Decolonizing Cities: Resources for Urban Planners

Posted On Patreon Aug 9, 2020

Sharing some resources for urban planners or followers interested in understanding decolonization in urban planning, transit, and environmentalism. I owe Sabrina Balize credit for all these incredible resources. Enjoy!

Decolonization, land, property, settler-colonialism, colonization, ethnic cleansing, ethnocracy, gentrification, urban revitalization, self-determination, autonomy, ecosocialism, degrowth, community, kinship. Decolonization is the constant struggle of challenging the hegemony of settler-colonial capitalism, which has violently blocked access to and destroyed Indigenous land and BIPOC communities, as well as destroyed the autonomy and self-determination of Black and Indigenous culture and traditions. It is a movement for “political liberation, social transformation, renewed cultural kinships, and the development of an economic system that serves rather than threatens our collective life on this planet...decolonization is as much a process as a goal. (H. Walia).” What this looks like in planning is centering Indigenous and Black self-determination—which are intertwined struggles against racism, poverty, police violence, environmental justice and more—for our broader social justice mobilizing (H. Walia).

Krueckeberg, D - The Difficult Character of Property: To Whom Do Things Belong?Blatman-Thomas, N., & Porter, L. - Placing Property: Theorizing the Urban from Settler Colonial CitiesThe Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth Thread by @radicaltheory - Kwame Nkrumah on neocolonialism Indigenous Action - Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex Kyle Powys Whyte - White Allies, Let’s be Honest About Decolonization Unsettling America - For Our Nations to Live, Capitalism Must Die Harsha Walia - Decolonizing Together: Moving Beyond a Politics of Solidarity Toward a Practice of Decolonization Collected by Jamie Tyberg - Ecosocialist textsMalini Ranganathan  - Thinking with Flint: Racial Liberalism and the Roots of an American Water Tragedy La Paperson - A Ghetto Land Pedagogy: an antidote for settler environmentalismPoem - Caliban, in Aime Cesare’s A Tempest Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui - Ch’ixinakax utxiwa: A Reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization Eve Tuck & K. Wayne Yang - Decolonization is not a metaphor Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth - Concerning Violence + Film Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak - Can the Subaltern Speak? Book: David Harvey - A Brief History of Neoliberalism Elya Lucy Milner - Devaluation, erasure and replacement: Urban frontiers and the reproduction of settler colonial urbanism in Tel Aviv Sari Hanafi - Explaining Spacio-cide in the Palestinian Territory: Colonization, Seperation, and State of ExceptionPenny Green and Ameila Smith - Evicting PalestineAnnette Koh - Decolonial Planning in North AmericaSara Onitsuka - Trans, Non-binary, and intersex erasure in abortion discussionsJamie Tyberg - Unlearning: From Degrowth to DecolonizationJemez Principles for Democratic OrganizingThe Principles of Environmental Justice (EJ) Lyndall Strazdins, et. al. - Not all hours are equal: could time be a social determinant of health? Thread by @keoraborealis - on the anti-Indigeneity of “pristine” wilderness Natalie Avalos - Land-Based Ethics and Settler Solidarity in a Time of Corona and Revolution Linda Tabar & Samia Al-Botmeh - Real Estate Development Through Land Grabs: Predatory Accumulation and Precarity in Palestine Jin Xue - Urban Planning and Degrowth: A Missing Dialogue

Resources specific to: gentrification, displacement, urban space and housing financialization, globalization, commodification, neoliberalism, urban re/development, Black space, Blackness [and non being], racial ontology, spatial geographies of Blackness, “ghetto” pathologies, culture of poverty, mixed-income neighborhoods and housing.

Stefano Harney & Fred Moten - The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study Saskia Sassen - Who owns our cities – and why this urban takeover should concern us all Film: Decade of Fire, by Vivian Vazquez Irizarry, Gretchen Hildebran and Julia Steele Allen - Decade of Fire Noah Quastel - Political Ecologies of GentrificationBook: Sylvia Morse and Tom Angotti - Zoned Out! Race, Displacement and City Planning in New York CityBook: Dr. Mindy Fullilove - Root Shock Tomonori Sugimoto - Urban Settler Colonialism: Policing and Displacing Indigeneity in Taipei, Taiwan Stefan Kipfer & Jason Petrunia - “Recolonization” and public housing: a toronto case study Film: The Pruitt-Igoe MythWildstyle Paschall - Indiana Avenue: The Ethnic Cleansing of Black Indianapolis Jaime Alves & Tathagatan Ravidran - Racial Capitalism, the Free Trade Zone of Pacific Alliance, and Colombian Utopic Spatialities of Anti-Blackness Film: City Rising: Gentrification and Displacement Adam Bledsoe & Willie J. Wright - Urban Geography: Understanding Black Cities and the Black Experience in Cities Adam Bledsoe & Willie J. Wright - The Anti-Blackness of Global Capital Hilary Wilson - A Way Out of No Way: Struggles for Economic Survival in Black Milwaukee Book: Lester K. Spence - Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics Book: Neil Smith - The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City Book: Alessandro Busa - The Creative Destruction of New York City: Engineering the City for the Elite Brandi Thompson Summers - Authenticity and “Post-Chocolate” Cool in a Rapidly Gentrifying Washington, D.C. Adam Elliott-Cooper, Phil Hubbard & Loretta Lees - Moving Beyond Marcuse: Gentrification, Displacement and the Violence of Un-Homing Video: Sistah Souljah on Bill Clinton comparing them to KKK leader, 1992 & full video Tom Gissler - The Cop Who Quit Instead of Helping to Gentrify Atlanta Brenden Beck - The Role of Police in Gentrification Thread by @CandyCornball - Gentrification, policing and Breonna Taylor Sofia Kwon - Broken windows policing and gentrification not only harmed the Black community, but also strengthened Columbia’s reputation Scott N. Markley, Taylor J. Hafley, Coleman A. Allums, Steven R. Holloway and Hee Cheol Chung - The Limits of Homeownership: Racial Capitalism, Black Wealth, and the Appreciation Gap in Atlanta Michael Tein - The Devaluation of Nonwhite Community in Remedies for Subsidized Housing Discrimination Jacob P. Relman - Foreclosures, Integration, and the Future of the Fair Housing Act Lucy A. Williams - Race, rat bites, and unfit mothers: how media discourse informs welfare legislation debate Pauline Lipman - The Cultural Politics of Mixed-Income Schools and Housing: A Racialized Discourse of Displacement, Exclusion, and Control Reginald L. Robinson - The Racial limits of the Fair Housing Act: The Intersection of Dominant White Images, the Violence of Neighborhood Purity, and the Master Narrative of Black Inferiority Wendell Pritchett - Where Shall We Live? Class and the Limitations of Fair Housing Law James DeFilippis and Jim Fraser - Why do We Want Mixed-Income Housing and Neighborhoods? Book: Joe Soss, Richard C. Fording and Sanford F. Schram - Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race Book: Edward G. Goetz - The One-Way Street of Integration: Fair Housing and the Pursuit of Racial Justice in American Cities Film: 70 Acres in Chicago: Cabrini Green Thread by @michaelharriot - on white people welfare Michael Ball, et. al. - Land Rent, Housing and Urban Planning Amanda Boston - Gentrifying the City: From Racialized Neglect to Racialized Reinvestment

Previous
Previous

Abolitionist Planning Resources

Next
Next

Reflections on #BLM and the Cycling Industries Responses