Militaristic Urbanism (2012)

Urban areas have long served as battlegrounds of social conflict, and urbanization and globalization have only intensified their role as focal points of struggle. As the stakes of physical, military, and economic planning have risen, so has the temptation to use coercive tactics to manage urban conflicts. Government responses to terrorism, trafficking, piracy, and other forms of lawlessness reflect this attraction to the use of violence.

Recently, worsening local economic inequality has spurred rising discontent, and government sin almost every part of the world have sought to acquire security through force. States have tightened the physical control of their borders, while implementing increased immigration enforcement within those borders. They have blurred the lines between military and police forces. They have even invaded and occupied territories seen as hostile to their national identity or to corporate economic interests.

Table of Contents

Editorial Note (pdf)
Ian Elder and Nina Flores

• Homelessness in the Livable City: Public Space Regulation in Olympic City Vancouver's Poorest Neighborhood (pdf)
  Alix Freiler and Meg Holden

• Dialectical Imaginaries: Forms of Life, Forms of Fascism in the Metropolis of Film, Manga and Anime (pdf)
  Lawrence Bird

• The Role of Urban Upgrading in Latin America as Warfare Tool Against the "Slum Wars" (pdf)
  Jota (José) Samper

• OPINION: Urban Fortification: Segregation, Mobility, and Control (pdf)
  Taylor Choe

• Towards Militaristic Urban Planning: the Genealogy of the Post-Colonial European Approach to Social and Urban Insecurity (pdf)
  Alexandre B. Hedjazi and Hatem Fekkak

• Militarizing the Enemy's Home, Israel/Palestine: a Photo Essay (pdf)
  Erella Grassiani

• Hypercities Captures a Revolution (pdf)
  Shadrach Florea, Chirag Rabari, and Karna Wong

• Every Day is Like This (pdf)
  Mariella Saba