The Right to the City Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space

by Mitchell, Don

• ISBN13: 9781572308473
• ISBN10: 1572308478
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-02-24
• Publisher: The Guilford Press

Summary

In the wake of recent terrorist attacks, efforts to secure the American city have life-or-death implications. Yet demands for heightened surveillance and security throw into sharp relief timeless questions about the nature of public space, how it is to be used, and under what conditions. Blending historical and geographical analysis, this book examines the vital relationship between struggles over public space and movements for social justice in the United States. Presented are a series of linked cases that explore the judicial response to public demonstrations by early twentieth-century workers, and comparable legal issues surrounding anti-abortion protests today; the Free Speech Movement and the history of People's Park in Berkeley; and the plight of homeless people facing new laws against their presence in urban streets. The central focus is how political dissent gains meaning and momentum--and is regulated and policed--in the real, physical spaces of the city. Ke

Author Biography

Don Mitchell is a Professor of Geography in the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. After receiving his doctorate in geography from Rutgers University in 1992, he taught at the University of Colorado before moving to Syracuse. He is the author of two previous books and numerous articles on the geography of labor, urban public space, and contemporary theories of culture. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and has held a Fullbright Fellowship at the University of Oslo. He is the founder and director of the People's Geography Project (www.peoplesgeography.org).

Table of Contents

Introduction The Fight for Public Space: What Has Changed?	1	(12)
To Go Again to Hyde Park: Public Space, Rights, and Social Justice	13	(29)
Public Space and the Right to the City	17	(25)
Making Dissent Safe for Democracy: Violence, Order, and the Legal Geography of Public Space	42	(39)
Bubble Laws, Abortion Rights, and the Legal Content of Public Space	43	(4)
Regulating Public Space	47	(4)
Violence, Order, and the Contradictions of Public Space	51	(3)
Disorder, Violence, and the Legal Construction of Public Space before World War I	54	(4)
Making Dissent Safe for Democracy	58	(13)
Regulating Public Forums	71	(3)
Conclusion	74	(7)
From Free Speech to People's Park: Locational Conflict and the Right to the City	81	(37)
Nonconformists, Anarchists, and Communists: Free Speech in Berkeley	83	(22)
From Free Speech to Counterculture: Urban Renewal and the Battle for People's Park	105	(13)
The End of Public Space? People's Park, the Public, and the Right to the City	118	(43)
Struggling over Public Space: The Volleyball Riots	118	(10)
The Dialectic of Public Space	128	(2)
The Importance of Public Space in Democratic Societies	130	(4)
The Position of the Homeless in Public Space and as Part of the Public	134	(3)
Public Space in the Contemporary City	137	(5)
The End of Public Space?	142	(5)
The Necessity of Material Public Spaces	147	(4)
Conclusion: The End of People's Park as a Public Space?	151	(1)
Coda	152	(9)
The Annihilation of Space by Law: Anti-Homeless Laws and the Shrinking Landscape of Rights	161	(34)
The Annihilating Economy	163	(4)
The Annihilation of People by Law	167	(6)
The Problem of Regulation	173	(8)
Citizenship in the Spaces of the City: A Brutal Public Sphere	181	(3)
Landscape or Public Space?	184	(6)
Conclusion	190	(5)
No Right to the City: Anti-Homeless Campaigns, Public Space Zoning, and the Problem of Necessity	195	(32)
``Broken Windows''	199	(5)
Santa Ana's Anti-Camping Ordinance and the Problem of Necessity	204	(5)
Anti-Homeless Campaigns and the Content of Contemporary Urban Justice	209	(2)
Public Space Zoning	211	(8)
Conclusion	219	(8)
Conclusion The Illusion and Necessity of Order: Toward a Just City	227	(12)
Spaces of Justice	230	(9)
References	239	(24)
Index	263	(7)
About the Author	270