My photos from two months of Occupy Wall Street

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Occupy Wall Street

The Place of Space in Occupy Wall St. Coverage

With the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park now (at least temporarily) cleared, it's an especially fitting time to finally finish some writing I've been meaning to put up concerning the way that space and place have figured into the protests themselves and their presentation in the media and public dialogue.

Back in February I wrote about the Spatiality of Protest Coverage during the Arab Spring. I would argue that O.W.S. and it's myriad offshoots (not to mention predecessors in Madrid etc.) are no less acutely spatially-focused than the occupation of Tahrir Square. Interestingly, however, I've found that coverage of the movement, once it finally got going, has featured far fewer maps! To be fair, there's a little less to map (e.g. a small plaza in the downtown grid) and the site is less exotic to anglophone readers, but I would still have expected some more nice renderings of the position of Zuccotti Park in relation to Wall St. proper, City Hall, and the WTC site, and to sites of marches and rallies like Union Square and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Instead, we got primarily person-on-the-street camera angles of small numbers of people milling about with signs or playing drums and, especially in the printed press, photos of protestors and police shouting at each other over railings or simply of individuals from a slice of life/human interest perspective (which were great, by the way - especially this one about love and pepper spray).

At the same time though, an important meme in some of the protest coverage concerned the politics and identity of spaces themselves. The symbolism of and conflict over particular sites (St. Paul's, L.A. City Hall), or multiple sites, were discussed more than they might be in other protests (though admittedly in some cases this was simply a factor of the length and physical impact of the protestors' presence). The seemingly-ideal legal circumstances of Zuccotti Park inspired new interest in privately owned public spaces. Even in the clearing of the plaza this morning, Bloomberg directly engaged essential questions of protest, free speech, and Right to the City claims:

"The First Amendment gives every New Yorker the right to speak out – but it does not give anyone the right to sleep in a park or otherwise take it over to the exclusion of others [...] it does not protect the use of tents and sleeping bags to take over a public space."

Finally, in some cases there has been a fantastic and very welcome interest in the character and culture of the sites themselves (and this is more in keeping with some of what we saw about Tahrir Square). From my own perspective the various forms of place-making and informal urbanism at Zuccotti Park were the most exciting things about the place; it's hard not be enchanted by a group of activated citizens focused on speaking out against inequality but putting much of their time and energy into effectively building a small village (with old timey communications) in a public park. This Washington Post article from just last week on the "vibrant brand of urbanism" at DC's McPherson Square was right up my alley:

"...looked at solely as an aesthetic and cultural phenomenon, [the Occupy movement] has deep roots in ideas with established pedigrees in the world of art and architecture. Its anti-consumerist ethos, its impatience with the media and its love of theatrical intervention in city life make it a direct heir of the Situationists, a radical European avant-garde collective begun in the late 1950s with ideas that remain influential today.

"It might also be considered a living exercise in do-it-yourself (or DIY) urbanism, a trendy movement that strives to engage ordinary people in a hands-on approach to shaping and claiming public space."

So, even if there are fewer maps and diagrams in the New York Times, there has been a wonderful turn toward the politics, identities, and cultures of certain spaces (and of spatial protests). That the protests/occupations themselves may not really be able to exist in the same magical form just anywhere does add a level of complexity for organizers in the wake of periodic disbursements and evictions, and a vulnerability that authorities can exploit. One of the many tragedies of today's early morning raid on Zuccotti Park is surely the razing of the library and the trashing of 5,000 books.

Then again, as OWS activists marching against 'stop and frisk' as I write this are reminding the streets of Brownsville, "Ain't no power like the power of the people, 'cause the power of the people don't stop."



update:To wit: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/nyregion/occupy-wall-street-organizers-consider-value-of-camps.html

Forthcoming Article on Local Culture and Urban Development

My article on the impact of local cultural expectations on the process and politics of urban development is on its way to publication in Sociological Perspectives early this year. I'm so glad to have a final green light from the editors and to see this project - which began as a term paper in my first year of graduate school, then evolved into my MA 'qualifying paper' and my first ASA presentation - finally on its way to the (still relatively obscure) light of day in a generalist peer-reviewed sociology journal.

The article, "Cultural Expectations and Urban Development: The Role of 'Cultural Sensitivity' and 'Cultural Sincerity' in Local Growth Politics", features a case study of two recent development proposals in Davis, California. In particular, I argue that the Target Corporation's attention to local expectations of unique small-town charm and leadership in environmental sustainability paid an important role in their ability to win voter approval for a (first) 'big box' store in this vocally 'anti-corporate' community. By contrasting this victory with a failure the previous year of an ostensibly local and green housing development, I show how both cultural sensitivity and sincerity can be instrumental to success.

Street Art & Magical Urbanism in Japanese Cities

A wonderful article by a_small_lab's Chris Berthelson in This Big City last month got me thinking again about a subject that's long been dear to me - informal urbanism in Japanese cities!

Chris's piece, "The Non-Intentional Landscape of Tokyo," argues that part of the magic of that city is not only its relative geographical centerless-ness, but an essentially "decentralized" way of growing, managing, inhabiting, and relating to itself. Complex redefinitions of public and private space are better understood as interconnected constellations of "scattered uchi." As he writes, "Once thus comprehended, Tokyo’s non-intentional landscape has the appearance of purposefulness in a system which is not purposefully constructed simply because purposeless is in its very nature transitory."

Well this post of mine is not really a response to this lovely bit of urban critical thought, but simply a fun reaction to it - it seems a good enough excuse to put up a few images from my last trip to Japan.

On the left, some sort of book exchange sponsored by Tokyo Metro; right, a classic example of pot gardening in public space in Kyoto. Below, graffiti along the canal in the Nakameguro area. Click for larger images.