Contested Cities

The human strive for a sense of community can determine where and how long we live in a particular area. Although there are those who reside in areas for the sole purpose of commuting to work or other activities, ultimately the homely ambience of an area is often attributed to the collection of ideal characteristics the neighbouring residents possess. This then raises an important question, does our localised sense of community create a social segregation between ourselves and the ‘outsider’? What has caused such an issue to develop?

The notion of ‘militant particularism’; the localised radical movement of a community towards a particular issue or set of goals, can be observed as a reason for the emergence of disconnected communities. The seemingly constant negativity displayed toward progressive planning and development can highlight a community’s desire to withdraw from the changing world around them as the constant promise of creative ‘fixes’ to local issues has resulted in grand designs with little or no substance and often leaves the same social issues that existed before. In a societal sense, the maintaining of the status quo can be viewed as a desirable yet overly ambitious goal.

Ebenezer Howard’s garden city and the more recent New Urbanism movements have promoted design elements as the saving grace of community liveability. Condensing the city in to a walkable human sized environment is designed to create a greater sense of community. But planning should not solely be centred on the design aspects, in fact, it can be argued from an emergence of literature that it has recently moved far from it. It is imperative to observe the city beyond a collection of objects and ‘things’ and rather examine it as a fluid and dynamic process. The inability to do so results in static reflection on society itself and therefore fails to create an appreciation for the cities human element.