Abstract
This book, with a couple of alterations in included pieces, and a few edits, is a republication of the important 2009 special issue of CITY (published, however, in 2010) that bore the same title ‘Cities for People, Not for Profit’. In turn, that issue derived from a conference in Berlin marking Peter Marcuse’s 80th birthday and celebrating his many incisive intellectual and political contributions to urban theory and struggles for a just city over his long (and still going strong) career. As in the special issue, the book is rooted not so much in Lefebvre’s ‘cry and demand’ for a right to the city, but Marcuse’s. The difference is this. Marcuse’s work, and his vision, is underlain by both a deep disdain for the cant of contemporary capitalism – a truly critical approach – and a deep pragmatism: a deep concern for what can be done now that might make matters better while creating the conditions of possibility for non-reformist reforms. For Marcuse, ‘critical’ means ‘among other things … an evaluative attitude towards reality, a questioning rather than an acceptance of the world. It leads to a position not only necessarily critical in the sense of negative criticism, but also critically exposing the positive and the possibilities for change, implying positions on what is wrong and needing change, but also on what is desirable and needs to be built on and fostered’ (p. 24, emphasis added). To be critical, in Marcuse’s view, is to be pragmatic, and ‘critical urban theory is … analysis that flows from the experience of practice in developing the potentials of existing urban society, and critical theory is intended to illuminate and inform the future course of such practice’ (p. 25).
Cities for People sets out to model such a critical urban theory and such a critical, pragmatic analysis of the contemporary city in order to point to ‘future courses’ towards expansive rights to the city and more just – and for most authors, socialist – urban worlds. The book is comprised of 16 chapters, of which 10 appeared in CITY. Conversely, there are five articles in the CITY issue not in the book. The reason for the swapping is not clear, especially since among those six chapters included in the book are two that do not really engage in critical urban theory as Marcuse models it and as this book intends us to understand it: Christian Schmidt’s not very original or interesting interpretation of Lefebvre’s take on ‘the urban’ and Neil Brenner et al.’s meandering, pretentious, empirically (and in fact theoretically) ungrounded ‘reading’ of the use of the concept of ‘assemblage’ and ‘actor-network theory’ in Colin McFarlane’s work: this is a first-draft seminar paper more than a chapter. (By contrast, two excellent, empirically and politically, as well as theoretically, critically insightful articles on gentrification and redevelopment in Berlin that appeared in CITY do not appear here.) A third addition, remarks David Harvey made at a different Berlin conference, provides a nice conclusion to the book (‘What is to be done, and who is going to do it?’, he asks), but is widely available elsewhere. Three other additions are definitely worth it: Stefan Krätke’s close examination of the shibboleth of ‘creative cities’ that shows, decisively, that ‘there is no justification for urban policies that favor the interests of the functional elites within neoliberalizing capital’ (p. 148), and that is precisely why tribunes of creative cities offer none; Peter Marcuse’s clear, concise, deeply considered ‘critical approach to solving the housing problem’; and especially Right to the City Alliance (RTTCA) activist Jon Liss’s political economic analysis of the need for, history of the struggles towards creating, and the significant challenges in perpetuating and developing the RTTCA, a chapter almost worth the price of the book alone.
And the rest – the chapters transferred from the special issue to the book? Like all edited collections they are uneven, but in content, style, and politics, they are refreshingly more coherent than most (which makes the inclusion of Schmidt and Brenner et al.’s new chapters all the more puzzling, since they interrupt that coherency). The best are: Marcuse’s ‘Whose right(s) to what city?’ (refreshingly retitled from ‘From Critical Urban Theory to the Right to the City’) which clearly and concisely answers both those questions (whose rights? what city?) and the ones they imply (what rights? whose city?); Justus Uitermark’s historical account of the erosion of the right to the city and the (partial) eclipse of spatial and social justice in Amsterdam; and Margit Mayer’s detailed history of urban social movements, the difference that ‘right to the city’ is beginning to make in some of them, and the way its radicalness has been co-opted by the adoption of ‘Right to the City’ frameworks and charters by UN-Habitat and global NGOs. Mayer’s chapter is particularly helpful for comparatively examining social movements in the global north and global south. These three chapters meet, and exceed, the demands Marcuse lays out for critical urban theory (by example and in his normative writing). Also valuable are: Kanishka Goonewardena’s sharp, indeed at times exciting, ‘eight theses’ on ‘Space and Revolution in Theory and Practice’ – meant to show the way towards ‘the right to a radically different world’ (p. 98) – a chapter I want to hand to activist friends, students, and colleagues alike; Tom Slater’s further installment in his (justifiably) angry attack on the gentrification of gentrification studies, an attack made concrete by Slater’s mastery of the facts of gentrification – what it does and to whom – and his ability to use those facts to expose the crassness, and the class blindness, of those who want to either celebrate gentrification or to say ‘really, gentrification’s not so bad’; and Oren Yiftachel’s empirically rich and politically incisive account of Bedouin’s struggle for place – for ‘sumood’ (an Arabic word ‘denoting perseverance, patience, and quiet determination’ (p. 161) – in the Negev. Peter Marcuse’s conversation with Bruno Flierl, published here as ‘Socialist Cities, For People or For Power’, is also valuable both for its clearing away of hoary myths about the total misery of eastern European cities during the socialist era, and for its careful examination of the relationship between capital accumulation, power, and democracy. Less useful are: Katharine Rankin’s chapter on the praxis of planning, which was clearly written as a festschrift for Marcuse and which nicely references lots of the other chapters in the book, but which only provides a normative view on what planning ought to be rather than such a normative view linked (in Marcusean fashion) to steps for getting there; and Brenner’s chapter ‘What is Critical Theory?’, which pretty much addresses this question but does so only at the level the literature (or really a select bit of it – mostly Frankfurt school, as if the discourse had not evolved and widened since and as if grounded, empirical, or even Marcusean pragmatic knowledge has no place). Brenner’s chapter (which leads off the book, after the introduction) does not add a great deal to the development or our knowledge of critical urban theory, and makes for a poor entry into what is otherwise a much more incisive and insightful book on, and intervention into, struggles for the right to the city – and for the struggle for cities made for people not for profit.
Since the editors want cities for people and not for profit, we can assume they think the same way about books and, especially critical urban theory: they are for people, for their intellectual development and their empowerment, first, and for Routledge’s profit second. So here is what I recommend: if your library subscribes to CITY, download the articles you are keen on. Then grab your library’s copy of this book and copy Liss’s chapter (required) and Krätke’s (if you are interested). Empower yourself for the struggle and save money at the same time.