Our view of the city can often become sanitized. A vision of cappuccino culture servicing the needs of a consumer society that engages easily between homesome suburb and edgy/artistic city streets. However, sometimes we are reminded that the city is also a formation of taught tension and uneasy alliances that on occasion breaks down in a very dramatic way. And it does explode ... very frequently. The recent unrest in Istanbul and subsequently cities throughout cities reminds that in reality cities are a very uneasy peace. It is interesting that we have seen this explode in London and Istanbul in the last 3 three years - two world cities growing in the face of recession, and feeding off immigrants from former empires. In recent days Detroit has basically gone bust - harking back to New York's flirtation with the financial abyss 40 years ago. These cycles are shocking but at the same time so predictable.
So it is only right to quote The Smiths from
Strangeways here we come, which echoed the Clash's
London Calling from 8 years earlier and in turn to evoke Henri Lefebvre's The Urban Revolution. This incredible essay by David Harvey
'The Right to the city' provides a persuasive thesis that the urbanisation process from Haussman's Paris to Bloomberg's New York are inextricably linked to economic and political power. Istanbul's summer reminds that sometimes the fight for the city, and public space is violent and instantaneous.
Because, lest we get too comfortable, we need to be reminded at all times that smart cities are not about technology, but about equality, access to opportunity rather than opportunism. A smart city is a place of enabling networks and transparency.
