Constructing inequality: City spaces and the architecture of citizenship

Political Theory

Volumn 28, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 355-376

  Bickford, Susan ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0034378887     PISSN: 00905917     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0090591700028003003     Document Type: Review

References (114)

1. Richard Sennett, The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Cities (New York: Knopf, 1990), xiii.
2. This claim is a little sweeping and is bound to generate counterexamples. Some of these counterexamples - Iris Marion Young, Stephen L. Elkin - play a role in my analysis below. See also George M. Shulman, "The Myth of Cain: Fratricide, City Building, and Politics," Political Theory 14, no. 2 (1986): 215-38, in which multiple readings of the biblical story of Cain are used to sketch possibilities for understanding and undertaking urban creation.
3. Although I cannot provide a full-fledged argument for it here, an underlying goal of this project is to encourage a radical democratic focus on political institutions as one arena of change. I recognize that this suggestion may be controversial, both because interest in cultural politics arose out of dissatisfaction with narrow political institutional analyses and because there is disagreement about the consequences of working for social change through state institutions. For further discussion, see Susan Bickford, "Reconfiguring Pluralism: Identity and Institutions in the Inegalitarian Polity," American Journal of Political Science 43, no. 1 (1999): 86-108.
4. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Vintage, 1961), 30.
5. Sennett, The Conscience of the Eye, xiii.
6. Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public Man (New York: Knopf, 1977), esp. pt. 4.
7. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 57. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that one of the foremost theorists of democracy and difference. Iris Young, poses "a normative ideal of city life" as a model of a heterogeneous public. Ideally, "in the city persons and groups interact within spaces and institutions they all experience themselves as belonging to, but without those interactions dissolving into unity or commonness." The "unassimilated otherness," the variety of activities, the lure of the unexpected and different are all facets of Young's normative urban ideal. Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 236-40.
8. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 57. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that one of the foremost theorists of democracy and difference. Iris Young, poses "a normative ideal of city life" as a model of a heterogeneous public. Ideally, "in the city persons and groups interact within spaces and institutions they all experience themselves as belonging to, but without those interactions dissolving into unity or commonness." The "unassimilated otherness," the variety of activities, the lure of the unexpected and different are all facets of Young's normative urban ideal. Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 236-40.
9. Sennett, The Conscience of the Eye, 158.
10. Arendt, The Human Condition, chap. 5; Sennett, The Conscience of the Eye, chap. 1.
11. Arendt, The Human Condition, chap. 5; Sennett, The Conscience of the Eye, chap. 1.
12. Sennett, The Conscience of the Eye, xi-xiii). There is a third sense of exposure, as in "exposed as a fraud" - the revelation of wrongdoing, or of a mismatch between inner self and outer presentation. The idea that the public self is or should be a representation of the inner self is precisely what Sennett and Arendt are questioning.
13. Edward J. Blakely and Mary Gail Snyder, "Divided We Fall: Gated and Walled Communities in the United States," in Architecture of Fear, ed. Nan Ellin (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997); Evan McKenzie, Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994); Timothy Egan, "Many Seek Security in Private Communities," New York Times, September 5, 1995.
14. Edward J. Blakely and Mary Gail Snyder, "Divided We Fall: Gated and Walled Communities in the United States," in Architecture of Fear, ed. Nan Ellin (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997); Evan McKenzie, Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994); Timothy Egan, "Many Seek Security in Private Communities," New York Times, September 5, 1995.
15. Edward J. Blakely and Mary Gail Snyder, "Divided We Fall: Gated and Walled Communities in the United States," in Architecture of Fear, ed. Nan Ellin (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997); Evan McKenzie, Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994); Timothy Egan, "Many Seek Security in Private Communities," New York Times, September 5, 1995.
16. Blakely and Snyder, "Divided We Fall," 89-90.
17. Mike Davis, "Fortress Los Angeles: The Militarization of Urban Space," in Variations on a Theme Park, ed. Michael Sorkin (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992), 172-73; Peter Marcuse, "Walls of Fear and Walls of Support," in Ellin, Architecture of Fear.
18. Mike Davis, "Fortress Los Angeles: The Militarization of Urban Space," in Variations on a Theme Park, ed. Michael Sorkin (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992), 172-73; Peter Marcuse, "Walls of Fear and Walls of Support," in Ellin, Architecture of Fear.
19. McKenzie, Privatopia. As McKenzie notes, these housing developments are also often designed specifically to appeal to select homogeneous populations, for example, "singles" or "retirees" or "first-time buyers" (188-92).
20. McKenzie, Privatopia, 19-21, 11. The 60 percent figure is from the Raleigh News and Observer, August 12, 1997, 3E.
21. McKenzie, Privatopia, 19-21, 11. The 60 percent figure is from the Raleigh News and Observer, August 12, 1997, 3E.
22. McKenzie, Privatopia, chaps. 3-5, esp. 80-84.
23. Ibid., 12-18, 147, 146-49.
24. Ibid., 186-89.
25. For these categories, see Gregory Weiher, The Fractured Metropolis: Political Fragmentation and Metropolitan Segregation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991).
26. Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 88-96.
27. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid.
28. Ibid., chap. 3. There is a vast literature on the social impact of ghettoes and on their role in the formation of an underclass (e.g., the work of William Julius Wilson and his critics), which space prevents me from engaging here.
29. Davis, "Fortress Los Angeles," 166-67. Readers may also recall a case a few years ago in which police asked the courts for permission to search without warrants in a Chicago housing project, with the goal of reducing the volume of drugs and guns there. Not surprisingly, many of the residents were in favor of this violation of their constitutional rights.
30. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 155.
31. See the examples in Marcuse, "Walls of Fear."
32. Sharon Zukin, Landscapes of Power (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 180.
33. Neil Smith, "New City, New Frontier: The Lower East Side as Wild, Wild West," in Sorkin, Variations on a Theme Park. Consequently, Smith points out, " 'the homeless' are more accurately described as 'the evicted,' since people don't simply fall out of the housing market - they are usually pushed." The big winners in all this are not the middle-class condo residents, but the real estate speculators (91, 82-86).
34. Neil Smith, "New City, New Frontier: The Lower East Side as Wild, Wild West," in Sorkin, Variations on a Theme Park. Consequently, Smith points out, " 'the homeless' are more accurately described as 'the evicted,' since people don't simply fall out of the housing market - they are usually pushed." The big winners in all this are not the middle-class condo residents, but the real estate speculators (91, 82-86).
35. Joel Garreau, Edge City: Life on the New Frontier (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 48, 50; Davis, "Fortress Los Angeles." "Mall cop" as a private occupation has achieved a level of visibility that political scientists can only envy; it is the occupation of the main character of a syndicated comic strip - Drabble. Drabble is a bumbling sort who rarely has to deal with anything more threatening than a fire in a trash can, which he puts out with chocolate milk.
36. Joel Garreau, Edge City: Life on the New Frontier (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 48, 50; Davis, "Fortress Los Angeles." "Mall cop" as a private occupation has achieved a level of visibility that political scientists can only envy; it is the occupation of the main character of a syndicated comic strip - Drabble. Drabble is a bumbling sort who rarely has to deal with anything more threatening than a fire in a trash can, which he puts out with chocolate milk.
37. On policing of function, see David Sibley, Geographies of Exclusion (New York: Routledge, 1995). Caniglia notes that the elderly have a special dilemma: "A women talked about how they're careful to bring along the right number of bags on their trips downtown: enough to look as if they've been shopping, but not so many as to be branded bag ladies." Julie Caniglia, "Please Keep off the Grass: Downtown Minneapolis," Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages, May 20, 1992, 10-15, at 15.
38. On policing of function, see David Sibley, Geographies of Exclusion (New York: Routledge, 1995). Caniglia notes that the elderly have a special dilemma: "A women talked about how they're careful to bring along the right number of bags on their trips downtown: enough to look as if they've been shopping, but not so many as to be branded bag ladies." Julie Caniglia, "Please Keep off the Grass: Downtown Minneapolis," Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages, May 20, 1992, 10-15, at 15.
39. Davis, "Fortress Los Angeles"; Steven Flusty, "Building Paranoia," in Ellin, Architecture of Fear.
40. Davis, "Fortress Los Angeles"; Steven Flusty, "Building Paranoia," in Ellin, Architecture of Fear.
41. Davis, "Fortress Los Angeles"; Steven Flusty, "Building Paranoia," in Ellin, Architecture of Fear.
42. Flusty, "Building Paranoia"; Davis, "Fortress Los Angeles"; Caniglia, "Please Keep off the Grass."
43. Flusty, "Building Paranoia"; Davis, "Fortress Los Angeles"; Caniglia, "Please Keep off the Grass."
44. Flusty, "Building Paranoia"; Davis, "Fortress Los Angeles"; Caniglia, "Please Keep off the Grass."
45. As theorists of race and gender have noted, this is a familiar technique of systems of oppression: to obscure the partiality of certain perspectives and treat them as universal (i.e., gender or race neutral). See, for example, Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988); Elizabeth V. Spelman, Inessential Woman (Boston: Beacon, 1988).
46. As theorists of race and gender have noted, this is a familiar technique of systems of oppression: to obscure the partiality of certain perspectives and treat them as universal (i.e., gender or race neutral). See, for example, Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988); Elizabeth V. Spelman, Inessential Woman (Boston: Beacon, 1988).
47. See Nancy Fraser, "Rethinking the Public Sphere," in Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1992) on the importance of theorizing the public sphere in terms of multiple publics.
48. I am not ignoring the existence of a black middle class, but rather accepting the well-documented phenomenon that even ostensible middle-class and professional status does not protect African Americans from racist assumptions. For example, Cornel West, Race Matters (New York: Vintage, 1994); Patricia J. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).
49. I am not ignoring the existence of a black middle class, but rather accepting the well-documented phenomenon that even ostensible middle-class and professional status does not protect African Americans from racist assumptions. For example, Cornel West, Race Matters (New York: Vintage, 1994); Patricia J. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).
50. Teenagers occupy an odd space in this dynamic of purging: at once dependable sources of revenue and potential disruptions, both residents of private developments and possible vandals, belonging neither on the children's playground nor in a bar. (Garreau, Edge City, 50-51 ; Blakely and Snyder, "Divided We Fall," 92-93; Sibley, Geographies of Exclusion, 34-35). That very unpredictability often makes their presence - especially in groups - feel threatening to adults.
51. Teenagers occupy an odd space in this dynamic of purging: at once dependable sources of revenue and potential disruptions, both residents of private developments and possible vandals, belonging neither on the children's playground nor in a bar. (Garreau, Edge City, 50-51 ; Blakely and Snyder, "Divided We Fall," 92-93; Sibley, Geographies of Exclusion, 34-35). That very unpredictability often makes their presence - especially in groups - feel threatening to adults.
52. Teenagers occupy an odd space in this dynamic of purging: at once dependable sources of revenue and potential disruptions, both residents of private developments and possible vandals, belonging neither on the children's playground nor in a bar. (Garreau, Edge City, 50-51 ; Blakely and Snyder, "Divided We Fall," 92-93; Sibley, Geographies of Exclusion, 34-35). That very unpredictability often makes their presence - especially in groups - feel threatening to adults.
53. Indeed, they often become sophisticated ethnographers of that culture; see Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought (New York: Routledge, 1991), chap. 1 ; bell hooks, Black Looks: Race and Representation (Boston: South End, 1992), chap. 11.
54. bell hooks's memory of growing up in a poor neighborhood shows the mutual relations of threat that segregation constructs: "Black folks associated whiteness with the terrible, the terrifying, the terrorizing. White people were regarded as terrorists, especially those who dared to enter the segregated space of blackness" (Black Looks, 170).
55. The articulation of the two dimensions of privacy and the concept of "privacy-related liberty" are Allen's. Anita L. Allen, "Privacy at Home: The Twofold Problem," in Revisioning the Political, ed. Nancy J. Hirschmann and Christine Di Stefano (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996). For other samples of feminist arguments about public and private, see Martha A. Ackelsberg and Mary Lyndon Shanley, "Privacy, Publicity, and Power: A Feminist Rethinking of the Public-Private Distinction," in Revisioning the Political, ed. Nancy J. Hirschmann and Christine Di Stefano (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996); Carole Pateman, The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Feminism, and Political Theory (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989); and Catherine A. MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).
56. The articulation of the two dimensions of privacy and the concept of "privacy-related liberty" are Allen's. Anita L. Allen, "Privacy at Home: The Twofold Problem," in Revisioning the Political, ed. Nancy J. Hirschmann and Christine Di Stefano (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996). For other samples of feminist arguments about public and private, see Martha A. Ackelsberg and Mary Lyndon Shanley, "Privacy, Publicity, and Power: A Feminist Rethinking of the Public-Private Distinction," in Revisioning the Political, ed. Nancy J. Hirschmann and Christine Di Stefano (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996); Carole Pateman, The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Feminism, and Political Theory (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989); and Catherine A. MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).
57. The articulation of the two dimensions of privacy and the concept of "privacy-related liberty" are Allen's. Anita L. Allen, "Privacy at Home: The Twofold Problem," in Revisioning the Political, ed. Nancy J. Hirschmann and Christine Di Stefano (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996). For other samples of feminist arguments about public and private, see Martha A. Ackelsberg and Mary Lyndon Shanley, "Privacy, Publicity, and Power: A Feminist Rethinking of the Public-Private Distinction," in Revisioning the Political, ed. Nancy J. Hirschmann and Christine Di Stefano (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996); Carole Pateman, The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Feminism, and Political Theory (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989); and Catherine A. MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).
58. The articulation of the two dimensions of privacy and the concept of "privacy-related liberty" are Allen's. Anita L. Allen, "Privacy at Home: The Twofold Problem," in Revisioning the Political, ed. Nancy J. Hirschmann and Christine Di Stefano (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996). For other samples of feminist arguments about public and private, see Martha A. Ackelsberg and Mary Lyndon Shanley, "Privacy, Publicity, and Power: A Feminist Rethinking of the Public-Private Distinction," in Revisioning the Political, ed. Nancy J. Hirschmann and Christine Di Stefano (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996); Carole Pateman, The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Feminism, and Political Theory (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989); and Catherine A. MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).
59. Allen, "Privacy at Home," 197-98.
60. Collins, Black Feminist Thought, chap. 3. Collins further notes a sense in which being "in private" meant being within the black community, and "public" was the realm in which one was among white people.
61. Ackelsberg and Shanley, "Privacy, Publicity, and Power," 213; Patricia Boling, Privacy and the Politics of Intimate Life (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996); Jean L. Cohen, "Democracy, Difference, and the Right of Privacy," in Democracy and Difference, ed. Seyla Benhabib (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).
62. Ackelsberg and Shanley, "Privacy, Publicity, and Power," 213; Patricia Boling, Privacy and the Politics of Intimate Life (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996); Jean L. Cohen, "Democracy, Difference, and the Right of Privacy," in Democracy and Difference, ed. Seyla Benhabib (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).
63. Ackelsberg and Shanley, "Privacy, Publicity, and Power," 213; Patricia Boling, Privacy and the Politics of Intimate Life (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996); Jean L. Cohen, "Democracy, Difference, and the Right of Privacy," in Democracy and Difference, ed. Seyla Benhabib (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).
64. Home can also be a model for a particular kind of political community, on the model of nationalism, where a certain homogeneity and commonality of interest are assumed. Particularly within feminism, criticisms of this model have lead to theories and practices of "coalition" as an alternative to "home". The classic statement is Bernice Johnson Reagon, "Coalition Politics: Turning the Century," in Home Girls, ed. Barbara Smith (New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983); see also Lisa Albrecht and Rose M. Brewer, eds. Bridges of Power: Women's Multicultural Alliances (Philadelphia: New Society, 1990). Other theorists who examine the political import of literal and figurative notions of home include Lisa Disch, Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Philosophy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), esp. chap. 6; Biddy Martin and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "Feminist Politics: What's Home Got to Do With It?" in Feminist Studies/Critical Studies, ed. Teresa de Lauretis (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986); and Melissa A. Orlie, Living Ethically, Acting Politically (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).
65. Home can also be a model for a particular kind of political community, on the model of nationalism, where a certain homogeneity and commonality of interest are assumed. Particularly within feminism, criticisms of this model have lead to theories and practices of "coalition" as an alternative to "home". The classic statement is Bernice Johnson Reagon, "Coalition Politics: Turning the Century," in Home Girls, ed. Barbara Smith (New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983); see also Lisa Albrecht and Rose M. Brewer, eds. Bridges of Power: Women's Multicultural Alliances (Philadelphia: New Society, 1990). Other theorists who examine the political import of literal and figurative notions of home include Lisa Disch, Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Philosophy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), esp. chap. 6; Biddy Martin and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "Feminist Politics: What's Home Got to Do With It?" in Feminist Studies/Critical Studies, ed. Teresa de Lauretis (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986); and Melissa A. Orlie, Living Ethically, Acting Politically (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).
66. Home can also be a model for a particular kind of political community, on the model of nationalism, where a certain homogeneity and commonality of interest are assumed. Particularly within feminism, criticisms of this model have lead to theories and practices of "coalition" as an alternative to "home". The classic statement is Bernice Johnson Reagon, "Coalition Politics: Turning the Century," in Home Girls, ed. Barbara Smith (New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983); see also Lisa Albrecht and Rose M. Brewer, eds. Bridges of Power: Women's Multicultural Alliances (Philadelphia: New Society, 1990). Other theorists who examine the political import of literal and figurative notions of home include Lisa Disch, Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Philosophy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), esp. chap. 6; Biddy Martin and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "Feminist Politics: What's Home Got to Do With It?" in Feminist Studies/Critical Studies, ed. Teresa de Lauretis (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986); and Melissa A. Orlie, Living Ethically, Acting Politically (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).
67. Home can also be a model for a particular kind of political community, on the model of nationalism, where a certain homogeneity and commonality of interest are assumed. Particularly within feminism, criticisms of this model have lead to theories and practices of "coalition" as an alternative to "home". The classic statement is Bernice Johnson Reagon, "Coalition Politics: Turning the Century," in Home Girls, ed. Barbara Smith (New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983); see also Lisa Albrecht and Rose M. Brewer, eds. Bridges of Power: Women's Multicultural Alliances (Philadelphia: New Society, 1990). Other theorists who examine the political import of literal and figurative notions of home include Lisa Disch, Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Philosophy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), esp. chap. 6; Biddy Martin and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "Feminist Politics: What's Home Got to Do With It?" in Feminist Studies/Critical Studies, ed. Teresa de Lauretis (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986); and Melissa A. Orlie, Living Ethically, Acting Politically (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).
68. Home can also be a model for a particular kind of political community, on the model of nationalism, where a certain homogeneity and commonality of interest are assumed. Particularly within feminism, criticisms of this model have lead to theories and practices of "coalition" as an alternative to "home". The classic statement is Bernice Johnson Reagon, "Coalition Politics: Turning the Century," in Home Girls, ed. Barbara Smith (New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983); see also Lisa Albrecht and Rose M. Brewer, eds. Bridges of Power: Women's Multicultural Alliances (Philadelphia: New Society, 1990). Other theorists who examine the political import of literal and figurative notions of home include Lisa Disch, Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Philosophy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), esp. chap. 6; Biddy Martin and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "Feminist Politics: What's Home Got to Do With It?" in Feminist Studies/Critical Studies, ed. Teresa de Lauretis (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986); and Melissa A. Orlie, Living Ethically, Acting Politically (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).
69. Bonnie Honig, "Difference, Dilemmas, and the Politics of Home," in Benhabib, Democracy and Difference, 272.
70. One indication of the insatiable desire for security is the escalating fear of crime among citizens overall, in a context in which the overall crime rate is actually holding steady or decreasing.
71. Sorkin, Variations on a Theme Park.
72. Sibley, Geographies of Exclusion, chap. 1.
73. Ibid., 7; compare Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter (New York: Routledge, 1993), esp. 2-16.
74. Ibid., 7; compare Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter (New York: Routledge, 1993), esp. 2-16.
75. Sibley, Geographies of Exclusion, chap. 3.
76. Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference, 152-55, chap. 5; also Sibley, Geographies of Exclusion, 185-86.
77. Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference, 152-55, chap. 5; also Sibley, Geographies of Exclusion, 185-86.
78. For example, some analysts of hazardous waste siting have pointed out that state officials and citizens reason about risk very differently. State officials focus on probability, on the likelihood that an accident would happen at a waste storage facility, while local citizens tend to assess risk based on the effect an accident would have on them and on their community. Although in these debates citizens are accused of being narrowly parochial, it is hard to maintain the claim that one of these modes of risk assessment is more "rational" than the other. See Gregory E. McAvoy, Controlling Technocracy: Citizen Rationality and the NIMBY Syndrome (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1999).
79. Susan Bickford, The Dissonance of Democracy: Listening, Conflict, and Citizenship (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996); see also Holloway Sparks, "Dissident Citizenship: Democratic Theory, Political Courage, and Activist Women," Hypatia 12, no. 4 (1997): 74-110.
80. Susan Bickford, The Dissonance of Democracy: Listening, Conflict, and Citizenship (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996); see also Holloway Sparks, "Dissident Citizenship: Democratic Theory, Political Courage, and Activist Women," Hypatia 12, no. 4 (1997): 74-110.
81. Perhaps it is the unwillingness to endure this uncomfortable uncertainty - rather than full-fledged and specific fears - that drives the actions of many in the white middle class.
82. Although, see Smith's indictment of the role that the discourse of "brave urban pioneers" plays in gentrification. Smith, "New City, New Frontier."
83. Doreen Massey, Space, Place, and Gender (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994); Elizabeth Grosz, Space, Time, and Perversion (New York: Routledge, 1995).
84. Doreen Massey, Space, Place, and Gender (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994); Elizabeth Grosz, Space, Time, and Perversion (New York: Routledge, 1995).
85. Stephen L. Elkin, City and Regime in the American Republic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
86. Weiher, The Fractured Metropolis.
87. For example, Elkin, City and Regime, chap. 9; but see Richard Dagger, "Metropolis, Memory, and Citizenship," American Journal of Political Science 25, no. 4 (1981): 715-37.
88. For example, Elkin, City and Regime, chap. 9; but see Richard Dagger, "Metropolis, Memory, and Citizenship," American Journal of Political Science 25, no. 4 (1981): 715-37.
89. Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference, 250-51.
90. Weiher, The Fractured Metropolis, 183-84.
91. W. E. Lyons, David Lowery, and Ruth Hoogland DeHoog, The Politics of Dissatisfaction (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1992), chap. 7; David Rusk, Cities without Suburbs, 2d ed. (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995).
92. W. E. Lyons, David Lowery, and Ruth Hoogland DeHoog, The Politics of Dissatisfaction (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1992), chap. 7; David Rusk, Cities without Suburbs, 2d ed. (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995).
93. Lyons, Lowery, and DeHoog, The Politics of Dissatisfaction, chap. 8.
94. Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference, 252.
95. Ibid., 253.
96. Lyons, Lowery, and DeHoog, The Politics of Dissatisfaction, 170-82. Many citizens have passionate political concerns that are not locally or regionally constrained (although they may have spatial aspects), for example, environmental or feminist issues.
97. Weiher, The Fractured Metropolis, 36; see also Andrew Hacker, Two Nations, rev. ed. (New York: Ballantine, 1995), 40-43.
98. Weiher, The Fractured Metropolis, 36; see also Andrew Hacker, Two Nations, rev. ed. (New York: Ballantine, 1995), 40-43.
99. Weiher, The Fractured Metropolis, chap. 2, 4). I use homogeneous and heterogeneous here in terms of race and class. Weiher prefers eccentric - people in a suburb may differ in a variety of ways but are eccentric (compared to the population at large) with respect to a particular characteristic.
100. Weiher, The Fractured Metropolis, chap. 5. Weiher notes that there are two patterns in areas with overlapping boundaries: sometimes the area as a whole is more heterogeneous, sometimes there are still black and white regions within the larger area (50-60, 146-47). So people of different races still may not live on the same street, but at least the financial resources of the community are shared, and with "strangers" who have an equal say in decision making about those resources.
101. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, chaps. 8, 12, 14; Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference, 246.
102. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, chaps. 8, 12, 14; Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference, 246.
103. Sennett, The Conscience of the Eye, 202, 165-68.
104. Bowles and Gintis argue more forcefully that any "socially consequential use of power" - one which "substantially affects the lives of others" - should be a matter for democratic decision making rather than private choice. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Democracy and Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 1986), chap. 3.
105. I confess I am particularly partial to sitting alone in coffee shops, an image Sennett uses as indicative of the decline of genuinely public life. Sennett, The Fall of Public Man, esp. 205-18.
106. Honig, "Difference, Dilemmas," 269, 271.
107. Not the least of which (an anonymous reviewer points out) is how to adjudicate between the claims made for the democratic potential of both centralization and decentralization. Are there other institutional conditions or contextual features that need to be considered in conjunction with degree of centralization?
108. See Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge, 1990), for an argument that subjectivity is an effect of power; see John Rawls, "Justice as Fairness: Political Not Metaphysical," Philosophy and Public Affairs 14, no. 3 (1985): 223-51, for the claim that political selves can be viewed as independent of their ends and attachments.
109. See Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge, 1990), for an argument that subjectivity is an effect of power; see John Rawls, "Justice as Fairness: Political Not Metaphysical," Philosophy and Public Affairs 14, no. 3 (1985): 223-51, for the claim that political selves can be viewed as independent of their ends and attachments.
110. See Michael Peter Smith, The City and Social Theory (New York: St. Martin's, 1979), 154-57, for this marvelous dual meaning of "zone out."
111. These locutions designate certain lived spaces as "empty." See Gary McDonogh, "The Geography of Emptiness," in The Cultural Meaning of Urban Space, ed. Robert Rotenberg and Gary McDonogh (Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey, 1993), for a perceptive analysis of the variety of meanings that "emptiness" carries.
112. See also my previous argument that friendship and care are not appropriate models for political relations. Bickford, The Dissonance of Democracy.
113. Sennett, The Conscience of the Eye, 136-37; Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Penguin, 1963), chap. 2.
114. Sennett, The Conscience of the Eye, 136-37; Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Penguin, 1963), chap. 2.