A What a City Is For by Hern Matt;

Author:Hern, Matt;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2016-10-14T04:00:00+00:00

1. There are all kinds of counterarguments that might be brought to bear here; does, say, the Cuban Revolution count? The proposition that gentrification is currently undefeated is a provocative and tenuous claim, but the basic thrust is sound and worth considering.

2. Sorry, “the Left” is an entirely malleable and fuzzy term, and I confess to deploying it ideologically here, but stay with me.

3. See, for example, “RSA Animate: David Harvey, the Crises of Capitalism,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0.

4. Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, and David Harvey, “Commonwealth: An Exchange,” Artforum 48, no. 3 (November 2009): 210–221, http://korotonomedya.net/kor/index.php?id=27,316,0,0,1,0.

5. Do-it-yourself and do-it-together.

6. Colin Ward, “Anarchism and the Informal Economy,” in Reinventing Anarchy, Again, ed. Howard Ehrlich (San Francisco: AK Press, 1996), 229.

7. As per Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, who describe the state as an “apparatus of capture.” A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987).

8. Glen S. Coulthard, “Subjects of Empire: Indigenous Peoples and the ‘Politics of Recognition’ in Canada,” Contemporary Political Theory 6, no. 4: 452.

9. Here are three Mitra lectures: “Kids Can Teach Themselves,” February 2007, http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves; “The Child-Driven Education,” July 2010; http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education?language=en; and “Build a School in the Cloud,” February 2013, http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud.

10. As per C. L. R. James’s famous essay: “Every Cook Can Govern,” Correspondence 2, no. 12 (June 1956).

11. Sometimes by myself; sometimes with a crew of grad students in tow.

12. Among the all-time great acronyms.

13. Interestingly and illustratively, the camp was set up in large part because the Occupy Portland project had taken over the space where homeless people had previously gathered and did not particularly welcome their presence. R2D2 was built in direct response to that strange displacement, but Ibrahim and the Right 2 Dream Too folks were generous in rebuilding that relationship and giving the Occupy Portland crew clear communication about how they could support one another.

14. The owner had knocked down an old commercial building with the intention of installing food carts, but after he was denied permits due to the gravel surface, he decided to lease it to Right 2 Survive (R2D2’s governing nonprofit) for one dollar per year. He obviously is being generous, but mostly he really wants to piss off the city.

15. Sleeping bags are provided and are laundered twice a week on top of being sprayed with bleach and tea tree oil every night.

16. There’s also a dedicated twenty-four-hour sleeping tent for people who want to sleep during the day. Some people living there work night shifts.

17. Including a number of people with full-time jobs.

18. T-shirt sales, in-kind donations, fundraisers, and so on.

19. Andrew Theen, “Right 2 Dream Too Homeless Camp: A Year and $846,000 Later, Still in Same Spot,” Oregonian, February 25, 2015, http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2015/02/right_2_dream_too_homeless_cam_3.html.

20. According to the City of Portland Housing Bureau, 2014, http://www.portlandoregon.gov/phb/60643.

21. Like all sprawling metropolises, where the city starts and ends is rather capricious, so it depends on where and how you measure. The 2010 US census gives these numbers for Portland: 583,776 for the city proper (and an estimated 609,456 for 2013), 1,849,898 for the urban area, and 2,314,554 for the metro region.

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