PD Smith

The Autonomous City

16 March 2017 | cities, Guardian, Reviewing, Writing & Poetry | Post a comment

I’ve just reviewed a fas­ci­nat­ing new his­to­ry of squat­ting — The Autonomous City by Alexan­der Vasude­van.

Here’s a para­graph from my piece:

‘Vasude­van sees his book not mere­ly as a dry con­tri­bu­tion to urban his­to­ry, but as cel­e­bra­tion of the vital ideas and achieve­ments of those squat­ters who dared to imag­ine an alter­na­tive vision of life, an alter­na­tive to the neolib­er­al city and the urban­i­sa­tion that is still engulf­ing the world. His high­ly orig­i­nal argu­ment is that the his­to­ry of squat­ting reveals “the poten­tial reor­gan­i­sa­tion of our cities along more col­lec­tive, social­ly just and eco­log­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able lines”. Using archives cre­at­ed by squat­ters them­selves, doc­u­ment­ing their evanes­cent exper­i­ments, Vasude­van demon­strates that “the squat was a place of col­lec­tive world-mak­ing: a place to express anger and sol­i­dar­i­ty, to explore new iden­ti­ties and dif­fer­ent inti­ma­cies, to expe­ri­ence and share new feel­ings, and to defy author­i­ty and live autonomous­ly”.’

Vasude­van’s book is essen­tial read­ing for any­one inter­est­ed in the recent his­to­ry of cities or indeed how we can improve them in the future. Read my review on the Guardian’s web­site.

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