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Cities As Strategic Sites Place Annihila PDF

This document discusses the deliberate targeting and attempted annihilation of cities throughout history, especially in modern warfare. It argues that cities have long been explicit targets of orchestrated attacks, with their infrastructure, institutions, and populations targeted through strategic bombing campaigns and other acts of urban warfare. Planning the destruction of cities requires as much technical expertise and organization as planning for urban growth. The continuum between urban planning and urban warfare is more blurred than planners may like to admit, as large-scale urban changes often involve violence against populations and places. The targeting of cities in warfare constitutes a form of "place annihilation" that deserves more scholarly attention.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
177 views13 pages

Cities As Strategic Sites Place Annihila PDF

This document discusses the deliberate targeting and attempted annihilation of cities throughout history, especially in modern warfare. It argues that cities have long been explicit targets of orchestrated attacks, with their infrastructure, institutions, and populations targeted through strategic bombing campaigns and other acts of urban warfare. Planning the destruction of cities requires as much technical expertise and organization as planning for urban growth. The continuum between urban planning and urban warfare is more blurred than planners may like to admit, as large-scale urban changes often involve violence against populations and places. The targeting of cities in warfare constitutes a form of "place annihilation" that deserves more scholarly attention.

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© © All Rights Reserved
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30 Stephen Graham

provide me very sinews of "globalization. ,. And they are a legacy - indeed,


almost an embodiment - of Enlightenment dreams of conquering nature,
1
delivering salvation from wanr, and sustaining endless "progress" and
modernization based on technoscicntific discovery.
"I
At [he same time, however, Luke stresses !.hat an urban life within these Cities as Strategic Sites: Place

banaJ everyday technostructures and "big systems" is an inherenrly vulner­


able one. As the events of9111 demonstrate, such embedded assers can very Annihilation and Urban Geopolitics

easily be turned inro weapons of mass destruction and agents of chaos. In


some cases, even small shifrs in the operation of these systems can bring
annihilation and mass death. As Umberto Eco has wrirren, "the true
enemy, we have seen, doesn't even need his own technology; he uses Stephen Graham
those of the people he wants to destroy" (2003).

Introduction

Biologists have prepared "(cd books" of extinct or endange(ed species; ecolo­


gisLS have their "green books" of ilireatencd habitats. Perhaps we need our
"black book" of the places dcsU"oyed or nearly desuoyed by human agt:ocies.
Actually it would (ake many books and sucel maps packed with (emem­
beances to recoed the settlcmenrs, neighborhoods, and buildings iII chose
places dcsuoyed in recem wars. (Hewitt, 1983: 275)

Arguably, humankind has expended almost as much energy, effort, and


thought on the arrempted annihilation and killing of cities as it has on their
planning, construction, and growth (Bennan, 1996). Such attempts at city
annih.ilation require purposive work. They necessitare detailed anaJysis.
Often, they involve "scientific" planning and operational strategy-making
of a complexity and sophistication that matches anything ever done to
sustain the more familiar acts of "civil" urban planning (Bamoan, 1989).
Of course, these stories are never celebrJted. Usually, they are consciously
or unconsciously obscured. But dig a Iirue, and jt is not uncommon (0 find
the work of cartographers, geographers, and planners, of architects, engin­
eers, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and statisticians, running
through the atrocities and place annihilarions of the twentieth (and early
twenty-first) centuries like the names of seaside resorts that run through the
famous British holiday candy, "rock."
Take (he bombing-based annihilation of Gennan and Japanese cities
by the Allies In World War II as an (admirredJy extreme) example .
To "succeed" - and the deaths of over 900,000 Japanese and 600,000
German civilians were seen here as a "success" - vast rechnoscientific and
bureaucraric systems were required (Hewitt, 1983, 1987). lbe bomhing
: Clli~j as Straugr.c SIlC.
32 Swphetl Gruham 33
/f
necessicated huge workforces and incredibly complex divisions of labor. Ir Hewitt suggested such neglect was made even more problematic ic ct.:ause
relied on the dehumanization of tbe residents of "target" cities and the the shifr to "total war" in the rwcntierh century meant that cities and rl___eir
scientific rarionalization, and routinization, of me killing process. And it populations overwhelmingly became the actual carge IS of war. He noted .hat
was built on dle construction of a euphemistic language [0 hide rhe terrible World War II, i..n particular, was "warfare that suove cowards, if it did .not
reality on the ground - a reality still rarely exposed - to concentrate instead always achieve, an end of the seeded historic places that have been at the heart
on generating heroic imagery and discourses about the war in the "air" of civilian life, and art excennination of entire communities" (1987: ·'i,46).
(Sebald, 2002; Friedridl, 2003; Gray, 1997) . People who were made For this explicit concenuation on the Killing of cities in modem war,
homeless in the incendiary and high explosive anacks, for example, were Hewitt coined the term "place annihilation .""'For a social scienrist, " he
described as "dehoused" (Davis, 2002) . stressed that "it is acruaHy imperative to ask just who dies and whose places
When analyzed like this, the rotal bombing of urban Japan and Germany are destroyed by violence" within such wars of place annihilation (1987:
actually had many similarities to the Holocaust, with its much more famil­ 464; original emphasis) . TIlis is because such strategies aTe usually far from
iar machinery of spatiaJized anniliilation and industrialized, genocidal indiscriminate. Commonly, they involve a great deal of planning, so that
killing (Cole, 2003). In a detailed comparison of the (wo strategies, histor­ the violence and destrUction achieve the desired political, social, economic,
ians Markusen and Kopf (l985) have argued that, while it may be a deeply ecological, and cultural effects on me "target" population and cheir places .
uncomfortable dling to realize (for many in Britain and the USA, at any All of which means that the division between urban planning geared
rate), dlcse similarities are so strong that the mass annihilation of ciries by cowards urban growth and development, and thal which focuses 00 at­
bombing in World \Var n must properly be labeled genocidal. tempts at place annihilation or attack, is not always clear. It is certainly
This e..'{ample demonstrates powerfully that, in an urbanizing world, much more fuzzy than urban planners - with their Enlightenment-tinged
ciries provide much more than just me backdrop and environment for war self-images of devoting themselves to instilling urban "progress" and
and terror. Rather, their buildjngs, assets, institutions, industries, and "order" - might want to believe. In fact, it is necessary to assume that a
infrastructures; their cuJtural diversities and symbolic meanings; have continuum exists connecting acts of building and physical restrucruring, on
long actually themselves been dle explicit targe( for a wide range of deliber­ the one hand, and acts of aU-ouc organized war and place annihilarion on
ate, orchestrated attacks. the other.
The starting point for this chapter at the beginning of the (Wenry-first Such a continuum is complicated, of course, by me fact that much
century, these attacks agains( cicies together constitute what we actually planned urban change i(self involves war-like levels of violence, destabiliza­
chink of as "war" and "terrorism." And yet, curiously, the purposive and tion, ruprure, forced expulsion, and place annihilation (Bennan, 1996).
planned desaucrion of urban places is scarcely mentioned in urban social Particularly within the clizzying peaks and troughs of capiralist urbanism,
research (Bishop and Clancey, this volume). Purposive and planned city state-led planning often boils down to the legitimized clearance of vast
killing remains cloaked and veiled by powerful cultural, intellectual, and tracts within ciries in the name of decay eradication, modernization) im­
professional taboos. provement, ordering, economic competition, or facilitating technological
In 1983 the geographer Ken Hewirt argued that, from the perspective of change and capital accumulation and speculation. As David HalVey argues:
urban social science, the "destruction of cities, as of much else, remains "The economically, poli(ically and sociaJly driven processes of creative
terra incognita" (Hewitt, 1983: 258). While there has been some progress destruction through abandonment and redevelopment are often every bit
since, the deliberate annihilation of cities tends still (0 remain terra incognita as destructive as arbitray acts of war. Much of contemporary Baltimore,
in urban social science (Wenry years after Hewin first made this point. with its 40)000 abandoned houses, looks like a war zone to rival Sarajevo"
Certainly, the attempted annihilation of Verdun, Ypres, Guernica, (Harvey, 2003 : 26b) .
Nanking, and Rotterdam; of Coventry, London, Leningrad, Stalingrad, My purpose in this chapter is to illustrate [he inseparability of war, tcrror,
Warsaw, Hamburg, and Dresden; of Tengd10ng, Tokyo, Hiroshima, place annihilation, and modem urbanism. I do this by revealillg a range of
Nagasaki, Seoul, Phnom Penh, My Lai, Algiers, Beirut, Sarajevo, Jenin, "hidden histories" of what I call the "dark side" of urban modernity ­
or Groznyy, are only very rarely discussed in urban course books the propensity for urban life to be deliberately attacked, destroyed, or
and textbooks dt:signed for urban planners, geographers, sociologists, or annihilated, both in acts of organized war and through ule bureaucratic
architects. What Mike Davis (2002) calls the "radical conringency of d1e macbinerics of urbao planning and nation-state regimes. To achieve rhis
merropolis" is dlUS being actively and continually forgolum. I offer a series of nine illustrative vignettes or miai case srudies.
.,

34 Srep)u!7I (rraham
"
c,ru,s as Slral£l[1C Sile"
35

over every urban bomb blast in Japan and Gennany in an effort to improve
Architectures of A.nnihilation: The "War Ideology
the "efficiency" of the ciry killing and urban "dehousing" (Vanderbilt
of the Plan"
2002). To predict the effects of incendiary and "A"-bombs on Japanes;
cities, a "Japanese village" was also constructed - again in Nevada . This
In our firSt vignette, as we have just noted, civilian urban planning, devel~ was comple[e with all sons of realistic Japanese-sryle buildings, contents,
opment, modernizarion, and resu-ucruring often acrually involve levels of and infrastructures (VanderbiIL, 2002j Goodman, 2000).
devastation of ciries, ruination, and forced resettlement that match that 'TIlis work goes on and on. More recently, the US and Israeli militaries
which occurs in aU-out war. Even in supposedly democratic societies, have cooperated to construct and run a kind 'of shadow urban system of the
planned urban restrucruring often involves autocratic stare violence, mas­ complete urban ncigbourhood, replete with "mosques, hanging laundry
sive urban dcsrrucrion, the forced devastation of livelihoods, and even mass and even toe odd donkey meandering down dusty streets" (Marsden, 2003:
death. These are justified through heroic and mYThologizing discourses 2) . These have been used for joint military exercises co train the marines
emphasizing modernizarion, hygiene, or progress. Invariably, the desauc­ and soldiers who invaded Baghdad, Basra, Fallujah, and Jenin (Graham,
rion that follows is direcred against marginalized places and people that are rhis volume).
"
discursively constructed as backward, unclean, antiquated, or threatening It is also scarcely realized that demographers, statisticians, geographers,
co dle dominant order. In both authoritarian and democratic societies, architects, and planners have been central [0 Israel's efforts to deepen its
ideologies of urban planning have often acrually delzberalely invoked meta­ comrol over the three dimensional spaces of the Occupied Territories
phors of war and militarism to legitimize violenl acts of planned transform­ (Wei2man, this volume). Their analyses and prescriptions have helped to
ation (Sandercock, 1998). Anthony Vidler (2001: 38) calls mis "me war shape the annexing of Palestinian land, dle t.:onS(nlction of walls and
ideology of the plan ." ('buffer zones, " che mass bulldozing ol houses and olive groves, the demo­
Thus, place annihilation can be thought of as a kind of hidden - and demization of Palestinian cities, the ethnic cleansing of selected areas, the
sometimes not so hidden - planning history. The planned devastation and construcrion of carefu.lly located Jewish settlements and access roads, and
killing of cities is a dark side of the discipline of urban planning that is rarely dle appropriation of water and airspace (Weizman, Graham, this volume) .
acknowledged, Jet alone analyzed. It is rarely realized, for example, that me
analytical and st3risacal methods so often used in post-World War II
civilian planning have also been used - sometimes by me same demo­ "P1a.nning" and Occupation as War on
graphic, economic, and planning "experrs" - to spatially organize the the Colonized City
apartheid regime in South Africa, maximize me "efficiency" of the system­
atic fire-bombing of Gennan and Japanese cities, organize me house­ One of the achievements of me great wave of nlOdemiza[ion that began in the
by-house demolition of Warsaw in 1945, set up the giant urban-regional lace eighteenth cenrury was to incorporale urblcide inw the process of urban
process of the Holocaust, or starve many Easter European cities and developmem .. . Ies victims, along wim the ir neighborhoods and (Owns,
regions into submission in the mid-1940s. The laccer work even involved vanisl\ without a trace . (Bennan, 1996: 181)
the founder of Cenrral Place Theory, that seminaJ economic geographer
Walter Christaller - star of any traditional school human geography course. In our second illustration, many strategies of occupation and colonization
Following the lnvasion easrward in 1941, he was employed by me Nazis to have also been based explicitly on me planned destruction and devastalion
rethink the economic geography of an "Aryaruzed" Eastern Europe - a of cities. Of course, colonization is essentially about the subordination,
process direcdy linked to the planned starvation and forced migration of annihilarion, or exploieation of one people's culrure, life world, and places
millions of people (see Aly and Heim, 2002; Rossler, 1989j Cole, 2003). by another. Urban "plallDing" in many colonized cities, thus, often
Meanwhile, mock German and Japanese housing units, complete wid1 amounts to link bm the planned devastation and bulldozing of indigenous
authentic roofing materials, fumiture, interior decorations, and clothing, cities to underpin the strategic and social control of the occupiers or sealers
were erected in Nevada [0 allow me design and chemical makeup of (Said, 2003; Yeoh, 1996; yiftachel, 1995) . Here the "orderly" imprintS
incendiaries that would later bum Dresden and Tokyo to be carefully ofWestem-sryle urban planning and property law have long been lI!~ ed as a
customized for their intended targets on a city by cilY basis (Davis, 2002: form of urban warfare (B1omley, 2003). At firsr, this was done co quell
65-84). Thousands of operation scientists and urban statisticians pored local insurgencies in non-Western, colonized cities. Later, such militari7.~d
Suphe1l Graham
Cities <l$ Strougu; Sites 37
36

planning strategies were of1en imported back to the "homeland" to reshape


{he greac imperial capitals for similar purposes (Missdwitz and Weizman,
2003).
Tellingly, the first special manual on "urban warfare" was produced in
1847 by the French army CO show how troOps could ruililessly puc down
insurrections in Algiers that were chen erupting, led by Abdel lZager. This
book, La Guerre des rues et des maisons, was authored by me leader of the
French Forces, Bugeaud (1997). After a bloody seven-year struggle in a
classic "asymmetric" urban war - with [00,000 French troops pitched
against 10,0000 local resistance fighters - Bugeaud simply destroyed enrire
neighborhoods in the dense Algiers Casbah. In the process, he committed
many atrocities against civilians and fighrers alike and imp rimed massive
avenues t1uough the city to sustain the swveillance, movement, and killing
power of the occupying forces. This broke the resistance (for a time, at
least) (Misselwirz and Weizman, 2003).
In a process that would be paralleled many times later, these techniques
were then used to inform urban planning strategies designed to quell
civil and social unrest in the: "homeland," imperial centers of the colonizing
powers. Bugeaud's docmnes, for example, had a major influence on JAffA aD To-YJN
te\lllk1Il..-:, xu".
Baron Haussmann in the 1870s, as he violently imprinted a strategy of
_ &UllUJit(..l __
massive boulevards and canon-firing arcs on Paris, partly for the sake
of improving me state's stracegic control of the volatile capital (Misselwi(z
and Weizman, 2003) . In the process "Haussmann draped a facade of
thearres, cafes, and shops over boulevards laid our for the benefir of the
trOOps who might be called upon to quell civil disturbance" (Muschamp,
1995 : 105).
Thus, the anti-urban rhetoric of ruling elites tended to see bOtll colonized
and "home" cities as morally toxic hotbeds of unrest that needed to be
"regularized" and disciplined through similar, violenr, urban restrucruring
efforts:

If strategic urban design previously focu scd on strengthening the ciry's


peripheral walls and fonificarions to keep out the enemy, here, since the
enemy was already inside the ciry, the city had to be controlled from within.
The city faboc itself, its streets and houses, had to be adapted accordingly ...
MilHary control was exercised on the drawing bOllfd, according to the rules of
design, fashion, and speculative interests. (Misselwiu and Weizman, 2003:
272; emphasis added)

I 110m , j.l1Jl ~'l '0'"1.).' XJ$l >CI """""


There are sometimes striking continuities between the control strategies
adopted in colonial and supposedly "postcolonial" cities. In an episode that
- .". ')\11 auo 0)1.)'5' '?, /,1 )\11 11171717 fllV.'1
!l!Wl Ii)} 1'flHi1 o6'.Yl;n.IJf'IP (l1)I1) ""un fJT)C9llna ~JII't' 1'),1l'} WI' W t!l7ll11'ltl lID""
ill>." Cl'UJ'I/lI)n ,lJ'lll.12J"~') T/ICt,m l\YIJtu ,Down '~iJllfl1J11) '1p !!fTJ(lnlJ timUl
sadJy would be repeated in me same city some 56 years later by the Israelis
(see Graham, tlus volume), in 1936 the British took 4,200 kilos of explo­
IPUJ ~w ,"IotnQ 0'1$

sives to the refugee camp in Jenin and completely leveled a whole quarter of Plate 1.1 Operation Anchor: the use of explosives by British forces
to carve boulevards through the Palestinia n Casbah in Jaffa in 1936, to
Cili~s aJ Strategic Sites
38 Stephen &a.lwm 39

the town. This was an act of collective punishment for the continuing
resistance ro the British occupation of Palestine (eorera, 2002) . ! f
~~~~ ~~~
A.s plate 1.1 shows, the old Palestinian Casbah in Jaffa was similarly
heavily remodeled by explosives in the same year during what the British
called Operation Anchor. ) This was an attempt by the British occupiers [0
reduce their vulnerability to snipers in the closely built s£rects of the old
settlement by forcing an anchor-shaped set of broad boulevard s through
me Casbah (Missewirz and Weizman, 2003). Military discourses which
construct cities and built-up areas as threats (0 order and control remain
at the hean of srrategic discourse about cities in our post-Cold War world
(l.,~
(Graham, Marvin, Weizman, Hills, this volume) .

~//
';/
Modernism. and Urban War I: Aerial Living as Response
to Aerial War ~ J • / /

The airplane indicts the ciry! (Le Corbusier, 1935: 100) f7r' u . f {;-.;f;/:;;t/...... o.U"~.
Our third illustration cencers on the first of two dee p connections mar run
between modernist urbanism and aerial bombing. For Le Corbusier's
famous obsession with loosely spaced modem towers sec in parkland ­
most famously elaborated in his Ville Radieuse or "Radiant City" - was
nor jusr a celebration of light, air, and the modem house as a " machine for
living." It was also a reanion to a widespread obsession in 1930s Europe
with the need to completely replan ciries so that they presented the smallest
possible targers to the massed ranks of heavy bombers then being fielded by
the major powers. Corbusier's towers - variants of which had hardened
"anti-aircraft" bombproof roofs - were also designed [0 lift residents above
expected gas anacks (Markou, 2002) (see plate 1.2). Plate 1.2 Le Corbusier's L933 Ville Radieusc designs for apanment blocks
Le Corbusier celebrated the modemism of the aircraft machine and irs and ciries, which minimized the risks of aerial bombing and gas attack. These
vertical desnuctive power. "Wha[ a gift to be able to SO~l death with bombs are contrasted with the supposed vulnerabilities oftradi.rional, dense, urban
upon sleeping towns," he wrote (1935: 8-9). His response to the "sinisrer sueerscapes (see plate 5.1). Source: Le Corbusier (1933 : 60-1).
apotheosis" of death and destructio(l heralded by aerial warfare was rhe
total demoliejon of the old city, and irs replacement by a modern utopia
specifically designed to be "capable of emerging victorious from the air
The threat of arrack from me air dem ands urbaLl chllnges. Grear cities
war" (1935: 60-1). sprawling open [Q the sky, theiJ: congested areas at the mercy of bombs
Post-91l1 - an evenr which seemed ro underline the extreme vulnerabiLity hunJing down oue of space, are invirations to deslnu.:lion. They are pnlcticaHy
of skyscrapers - il seems painfully ironic that the dreams of that arch lIldefensible as now consliruted, and it is now becoming clear war the best
celebrator of skyscrapers were, in fact, panly inrended [0 reduce the city's means of defending them is by the construction, on the one hand , of great
exposure to aerial annihilation. The famous modernist architectUral theor­ vertical concentrations which offer a minimum surface to the bomber and, on
ist Siegfried Gideon - who was strongly influenced by Le Corbusier's views the ower hand, by (he laying out of extensive, free, open spaces. (Gideon,
- argued in 194 L thar: 194 L: 543)
40 S'<phen Graham
1 Cilies as Stra,egU; Sir.es 41

'ill l·~m
(l{~
I SO THAT W E.,CA N REBUILD
IHE.M WI TH A NE W PLAN
'!l~~ DESIG N ED FORTHE SWifT
~~'J.~7 /~f-<A~ ~/t
~~'1
J, F LOW OF MODERN TRAFFIC
\ FOR THE PL AY OF LlGHT&AI R
r------:~=-==-,t ....
,I.
. s.r~

,/

. /",/ ...-;://
/7 '~ .
~ J~ ....( A "l.~
L /"
'P", ~r/ .~ "'Y'I Gof:N,","y<-­
,

~J-r ·h*'f.L c:~ ~ a ­


~.~ ~ /v:J.A.tr.\
Plate 1.2 (Contd.)

Modernism and Urban War II: Aerial Bombing as a


"New Chance"

FoHowingWorid War II, as the scale and Scope of place annihilation became Place 1.3 Illustrations from Jolm Mansbridge's British World War II
clear, preservationists achieved some limited SUccess i.n rebuilding parts pamphlet Here Comes Tomorrow, celebrating both the modernism of aircraft
of some cities along old lines. Many mined buildings _ churches especially and the "new chance" their bombing offered British cities to rebuild along
-were also preserved as war memorials. The Briush war artist Kenneth Clark modernist lines. Source: Tiratsoo er al. (2002: 57) .
even argued "bomb damage irself is piCturesque" (Woodward, 200 J : 212).
Our fourth illustration, however, centers on the way in which devout
modernists saw the unimaginable devastation as an unparalleled oPPOrtun­ been so devasraced by me firestorm raids of 1943 - as a rest case j(1 the
iry to reconstruct enrire cities according [0 the principles of Le Corbusier complete "deurbanization" of German sociery. When me founder of
and oilier modernist arcbitect'S. As parr of the "brave new world" of ilie Bauhaus, Walter Gropius, returned from exile to Germany in 1947,
POStwar reconstruction) modernisr planners and archirects seemed in to advise on postwar reconstruction , he argued thar me urban devastation
many cases to be almost grareful thar the deadly work of the bombers had in Germany meant mat ir was "the best place to start breaking up cities
laid waste (0 urban landscapes of traditional, closely builr streets and into home towns and to establish small-scale communities, jn which the
buildings (Tirarsoo et al., 2002; Diefendorf, 1993). For example, one essential imponance of the individual could be realized" (cired in Kostof,
pamphler, published in the UK by John Mansbridge during World War 1992: 26L).
II, expressed grarirude (Q that modernist icon, ilie aeroplane (plate 1.3) . Thus, in a way, me total bombing of total war - an enormous act of
Not onJy had if "given liS a new vision," but the bombing also offered planned urban devastation in its own right - served as a massive accelerator
Brilain "a new chance by blasting away the centers of cities." TIl us, jr of modernist urban planning, architecrure, and urbanism. TIle tabula rasa
COntinued, modernist reconstruction would now be delivered ro sustain mat every devoted modernist craved suddenly became the norm rather th an
"the sv..rift flow of modem traffic for the play of tight and air" (firatsoo me exception, particularly in postwar Europe and Japan. As a result , [0 use
et al., 2002). the words of Ken Hewin (1983: 278), "the ghosts of the architects of urban
Meanwhile, in Germany, the dosing Slages of World War II saw Third bombing - (Guilo) Douhe(, (Billy) Mitchell, (Sir Hugh) Trenchard, (Fred­
Reich planners preparing [0 torally disperse the city of Hamburg _ which had erick) Lindemann - and the praxis of airmen like ("Bomber") Harris and
(Curtis) LeMay, sull stalk the streets of our cities."
43
Cilles aj SlralC/Jic Sires
42 Sup/am Graham

Cold War Urban Geopolitics


-------- ~
York, "when you operate in an overbuilt metropOlis you have to hack your
way dlrough widl a meat ax" (quoted in Berman, 1982: 107) .
Following dle forced displacement of 50,000 people before a highway
In Oill fifth illustration, Cold War cities were often deliberately remodeled as was carved through the Bronx, foc example, Moses helped set in crain a war­
a function of ule perception that mey rested at the center of the nuclear cross like process of djsintegrarion. By the t 970s this "had become spectacular,
hairs . As Matiliew Farish (2003, this volume) shows, the familiar story of devouring house after house and block after block, driving hundreds of
deconcentration and sprawl in postwar US cities was not just fueled by thOusandS of people (Tom Uleic homes" (Berman, 1996: 172). MarShal
federal subsidies, the lmerscare highway program, and "white flight." It Bertn argues the scale of devastation in -such programs - if not the
human an lives lost _ means that the Bronx needs (0 be seen in the same
was also actively encouraged by military strategists in order to reduce [he
United States' sU3regic vulnerability (0 a massive first nuclear suike by the light as the all-out or guerrilla wars of Berlin, Belfast, and Beirut. Along
Soviet Union. with several other authors - as we shall see io Part II of this bOOK - he even
As well as burrowing underground (McCam1ey, 1998; Vanderbilt, invokes 1he word "urbicide" - or "Ule murder of we city" - (0 describe all
2002), massive efforts were made [0 make cities sprawl. In the United these, and many other cases (t996: l75) .
States, especially, vast new suburban tracts were projected as domesticated Robert Goodman, in his book Aller lhe Planners (1972),' argued that a
citadels, populated by perfect "nuclear" families living the "American uS-wide drive for such "urban renewal" actually amounted to little more
dream," yet also shaped [Q he resilient in the face of atomic Armageddon than an exercise in racist (anti-black) state violence on a par WiUl the
(Zarlengo, 1999; McEnaney, 2000). Core cities, meanwhile, were widely genocidal attacks on the indigenouS North Americans that drove them to
portrayed by populu media and planners as inherently risky and unsafe ­ the edge of extinction (see Porr:eous and Smith, 2001: ch. 4) .
a politics of fear that mixed uagically wim the wider racialization of urban Importantly, major military research and development bodies like
cenuality in posr:war America and furmer fueled central ciry decline RAND, STC, and MITRE had major inputS inco the statistical analyses,
(Galison, 200 I; Farish, this volume). operations research strategies, and "rational" planning doctrines dlat
At the same time, huge research and development cities - "gunbelt" fueled the huge seaie' of Cold War "urban renewal" and comprehensive
urban complexes such as Cambridge (Ma.), Palo Alro, and Novosibirsk ­ redevelopment in roe US (Light, 2002). Thus, in many cases, the "sci­
were established to furnish the technoscience of Annageddon ro me mili­ ences" of urban and military strategy became extremely blurred and inter­
mems
cary in ever increasing doses (Castells, 1989; Markusen et a1 ., 1991; Hook­ woven during this period. On the one hand, city govem pledged
way, 1999). In addition, ciry-sized complexes and bases were established "war" against me "urban crisis" (see Farish, ul.is volume). On the other,
around the world to sustaill the global reach of the superpowers ' naval, air, the military-industrial complex sought co gain 1mance and power by re­
and land forces. Some, such as Guantanamo bay, in Cuba, would later shaping civil s[(ar:egic spaces In cities (Beauregard, 2003) . The result was
become notorious as extra-territorial camps used in the prosecution of that, "by 1970, the milir:ary-lndustrial complex had successfully done what
posl-Cold War scrategy (in this case wim me incarceration of alleged it had set out to do at the stan of the decade - expand iL<; market to city
"terrorists" beyond the reach of domestic and international human rights plannlng and managemem" (light, 2002).
law) (see An Architekrur, 2003). Although it is rarely discussed, such planning-based urbicide is still
exuemely widespread around the world. For example, countless informat
settlements continue to be bulldozed around the planet in the name
Planning as "Urbicide": Postwar Urban "Renewal" and of modernization, freeway consrruction, economic development, "hy­
the Military-Industrial Complex in the USA giene," and the improvement of a ciry's image (see, for example, Patel,
D'Cruz, and Bun:3., 2002). In additjon, in roese times of neoliberal
Building, by i(s very nature, is an aggressive, even war-Illie act. (Woods, finance-led capitalism, state-sponsored urban "regeneration" iSlncreasingly
! 995: 50) orchestrating we annihilation of whole districtS of the poorer pans of cities.
This is being done to engineer vast edifices of consrruction in order to sustain
A siXTh illustration is me critical influence of such quasi-military urban rhe hyper-profits [or financial industries that come through real-estate
planning on the huge effort at urban "renewal" in tile postwar United speculation; to allow urban "mega projects" to be constrUcted; and (0 <.:\1Iahle
Scares. One of it's arch proponents, Robert Moses - who was mayor of spaces to be cleared for gentrified up-market housing. London Docklrmds
New York City for much of this period - believed that, in modernizing New
44
SLephen Graham
Ciria a s Strawgic Sites 45
-------------------------~
~.
is an exrreme and famous example, bll[ there are counrkss olhers (Harvey,
2003b).
As suires of electronic media become evermore dominanr in mediating
(he tenor of urban cuirure, so (he depiC[ions of cities offered rhwugh them
crucially aifecr <:ollective notions of what cities and urban life actually are,
Urban Ruination and the Politics of "Unbuilding" or what they might acruaHy become. Increasingly, in these times of elec­
tronic, posrmodern culrure, cities are widely depicted in films, novels, video
It is crucial ro Stress - in Our seventh illustration _ [hat, after decades of games, and Internet sues as places of ruination, fear, and decay, rathe, than
urban crises of various sons, and an emrenchmenr of global, neoliberal development, order, and "progress." Crucially, [his means [har the millen­
restrucruring, We discipline of urban plaJllling is now confronting " the nia-old "link between civilization and harbansm is reversed : cicy life £Urns
radical contingency of the merropolis" in many guises and many places . infO a stare of nature characterized by the rule of lerror, accompanied by
The capica!is[ and posr-socialisr Worlds are litrered with shrinking cities, omnipresenr fear" (Diken and Laus(sen, 2002 : 291) .
wcring, utopian urban landscapes, and failing infrastrucrures, Many of As long ago as the mid-1960s, Susan Son rag observed dlal most sci-Ii films,
rhese now resemble dYSlOpian sires of ethnic Conflict, economic and Social for example, emphasized an "aesrher.ic ofdestruction, tbe peculiar beauties to
collapse, financial melrdown, and physical decay (Olalquiaga, 1995; be found in wreaking havoc, making a mess" (1966: 213) , More recenrly, in
BUCk-Morss, 2000; Humphrey, 2003).
an analysis of cyberpunk science fiction, Claire Sponster diagnosed whar she
In rhat paradigmarically modem ciry, Decroir, for example, mucll urban called a prevailing "geopolirics of urban decay and cybernetic play" (I 992:
planning doctrine and effort now centers on "unbuilding" rather than build­ 253). She was particularly su-uck by the prevailing landscapes in [hat genre of
ing (Daskalakis, Waldheim, and Tound, 2001). As in many other US Core "blighted, rubble-strewn, broken-down ciryspaces " widl their " vast teITaim
ciries, old indusrrial European cities, and Asian and Latin American mega­ of decay, bleakness, and (he dcrritus of civilization ,"
ciries confronting recent financial collapse, the challenge here is nor ro Even popular urban SImulation games like SimCicy'cM - which are often
"plan" fOr growth, prosperiry, and modernization (see, for example, Wilson, used to train urban planners in universiries - offer introductions and guides
2003). Rather, it is to try to overcome obsolescent slrUclUres, abandoned which emphasize th-; god-like propensiries of players (0 fLrSr indulge in
neighborhoods, half-builr Or half-ruined cicyscapes, decayed infrastructures, orgies of (vinuaJ) ciry killing. One reads: "Let's start off by destroying
and war-like leVels of gang, eduJic, and drug-related violence and arson Tokyo! Srudies show that nino! our of ten [virtual ciry) 'mayors' begin
(Vergara, 1997, 1999; Roldan, 2003; Mullings, 2003), Such: their careers with a frenzy of destruction ... Simply paine at the disasrer of
you choice and push B (0 activate it" (see Bleecker, J 994) .
enclaves of disinvestment ceveC"Se nonmll codes of COntrolled developmem; Added (0 this, a swathe of recent post-apocalyptic fdms has so shaped the
mey are pockers of free-fall urban implosion, Paruking of a freozied violen­ collective culture of urbanism that the srock response to rhe 91ll catas­
ce ... marched only by the half-mad-line cyborgs of the Robocop science ficrion trophe is "ir was juSt like a scene in a movie! " Wh ile the outpur of such
movies. Here the police plead for meir own autornaric weapons, pleading to
be ourgunned by reenage gangs. (Shane, 1995: 65) films paused a(1:er 9111, they were soon back in full flow (Maher, 2002),
Mike Davis has argued the 9/11 attacks:

were organized as epic horror cinema \vlm meliculous attention [Q (he mise­
A GeopOlitics of Urban Decay and Cybernetic
en-scene. The hijacked planes were aimed precisely a{ me vulnerable border
Play: Urban Annjhilation, Entertainnlent, and
belWeen fantasy and realiry .. , Thousands of p eople: who turned on their
Military Strategy
televisions on 9/11 wen: convinced iliar the caraciysnl was jusr a broadcasc,
a hoax. They thought they were watching rushes from the latest Bruce Wulis
Which brings us, penultimarely, (0 the argumenr mac we neglect of place film .. . The "Attack on America," and ils sequels, "America Fights Back"
annihilation in urban social science has also left the connections berween and "America Freaks OU(," have continued 10 unspool as a SUCC';:SSlon of
loday's cities and the obsession with ruined, posr-apocalyptic urban land­ celluloid hallucinations, each of which can be rented fTom {he vid eu shop : The
S£ege, lildependellce Day, Execulive A ctWn, Olllbreak, The Sum of All Fears, and
scapes in conremporary popular culrure largely unexplored. This is Unporr­
so on, (Davis, 2002: 5)
ant because cities are unmade and annihilared dIScursively as weU as throUgh
bombs, planes, missiles, bulldozers, plans, and rerrorist acts.
Indeed, the links between virtual, filmic, and reievisual represenr;'triom of
city killing and acrual urban war are becoming so blurred dlat they arc:
47
Chies as Srrar.cgic Sites
46 5lephen Graham
",.­
video-game playmg adolescents (0 fight the same conflict" (Gray, 1997:
almost indislinguishable. On the one hand, ar least among US forces, the 190). As Henry Jenkins (2003) argues, "in a world being com apart by
military targeting of cities is, at least in part, being remodeled as a "joy stick international conflict, one thing is on everyone's mind as they flOish watch­
war." This operates through "vi.n:ual" simulations, computerized killiog ing the nightly neWS: "Man, this would make a great game!'"
systems, and a growing distanciation of the operator from the sites of the To exploit this markel, the world's media conglomerates now coocen­
killing and the killed. In me process, the realities of urban war - at least for uate vast resources on repeating vlrtUalized urban killiog for consumers .
some - sran [0 blur seamlessly with the wider cultures of sci-o, film, video On the very night that US bombers and missiles first rained their desu-uc­
games, and popular entertainment (Thussu and Freedman, 2003). tion on Baghdad, Sony trademarked the phrase "shock and awe" with the
Take, for example, the unmalUled low-altitude "Predator" aircraft that idea of using il as title for a since-abandoned computer game.
are already being used for extra-judicial assassinacions of alleged terrorists Not (0 be out-done, the US Army, now the world's largest video game
(and whoever happens to be dose by) in the Yemen, Afghanistan, and Iraq, developer, spent $8 million in 2002 on producing America '5 Anny - a
"piloted" from a virrual realicy "cave" in a Florida airbase 8-10,000 miles deliberate aid to recruitment. This is a "Net based soldier-simulation
away. For the US military personnel doing the piloting, this "virtual" work game that was, by 2003, amongst the 5 most popular online video games
is aimost indistinguishable from a "shooc-'em-up" video game (except that in the world with 2 million registered users (Turse, 2003). Meanwhile, the
the people who die are real) . "At the end of the work day," one Predaror ArmY has also had a major role in Full Spectrum Warfare - an urban combat
operator recently boasted during Gulf War il, "you walk back into the rest training game produced in 2004 for lvlicrosofr's X-Box system m partner­
of life in America" (quoted in Newman, 2003). ship with Paramount picnJres and Hollywood's lnstitute for Creative Tech­
On me oilier hand, as war is increasingly consumed by a voyeuristic nologies (ICT) . Launched as a commercial urban warfare game, this offers
public, so digital technologies, in tum, bring the vicarious thrills of urban startlingly realistic virrual realicy renditions complete with demonic "rogue
war direct to the homes of duill-hungry consumers. In the 2003 Iraq war, states," "Lerrorist leaders," mythical Middle Eastern urban battle spaces
for example, US newspaper and media websi[es offered a wide range of ("Zekistan"), and stressful urban warfare simulations where those volun­
vertical, satellite image-based maps of the cicy as little more than an array of teering to "fight for freedom" face devious, underhand barbarians who
targets, to be desuoyed from the air. As Derek Gregory describes: exploit the ciry for their own ends (Tursc, 2003). "The mission is ro
slaughter evil-doers, with something about 'libertY' ... going on in the back­
The New York li.mes provided a daily salelUte map of Baghdad as a cicy of ground. , . Zekiscan conforms to uailer-park pdceptions in being some
largelS. On lhe web, USA Today's interactive map of "Downtown Baghdad" AfghanistanlIran/Iraq composite" (O'Hagan, 2004: 12).
invlted its users: "Gel a satellite-eye view of Baghdad. SUategic sites and To close the cycle even more di5curbingly, actual weapons syslemS - for
bombing cargets are marked, btl( you can click on any quadrant for a close example, the Dragon Runner remote-conuol urban warfare vehicle - are
up." The site also included images of targets "before» and "after" air strikes.
being designed to ntimic the controls of Sony PlaYSlations 50 that neW
The Washjngwn Post's imeracrives invited lhe viewer [0 "roll over me
numbers (Q see what r.argets were hit on which day; cUek (Q read more recruits can quickly make the transition from simulared to real combat.
about !.he targers. (Gregory, 2004b : 29) The result of all this is a "media culcure moroughly capable of preparing
children for armed combat" (furse, 2003). James Oer Oerian (2001)
coined the term "military_industrial-media-enlenairunent network" to
In a perverse rwist, co~orate media and entertainment industries
capture the deepening and increasingly insidious connections between the
increasingly provide both computer games and films which virrually simu­
military, defense industries, popular culture, and electronic entertainment.
late recent urban wars to mass participants, and the virtual and physical
Here, huge software simulations are constrUcted (0 recreate any possible
simulations of cities t1Ut US forces use co hone their warfare skills for
urban warfare scenario, complete with vast forces, casualties, the gaze of
fighting in Kabul, Baghdad, or Freetown. The actual prosecution of wars
the media, and three-dimensional, reaHime participation by thousands.
is merging more and more with electronic entertainment industries . "The
Hollywood specialistS of computer generated films provide e),{rra "realism"
US military is preparing for wars thaI wiJl be fought III the same manner as
in these simUlations; their theme park designers, meanwhile, help in tht:
they are electronically represented, on real-time networks and by live feed
constrUCtion of the "real" urban warfare training cities that are ,Jotted
videos, on the PC and me TV actually and virtually" (Oer Denao, 2002: acrosS the world. Major "invasions" - such as the Urban Warrior exen:ise
61). The "military now mobilizes science fiction ",'titers and other futur­ in March 1999 _ are even undertaken on major US cities from air, land., and
ologists to plan for the wars of tomorrow just as they consciously recruit
49
Cities as SlraUgJL Sire.'
48 Sr.epli£TI GrahalJl

sea to further improve training both for foreign incursions and me concrol
--- ---
and consumption habi~s in the wealthy cides llf th~ global North impact on
security, terror, and urbanizing war elsewhere (Le Billoll, 2001). A power­
of major domestic urban unresc. Civilians are employed in these exercises ful example of these importan1: but poorly researched connections is the
to play various parts (Willis, 2003). Such mock invasions have even been growing fashion for large four-wheel drive Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) in
proposed as local economic developmem initiatives for declining city cores.
Western - particularly US - cities.
Finally, we must also remember that the US milicary are deepening their Given the very high degree of influence of major US oil companies on the

connections with corporate news media, so that the "information warfare" Blish regime, there is growing evidence of direct connections becween the

side of their operations (i.e., propaganda) can be more successful. Just as increasingly profligate use of oil in sprawling US ciryscapes, the geopolitical

AI-Qaeda timed the second plane's impact on 9111 so mat the world's news remodeling of US defense forces, and the so-called war on terror mrough

media could beam it live [Q billions of astonished onlookers, so the "Shock which the US govemment is acbieving a high tevel of geopolitical control of

and Awe" strategy at the stan of me US bombing of Baghdad was a tile world's largest untapped oil reserves in and around (he Caspian Basin

carefully orchestrated media spectacle. ([he world's TV journalists were (K\eveman, 2003; see plate 1.4).9/11 pas rhus been ruthlessly e)""Ploited. In

lined up in a major horel, a short but safe disrance away from the carefully particutar, the anacks provided the "catastrOphic and catalyzing event" thar

selec[ed - and largely empry - buildings that were pinpointed for GPS­ was identified by the influential 2000 report Pro/eer for a New American

based desrrucrion.) As a psychologist comments, both evenrs were "meanr Cen.wry _ who's authors included Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz
to be righc before our eyes" (cited In Konstantin and Hornig, 2001: 126). _ as necessary to allow (he US to justify the invasion of Iraq wim any hope
Thus, bom formal and informal anacks against cities emerge as "rhizo­
of legitimacy (Harvey, 2003a: 15).
maric," inrernationally nerworked operarions orchesrrated heavily with While the US strategy is not necessarily about directly controUing
global, media representation in mind (see Deleuze and Guatarri, 1987). Caspian Basin and Iraqi oil resourc.es per se, there is little doubt that "it is
Both AI-Qaeda and the US military are transnational organizations con­ about ensuring that whoever controls it buys and seUS it In US dollars
cerned both with symbolic effects and the real devast:Hion of local sites through the New York commodities market" thal lies a few hundred meters
(Zizek, 2003). "This war takes place in the invisible space of the terror from "ground zero'; in downtown Manhanao (Halevi and Varoufakis,
imaginary of the US (artacks on buildings and government, genn infection, 2003: 66). There is also little doubt that a key objective of the US attack
e[c.) and in tbe visibly impoverished landscape of Afghanistan" (Arerxaga, 00 Iraq was to install a uS-friendly oil producing regime there that would
2003 : 144). eventually displace the Saudis as the main "swing producer," so allowing
James Lukaszewiski, a US public relations counselor who advises the US me United States to regulate the international price of oil in place of OPEC
military, admits that the links between terrorist organizations and the global (Gregory, Z004b; Harvey, 2003a; Vidal, 2002: 19).
media can be equally insidious: Three key pointS are crucial here. First, sUVs were carefully fashioned
and marketed after the first Gulf War as quasi-militarized "urban assault
Media coverage and terrorism are soul mates - vinually inseparable. They luxury vehicles" (Ralllpton and Scaube(, 2003). C10taire Rapaille, a psy­
feed off each other. They cogemer crearc a d:mce of de am - the one for chological consultant to major US sUV manufacrurers, reveals that his
politkal or ideological motives, me oilier for commercial success. Terrorist research suggestS that Americans want "aggressive cars" that can be
activiries are h.igh. profile, ratings-building events. The news media need to lhoughI of as "weapons" or "armored cars for the battlefield." To achieve
prolong these slories because chey build viewcC'3rup and readership. (Ciced in
market share and protitabiliry he argues that lhe design and marketing of
Rampwn and Staube(, 2003: 134)
such vehicles _ with theu names like "Stealth," "Defender," and "War­
rior" _ needs to tap intO, and address, consumers' fears about me risks and
HomelandlGlobe: War, "Security," and the Global
dangers inherent in contemporary urban life (cited in Rampton and Stau­
Geopolitics of Production and Consumption
ber, 2003: 138). Depictions of such vehicles in advertS thus (Um the
discourses of postmodern war intO discussions about urban everyday \i,tc-.
Every genera[ioll has a taboo and ours is rlli~: that me (esources upon which "Just try blending in!" yellS the UK ad for the Jeep Grand Cher()kC~
our lives have been built are running out. (Monbiot, 2003)
"Stealth Limited Edition," released in 2003.
Posl-9Ill, then, it is now clear that adv.;:rti-;ers have been deliberately
A fmal vignette on me lnseparabiliry of contemporary war, terror, and exploiting widespread fears of catasrrophic terrorism to further increase
urbanism centers on me ways in which the reconsrruction of landscapes
')u
SUphii1l Graham
C inej as Srrategic S iMj 51
sales of highly profitable SUVs. Rapaille himself has recently been urgmg
(he main auro manufacturers (0 address rbe fact rbat "the Homeland is ar Second, the SUV is being enrolled inco urPfin everyday life as a defem;ivc
war" by 2003:
Stauber) 139). to buyers' mose primitive emotions (Ramp ton and
appealing capsule or "portable civilization" - a Signifier of safety that, like the gated
communities inlO which they so often drive, is portrayed in advenisemenrs
. as being immune [Q (he risky and unpredictable '·:rban life "Outside"
(Ga mer, 2000) . Such vehicles seem to assuage (he fear that me urban
middle classes feel when moving - or queuing - in rraffic in their "home­
land" ciry.
Subliminal processes of urban and cultural militariza60n ace going
on here. This was most powerfully illustrated by the U'ansformarion of
the US Army's "Humvee" assaulr vehicle inco the civilian "Hununer"
SUV just after the (1rs( Iraq war - an idea ma[ came from the Terminal()r
film star (and now California governor) Arnold Schwarzenegger
(who prompdy received the first one off (he production line) . During
the 2003 Iraq invasion, organizations of US Hummer drivers mobilized
publicity campaigns co project their vehicles as patriotic symbols. "When
I turn on the TV," gushed one owner, Sam Bersrein, "I see wall-co-wall
Hwnvees, and I'm proud. The [US soldiers are] not our (here in Audi
4x4s" (cired in Clark, 2004: 12) . Andrew Garner wrircs thar:

For the middle classes, ilie SUV is interprered culrurally as srrong and invin­
cible, yet civilized , In me case of the middle-class alienation from the inner
ciry, the SUV is an urban assault vehicle . The driver is transfomled inro a
trooper, combacing ~n increas ingly dangerous world . This sense of securiry
felt when driviog the SUV conanues when ir is not bemg driven. The SUV's
symbols of strength, power, command, and securiry become an important
part of the self-sign . . . With me identification of enemies wirhin our borders,
this vehicle has become a way of protecting memberS of me middle class from
any mreat to their lifesryle . (Garner, 2000: 6)

Third, the facr that SUVs accoum for over 25 percent of US car sales has
very real impacrs on the global geopolitics of oil. With their consumption
rares of double or triple that of normal cars) this highJy lucrative sector
clearly adds directly to the power or the neoconservarive and ex-oil execu­
tive "hawks" in che Bush regime. This is especially so as they have oper­
auonalized their perperual war on rerror in ways thar are helping the USA
to secure access (0 the huge, low-priced oil reserves that ir needs [Q fuel irs
ever-growing \evel of consumprion. (Tn 2003 this stood ar 25 .5 percent of
global oil consumption (0 sustain a country widl less than 5 percenr of the
world's population.)
Plate 1.4 Salirical World War II-style POSler by Micah Ian Wrighr Stress­ Clearly, men, the profligare oil consumprion and milirarized design of
ing the links becween SUVs, We Unired Stares' proOigare oil consumprion, SUVs "rakes on additional significance in the light of the role mar depend­
and che artacks by US forces in the Middle Easr after 2002 as pan: of me ency on foreign oil has played in shaping US relations with countries in the
war on [error. Source: Wright (2003: 96).
l'vliddle East" (Rampron and Srauber, 2003 : 139) .
5'"
Cit;", as St.rategic Sues
52 S tephen Graha"l

"The economic, cultUral and military infrastructure toa[ undergrids US


--­
modern urbanism must be undermined. Second, the "hidden," militarized
histories of modern urban planning and urban st;ltt.: terror must ht: excav­
Middle Easr policy will not be so easily undone," writes Tim Watson. "And 3ted and relentlesslY exposed. Third, the chaL30cristics of city spaces that
widlout its wholesale reform or dismantling, Islamic terrorists wiH nor so make them tile choices par excellence of those seeking to commit terrorist
easily disappear" (2003: 1 LO) . As with the cosmopolitan nationalities of the actS require detai~e.d analysis. Fourth, th~ .transnatio~ connections be­
dead, then, so the events of 9111, in their own way, reflect and symbolize tween the geopolitiCS of war and the political economies of production,
rhe deep connections between urban everyday life and city form and the consumption, technology, and the medla require rigorous theorizalJon and
violence spawned by geopolitical conflicr and neo-imperial aggression. analysis. finally, the usua\ly hiddcn worldS of "shadow" urban research,
Watson writes mat he has been haunted since 9111 by images of the through which the world's military perceive, reconstruct, and target urban
bundreds of vehicles abandoned, never to be recovered, at rail stations by spaces, must be actively uncovered . As a starting point, readers will
commuters lO the twin rowers in the srates of New York, Connecticut, and flf\d that each of these fIVe challenges is taken up e>"1:ensively in me rest of
New Jersey. For him, "these symbols of mobility" became instead "images
of immobility and dearh. But these fodom, expensive cars and SUVs also this book.
represent a nodal point between the US-domestic economy and a global oil
market in which Saudi, Kuwaiti , and Iraqi production is still so important" Note
(Watson, 2003: 110-11)
As it has be,~n absorbed into the Israeli (necropolis of Tel Aviv since 1948, the
old ciry of Jaffa has, in (Urn, been ruthk:\sly emptied, resenled, reshaped, and
Conclusion: Looking at Ruins stripped of its original PalesLinian ~·ul(ural meaning as pari: of Israeli sulte­
building (see ROIbard, 2003b) .
The ruins are painful to look at, but will hun more in the long run if we cry not
to see. (Berman, 1996: 185)

To conclude, it is strikingly dear thac ignoring anempts to deny, destroy, or


annihilate cities, or the "dark" side of urban moderniry which links cities
intimately to organized, political violence, is no longer tenable for urbanists
or urban researchers . In [rus post-91l1 and post-war on terror world, urban
researchers and social scientists - like everyone else - are forced to begin to
confront their taboos about auempted city killing, place annihilation, and
urbicide. International relations theorists, similarly, are forced for the first
time to consider urban and subnational spaces as crucial geopolitical sites.
As a resuJt, researchers in both traditions are nOw starting to colonize,
and focus on, the spaces and practices chat emerge at the intersections of
urbanism, terrorism, and warfare. As the rest of this book demonstrates,
there is a growing acknowledgmenr that violent catastrophe, crafted by
humans, is part and parcel of modem urban life . A much needed, specific­
ally urban geopolitics is thus slowly emerging.
As an exploratory synthesis, this chapter has developed a particularly
broad perspective on the ways in which tile purposive destruction
and annihilation of ci(ies in war, planning, and ,~al play is utterly
incenvoven with urban modernity. As the gaze of urban social science starts
to fall once again on (he purposive ruination and annihilation of place, so
chis synthesis underlines five related challenges. First, the research and
professional taboos that cloak the geopolitical and strategic aspects of it
_
~V\ C) " '-LA f1\t,,'AL

CITI ES, WAR,

Studies in Urb.an and Social Change


Pubhshed by Blackwell 10 3SSOCl31l00 Wllh the l~ur"acUmdJ ],,,,mal 0/ Urban o"d Regional R,,~orch. Seri..
editors, H.rv.,y M o lotch, Lind. McDowell, M.<gil Mayer, Chris Pickv.nce.
The Blackwell Srudies in U rb:ll1 and Social Ch.nge aim [Q .dvaDee det,.t,,. and emplric.1 analy, es
stimul.a tcd by change, in the fo nunes of citie• • ad regions aCross the world. Topics range fro m Illonograph.

AND TERRORISM

on single places '0 iorge-sca1e comparison< across East and West, North and South. The ..,ties is expl icitly
IIllcrdisc.i phnary; the oditors iud~" books by tild e contribution 10 1[1.ellectual solutions ratller than
according (Q dis(: lplioary origio

Published

Cities, War, and Terrtmsm


Stepben Gr.ili.m (cd.)
Cities and VislWrs: Regulating TourislJ~ Mar/ulJ~ and CIlY Space
L.ly M . Ho!Im"", SUs.:In S Fainslem, and Oennis R Judd (ed:. )
Underslandlng the City: Colltelllporary and FlI!lIre PerspeCtives
John E"ue "nd Christopher Mele (eds.)
TOWARDS AN URBAN
The New ChifJeJ"e City: GlobaiizalWn and Market Re/oml
JOM R. Log:m (ed. )
GEOPOliTICS
Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Socielles m a Global Comu,
Mark Shiel and Tony FllZmaun~< (cds.)
J lJe Social Control 0/ Ci.ri£s? A Comparanve Penpectlve
Soph ie Body-Gcndro\
GitJhali.zmg Cities: A New Spalla1 Order?
P~ler M:u~use aad Roo.ld van lUmpcro (cds, )
Contemporary Urban Japan: A Socwlogy 0/ Consump17oll
Joho Cblllm cr
Capital CII/lUre: Gender at Work m tM Ciry
LmJa McDowell
CiIitis After Socialism: Urban and Reglurwi Change a'Jld Con/lie! in Posl-Socl4lm Soczeries Edited by
Grego')' Andtmz, Modl"d Hadoe, and Ivan Szcleny; (e,1> )
m ElUOpe and America
The Peopk's Home? Social Rented Housing
fv1.ich.cI H:ul""
Pou-Fordi.rm
Ste-phen Graham
Ash Am i" (c..! .)
Free A;farkets and Food RieLS
John Waltoo and David Seddon
Urban Poverty and J/u Uruierdass: A Reader
Eo7.o Mingionc
ForthcoDl.iJ4:
Social Capital in Proclice
' ralj~ Bloldand and Mike Savage (cd s.)
Gl!ffillg In/Q Local Puwer: The Represelllation 0/ Ethmi: ,Yli710rin:es
Rom«in Garbaye
Cil"/:es and ReglurlS in a Global Era
A1,n H ...ding (cd.)
CIties 0/Europe
Yuri lUrepov (ed..)
Urban SOlltll Africa
Alan M !lbin aad SU,",D ParneU
Urban Social J~ovemenlJ and the Slale dJJD~

Margit Ma~r

S ocial CapiIal Formatio" in fmmigranJ Neighborhoods


Min Zhnu
EUrOSfaf'Y and EurocUies
Ad ..b " Favell
fl) Blackwell
Publishing

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