and to its most disadvantaged the harms it will not or cannot address? How does it justify the social practices that leave so many in desperate poverty? How does it cope with the anxiety and travail even of middle-class citizens coping with the reality of daily life? What better way than to portray those who have not achieved success as part of a genetically, racially distinct – and inferior – group. This group threatens "us", the hardworking strata of middle America... Portraying a culture of poverty as a source of drugs, murder and starvation stills doubt about what our patterns of growth have brought to all of us. 45 Such attempts at order or unity always come at the expense of diversity 46; hence, much of what our interactions could be, is lost. Some authors also attribute this to the penetration of money into most interpersonal interactions, at the expense of emotional engagement 47. Bauman states that monetary transactions "... can be properly performed only under conditions of emotional neutrality" 48, while Bookchin states that capitalism’s intrusion into the town, neighbourhood and family "…has subverted the social bond itself and threatens to undermine any sense of community and ecological balance and diversity in social life" 49. The economy has also intruded into our political realms, such that "…the economy has all but displaced civil society as the end in mainstream politics" 50. Our political processes have themselves migrated away from the populace into gargantuan, distant structures such that citizens "…think the national state is too far removed from their problems" 51. While some argue that it is possible to use public space as the venue for protest and legitimation, with the potential for international exposure 52, the ultimate efficacy of such actions remains dubious: recognition of an issue by bodies perceived responsible or in a position of control, may not necessarily indicate its redress. Such actions are also open to misrepresentation or worse still, total inattention, on behalf of the media. That is, media portrayals such as ‘marginal’ or ‘extremist’, or the lack of any media coverage at all, can effectively silence a protest perceived as large and valid by its participants.

Contents Preface Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Appendix I Appendix II References << email:lcrabtre@*SPAMBINGLER*els.mq.edu.au >> NOTE: Remember to delete the expression *SPAMBINGLER* from the address before sending the email. << honours index >> << phd index >> << home >> << to top of page >>