If I told you that your city is coming under attack by the city itself, how would you respond? Does the notion that a city could face the threat of conflict by its architecture, systems and networks seem valid?
Many of us have either grown up in or visited a city. As such, we have an idea and image of a city. It is a hub where rapid urbanization and globalization comingle: Local becomes global and global becomes local. In London, New York and Tokyo, millions of people from all backgrounds meet. This is the "global city" model, a term coined by urban sociologist SaskiaSassen. It is one that many, if not all, developing cities aspire to become. But what if the "global city" presents subtle dangers?
The process to becoming a "global city" often begins with the lifting of a welfare curtain towards neoliberal policies of development and large-scale foreign investment. Real estate development and rural-urban migration take place furiously. In Egypt, [Anwar] Sadat's open door policies in the 1970s led to the deregulation of housing and the influx of private developments. Glitzy private projects and shopping malls sprouted up in "Abu-Dhabi style" while 60 percent of Cairo's population slowly settled into ashwa'iyat, informal urban areas in wretched conditions. With the withdrawal of state services in the 1970s, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups entered informal urban areas to build mosques, tuition centers, houses and hospitals. Their pragmatic urban planning strategy was a decisive factor in their recent parliamentary election victory. The contest for Cairo is clearly seen in the juxtaposition of political and urban landscapes.
In these cities, new networks of informality and associations are constantly being formed. Many of these identities supersede a traditional need to view the state as the basic unit of analysis. Sovereignty is old news, and "imagined communities" built on essentialist identities like ethnicity, race, social and digital networks become more prominent. Urban theorist Diane Davis, from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, believes that the forms and spatial patterns of violence and insecurity in cities today are both a product and producer of the changing nature of states and sovereignty in urban areas.
Stephan Graham, urban studies professor at Newcastle University, asserts that the cities we inhabit are currently among the most vulnerable. They are the constitutive means by which conflict operates. For one, the psyche of conflict is physically manifested. Front lines, land mines, barbed wire fences, police barricades and borders become negative intrusions that provide security for urban dwellers on one hand, but facilitate a new form of conflict. Since Sept. 11, the lines between policing, military and surveillance have become blurred. In cities, the presence of security, whether national or private, is felt, especially in crowded public spaces. The eye on the ground no longer belongs to the urban dweller but an authoritarian policing unit. Conflict urbanism, or the physical and emotional barriers that are manifested during conflict, become a long-term phenomenon. Take Jerusalem: The city is organized according to a system of codes and networks. It is a testing ground for extreme urban designs, where territorial and demographic controls are deeply ingrained in the design of the city.
On the flip side, architecture and artistic intervention can triumph in the wake of a destabilizing conflict. The fall of the Berlin Wall stands as a testament to this possibility. In addition, following the Arab Spring, artistic expression in the form of murals and graffiti sprung up all over Cairo - especially around Tahrir Square where many of the protests were based. The messages are positive: "Freedom," "25 January," and images of breaking chains.
As we try to understand the changing nature of modern conflict, let us not forget the power of design. Our strongest defense to protecting our cities is the awareness that we have control over shaping urban design and policy. The explosion of graffiti in Cairo has reclaimed the facade that once belonged to the likes of [GamalAbdel] Nasser, Sadat and [Hosni] Mubarak. May this encourage us to reclaim the city that we've lost control of.
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Sharmaine Oh is a senior majoring in quantitative economics and international relations.
